Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-factory (673 mails)

[Bryen <suserocks@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2008-09-06 at 09:48 -0400, Larry Stotler wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 5:51 AM, Rajko M. <rmatov101@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > It will not happen, as you always have something that is not yet finished, 
> > but
> > it will be soon. If release is postponed for KDE4, than why not for kernel,
> > GNOME, Xfce etc, etc, and that would mean the release day will never come.
>
> Yeah, that hapopened when they forced rug and libzypp into 10.1 Bte3
> or 4.....and we saw how much of a disasater that was.  They released a
> system with a broken package manager that wouldnt' even update itself.
>  So, it's not like a major change has ever been authorized before
> after the feature freeze.
>
> As for always waiting for something unfinished, yes, that is the case.
>  However, KDE is basically the largest part of openSUSE, with Gnome
> probably being second.  So, in that case, I would think that it would
> make more sense to synchronize a release schedule with KDE4 since it
> is such a huge project and it has underwent such major changes.
>
> > The openSUSE 11.1 will be snapshot of current status of OSS application on a
> > given day that was possible to convince to play nicely.
>
> I realize that.  I had asked about firefox3 back before 11.0 came out.
>  My question is whether or not FF3 was a pushed update for everyone,
> or did you have to have the Mozilla buld server as a repo to get 3.0
> final.  While I set up my repos with that and got the 3.0 final, how
> did it go for the rest of the users, expecially the new ones?  Same
> thing with KDE4.  I got 4.1 because it was part of my repos, but most
> users(probably 80%) will still have 4.04 that came with 11.0.  Since
> it's so much more problematic to update a major component like that
> after the distro is released, then a small delay, which is common in
> most projects anyway, makes sense to me.  Again, I'm not a programmer,
> and not in charge of any development projects, so I don't know what
> all that entails.  But, IMO, KDE4 is a big enough reason for a wait
> where something like openoffice wouldn't be.
>
> There should be a way to give people a notification that a newer
> version of the software is avalable and ask whether they want to
> upgrade for smaller projects like openofice and firefox. IF a
> prerelease/beta version is included because there wasn't time to wait.
>
> > Besides, it is proposed to include KDE3 applications to fill in for missing 
> > or
> > buggy KDE4 counterparts. That means some basic of KDE3 will be actually
> > included.
> > One of things that will be missing is unwanted interaction between KDE3 and
> > KDE4 desktops. Looking on the lists, many reported "KDE4 problems" are just
> > that.
>
> Yep, which is why the default install pushes KDE4 apps on a KDE3
> desktop when the KDE3 apps are better and more stable.  That's problem
> more so than the other way.  I had to manually deselect so may KDE4
> apps to get KDE3 back to it's default state.  It would be one thing if
> it was an app that KDE3 didn't have, but to repleace a KDE3 app with a
> KDE4 app for no real reason makes no sense to me.  .
>
> I realize that KDE4 is "the wave of the future", especially because
> while there has been many people calling for a "fork", no one has
> stepped up to do so.  However, I just feel that the KDE team could
> have handled this changeover in a better way.  Hopefully, everyone
> learns from this and these kind of changes are better planned for next
> time.  That's the strength of this community.  When mistakes are make,
> it's a learning process.  Except in cases like XFree and their "small,
> insignificant license change" that cause the fork to X.org and no one
> really making use of Xfree anymore.
>
> Besides, everyone was aksed for their opinion.  And, we will always
> have disagreement.  But at least the openSUSE KDE team has listened to
> what we have said and s trying.  It's no longer a question of whether
> 11.1 will have KDE3, it's a question of how and what they will have to
> cut to build the iso images.  That's why I proposed having a KDE3 and
> a KDE4 image.  Give people the choice.  Personally, I'd like to see CD
> based install isos, but that has been removed other than the liveCDs.
> And, having installed from the KDE4 liveCD and trying to remove KDE4
> and install KDE3 and not being able to, I think that was the biggest
> problem with 11.0's release.  Thankfully, someone stepped up and
> helped us out and those CD's are great.

In everything that you've said, one question remains unclear.  Why do
users who prefer KDE 3.5 have to update to 11.1?   11.0 will still be
supported for up to 1 1/2 years after the release of 11.1.  Furthermore,
it is still unclear that KDE 4.2 will be the be-all-end-all that finally
fixes the issues that users perceive thus far with 4.x.  

I'm not a KDE user, and thus can't speak to the issues of what is
good/bad about KDE 4.x, but I have watched the debate over time and saw
people say that 4.0 was going to be the killer Desktop.  Then it came
out and people were disappointed.  So everyone said, "Can't wait until
4.1 comes out, that's going to fix all the problems."  Yet some people
still were disappointed.  Now I'm hearing "4.2 will solve it."

The thing is, we choose to be on openSUSE because we want some bleeding
edge.  Otherwise, we'd be using SLED/SLES.  But how do we test new
releases, whether it be KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc. if we don't have the
opportunity to test regularly in real-world situations?     For those
who want to stay with tried and true, stick with the older version of
openSUSE.  For those who want to take the plunge, go with the latest and
debatably-greatest, and continue to provide feedback through various
mechanisms so that when we finally achieve true stability and
functionality, those who could not afford to be on the bleeding edge
will be able to make the transition.

The point of whether KDE is widely used is irrelevant.  If you want to
make that point, then definitely the same argument would have to be
applied to kernel releases, since obviously EVERYONE uses the
kernel.  :-)  The greater point is that we're a community willing to
take some risks in order to further the effectiveness of each distro
release while providing some stability for older releases.

If you feel you cannot take the plunge into KDE 4.x at this time, stick
with 11.0 or 10.3, which will be supported for another 13 months from
now.  By which time, perhaps KDE 4.x will finally be at a satisfactory
level for you.

But to prevent distro releases solely based on one component stands in
the way of progress, for which I believe openSUSE stands for.

Bryen

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