On Sat August 30 2008 11:13:18 am Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Michael Loeffler <michl@novell.com> wrote:
What can/should we do? b) We may add again both KDEs to the DVD Pros: we offer choice and may make everybody happy Cons: - space limitations on DVD may prevent this option - maintenance and integration of 2 KDE desktops needed which the internal KDE team hardly can accomplish - we're backing a desktop which anyway won't receive much attention from upstream anymore - confusion - which KDE should I choose
I'm in favor of B -- with a clear statement that 11.1 would be the last release that features KDE 3.5x on "official" DVD.
Right now, while I think 4.1 is a clear improvement, it's still a major change from 3.5x and we still see a lot of users who want to use 3.5. We ought to include 3.5.10 release as a desktop option for 11.1, and start looking to the community to take up stewardship of KDE 3.5 packages around 11.2.
This certainly isn't the most convenient path, but I think it's the best path for our users with 11.1.
Best,
Zonker
I hope your level of 'sanity' prevails. No one is saying STOP to 4.x. No one is saying DEVELOP 3.5x in parallel, they are saying KEEP 3.5x UNTIL 4.x matures enough to legitimately replace 3.5x without having to beg, file endless bug-reports and enhancement requests to get functions already existant in 3.5x back. There is little overhead in simply INCLUDING 3.5x in all distros until 4.x is competent to replace it in all functional respects. I, and my company WANT 4.x to succeed and more than that, we WANT LINUX and openSuSE to succeed, but that depends on attracting and keeping the Windoze lemmings. They won't understand it when you tell them they can't do this and they can't do that on their computer under 'Linux' when they could always do it under Windoze....and they darned sure aren't going to become programmers and systems operators in order to install 'backports' of a desktop environment that does work in a manner they expect with minimal 'learning curve' problems. Zonker, as you are in some way 'management', then I beseech you, manage....make a decision, force sanity to prevail. Don't arbitrarily assume that 11.1, .2 or .n will be the 'last' requiring co-desktop options, assume that as a goal, not a barrier. IF 4.x matures to be functionally equal to 3.5x, albeit different, but functionally equal or superior, I don't think anyone will really complain if a legacy version is dropped from the install distro, but as long as 4.x is still 'pre-release' or 'beta' quality with huge gaps in functionality or stability remaining, don't paint yourself into a corner. I continue to test 4.x but USE 3.5x when I need reliability and completeness. OpenSuSE v11.0 has plenty of issues (wireless networking comes to mind) that are independent of the desktop that hopefully are being addressed and improved in 11.1 and will continue to develop in later releases. IF people are patently unable to use the improved OPERATING SYSTEMS because the desktop environment inhibits them by design or omission, they lose the value of the improvements in the OS itself. It isn't just KDE. It is a matter of choice. OpenSuSE has long offered a choice in desktops, or not desktop at all if that is the user's choice. What harm is there in offering a legacy version of KDE just like there is offered Gnome and others in parallel? Offering the legacy version until 4.x matures is almost cost-free. The argument that it interferes with 4.x development is specious. It doesn't. Just say, it is included but no development will occur on it or its' included apps. IE, it is pretty stable, use it as is and we will only address things we specifically break because of changes in the underlying OS but not developing new gizzywhatchits for it. The only other 'cost' is the small amount of space it takes on the DVD. There is no need to play Microsloth and bloat the code 'required' on the DVD with other really "important" programs like GAMES. Games, zillions of screensavers, multiple programming languages and environments are neat, but unnecessary if space is a real issue. What will attract and KEEP Windoze and other distro converts is a functional desktop with a functional operating system and a intuitive (yast2 comes to mind) way to add the other bells and whistles. They just shouldn't have to do a bunch of 'stuff' to make it do their day in and day out WORK, it just should.... If it has a cutting edge *developmental* desktop also available, well, that is icing in the cake as long as the cake is still there in case all the icing gags you. One of the KDE developers in this thread said 'bye' to several people because they said they no longer would support openSuSE if it continued to make mistakes like dropping 3.5x prematurely, one even said that we would still be on 3.2 or some earlier version. He was justifying making mistakes in the name of progress regardless of the consequences. I say, that is wrong and 2 or more wrongs does not make a right. What is right is to stop making mistakes. Zonker, help openSuSE stop making mistakes! Please! Richard Creighton CSC, Inc. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org