-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Reading this thread, let me ask some meta-questions: * please give facts why you choose something * openSUSE will eventually remove KDE3 and move completely to KDE4. What criteria do you have for this move? We should try to come to a firm decision and not start from scratch with every release. * What are *you* doing to improve the situation? Supporting two KDE versions is work - and therefore our KDE developers cannot invest as much in KDE4 as they would want to do. How do *you* want to help the KDE developers - both the openSUSE ones with packages and the upstream team? Always remember we're speaking about Open Source software here ;)
* And let's please try to keep the thread focused, it's too large to
drift off into rant land, thanks :)
I'm pretty puzzled. I understand what's at stake.
Clearly:
* if the KDE packagers+devs @Novell are busy with keeping KDE3, they'll
have less time to improve KDE4 (fix bugs, backport, don't assume it's
all bling)
* KDE3 will die anyway, whether we like it or not, and keeping KDE3 for
2 years will be an even bigger burden in one year's time than it would
be now (other distros won't ship it, and I would assume almost no
non-Novell KDE devs will work on KDE3 maintenance in a few months' time)
But I'm afraid that not having a stable KDE3 as a fallback option could
have terrible consequences.
And I'm not talking about experienced users with a proper internet link,
those can simply add the KDE:KDE3 repository and be done with it.
Everyone has different needs and expectations, but I somehow see one
scenario as being really problematic without KDE3: beginners who get an
11.1 DVD, install it, choose KDE4 and find it to be way too buggy to
work with.
What options do they have ?
- - drop Linux and go back to Windows, because Linux is too buggy to work
with (no, they won't necessarily think of trying GNOME or finding out
how to install KDE3 from the internet)
- - drop openSUSE and switch to another distro, because openSUSE is too
buggy to work with (arguably, other distros won't ship KDE3 either in
their upcoming releases, but I still think it's a risk)
- - switch to GNOME ? would they ? maybe (don't get me wrong, that would
be fine ;))
And also for more experienced users: I tend to think that many are more
religious about desktop environments (KDE/GNOME/XFCE/whatnot) than about
distributions. Wouldn't many rather switch to another distro with KDE3
(if such a thing exists when 11.1 is released) rather than switching to
GNOME or XFCE or ... ? Arguably, those should be able to find the KDE3
repos in the Build Service. But see the next point.
One thing I don't understand though:
- - you're saying that maintaining KDE3 during the lifetime of 11.1 is
such a problem
- - you're also saying that you don't want to drop KDE3, just move it off
the media and have it in the OBS
That doesn't make sense to me, because you'd still have to maintain a
working KDE3 in the OBS repositories. What's the difference ?
(and I'm leaving SLE completely out of the equation here)
I'm currently rather in favour of keeping a KDE3 desktop as a fallback
option on 11.1, hoping that KDE4 will have matured sufficiently for 11.2
to be a solid working horse by then.
But well.. if KDE3 is not shipped as an installation option, it must be
*very* clearly stated in the desktop chooser that KDE3 is available from
add-on repositories (and maybe make it possible to add that repo during
installation and grab it from there ?)
I fear that only <50% of users will be aware that KDE3 is available from
OBS repos. Just because _we_ know it's there doesn't mean everyone will
find out.
cheers
- --
-o) Pascal Bleser