On 08/13/2010 09:38 AM, Radule Šoškić wrote:
Best regards,
~rms~
I do remember you on the list in the 9.0 days. Specifically the ~rms~ signature. And brother, you hit the nail on the head. I too have watched the slow decline in the stability, quality and useability of Linux over the past 2.5-3 years in particular and like you, it saddens me. Currently with 11.3 my trusty old laptop hardlocks so frequently (every 5-10 minutes) that it is unusable with 11.3 and I basically just ssh into it to troubleshoot now -- much less actually use it. This is the same laptop that runs 10.2, 10.3, 11.0, 11.1 and 11.2 and Arch Linux without any problems at all -- sigh.. I sure wish I didn't agree with all you said, but unfortunately, I do. Today, it isn't so much whether openSuSE works anymore or whether it is stable, it's not about that anymore. It is now about whether SLES and SLED will be stable 9 months from now running on the same software we are kindly beta testing for Novell. As for KDE4, it is sad. I had just written another article on it to a friend and I had decided not to post it to the list. But, after seeing that you had the courage to help the developers see the ugly truth of what has become of kde, then I should have no less in trying to help the FOSS community not lose site of what really matters to Linux users. So I will share my post of earlier tonight: (coincidentally, I had saved the file as 'prideGoesBeforeAFall.txt') <quote from earlier post of 14/08/2010 - undisclosed recipient> Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a return to it. I spend most of my time in gnome (somewhat a big brother to xfce in behavior), but aimlessly float to flux or e or xfce on a regular basis. But what is just flat striking to me is after working in gnome, or flux, or xfce or whatever, I'll just decide to spend a day back in kde3. And when I do, I'm still amazed at all the wonderful, clean logic that went into the desktop and the crisp performance and stability of it. How could all that progress be thrown out the door in exchange for a non-existing future desktop that has never progressed beyond beta? I don't know why, but one of the old truisms keeps passing through my minds-eye. Something like "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...." It just re-emphasizes what a monumental gaff the kde team made when it decided to throw out the kde3 core and build a new kde4. The result: a hacked together kde4 that is a multi-headed hydra of partially working widgets that is so frustrating and difficult to navigate that it simply isn't worth the time. A sloppy hack of a desktop with such poor performance and cumbersome interface that the last nail I fear, has already been hammered into that coffin of a desktop. It is so deeply flawed in basic areas, I don't know if the idea or promise of kde4 is ever recoverable. (i.e.: the simple things like column width control, focus, etc.. just can't be made right with the current toolset) It just shows me how some of the greatest minds in desktop design can come up with a plan, a direction, for a wonderful desktop and then given the scope of the project be so unprepared to manage the process that the result is no more than a tangled pile of code that will, absent divine intervention, never recover from the running into the ground that kde suffered. The greatest plans of mice and men.... ... and for less effort than maintaining fluxbox, xfce, etc..., kde could have been forked in the kde-classic and kde4 and the community would still have what is/was the greatest desktop that FOSS has ever developed. I guess that's the real kicker, another unfathomable gaff - the failure to simply maintain kde3, when the community continues to maintain the likes of WindowMaker, IceWM, twm, all the boxtops, etc... I bet if history ever looks into the reason why kde3 wasn't forked or maintained in light of all the uncertainty that surrounds kde4, I'd wager that it came down to ego and somebody being unwilling to set aside their pride for the benefit of the Linux community. <end quote> When I read your post, I was stunned at the familiar and uncanny ring it had to it. I had just written the post above not 40 minutes earlier. Perhaps through your courage, the developers and Novell will sit in quite reflection and think about where the rock-solid stability, performance and open-source hallmarks of efficient have gone. From the Linux users standpoint, all the glitz, glamor, and eye-candy in the world is worth a thing if it doesn't work or if it wears your fingers and hands out to do it. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org