Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
Wouldn't you think that that .0 in the version indicates that there are a lot new things? That's the normal way to announce major changes.
Stefan, NO. SuSE 8.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 9.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 10.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. Why would we not expect openSuSE 11.0 to be just as polished and ready for production use as its last three .0 predecessors? If it isn't, that would signal a fundamental change in SuSE culture showing that the rush to push release number next out the door to generate revenue has replaced dedication to putting out the best, and fully polished Linux distribution going. Stefan, you are a great help to us all and you do quality work with KDirStat. But why should anyone "expect" to have problems with an openSuSE release regardless of whether it is .0, .1, .2, or .3? Also, why does it appear that Novell is trying to "lower expectations" about the release? All this talk about a ".0" being something we should watch out for with "all the new things in it." .0 does not mean beta. Why isn't Novell proud of the upcoming release telling everyone, "The openSuSE 11.0 release will be the best openSuSE ever"?
I have said this elsewhere, 11.0 is little different to 10.3
This couldn't be farther removed from reality.
Apart from the new KDE4 which you mentioned:
The installation workflow is brand new.
The look & feel of the installation workflow is brand new, and ALL of the underlying subsystems are significantly changed (Qt4, mod-UI, UI now really separate from yast2-core).
Package management has gotten another major overhaul: New dependency solver (a.k.a. "sat-solver"), major changes in libzypp, much better performance.
And those are just a few points that immediately came to my mind. There are more changes, of course.
This is fantastic stuff! I look forward to it. As long as all of this is fully QA'ed, tested and working, then "bravo Novell!", "Great Job!" However, if it isn't working just right, and Novell has knowledge of problems that need to be worked .. and .. releases 11.0 anyway, then "shame on you Novell, you know better." There is no in between..
You may or may not like the new KDE4, and you are right in that it is still far from complete or polished in a way most KDE users wish it was.
But this is a chicken-and-egg problem: Without a significant user base out there using KDE4, it won't ever get complete or even polished. Many issues will go unnoticed, and developers of non-core KDE applications will feel a lot less compelled to port their apps to KDE4 (including myself with KDirStat).
Huh? KDE 4 is "alpha" software that is just "released for brave users". See www.kde.org! Surely Novell has more sense than to dump this on ordinary users as the default install. Provide it, but provide it as an option. Make 3.XX the default. Heaven forbid an ordinary user, much less a novice user is forced to deal with KDE 4 as their first look at openSuSE. From KDE's own rss feed: "Another month, another update to the KDE 4.0 series. This time, we are presenting KDE 4.0.4, dubbed File-Not-Found to the audience. KDE 4.0.4 brings improvements to KHTML, Okular and various other components. We recommend that people who are already running KDE 4.0 releases update to 4.0.4. The emphasis of this release lies, as usual in stabilising, bugfixing, performance improvements and updated translations -- no new features. The developers have again squashed quite some bugs which you can find some of in the changelog. With this release, the KDE community continues to support the KDE 4.0 series that has been released for brave users earlier this year. KDE 4.1, to be released this summer (in the northern-hemisphere) will bring new features and applications. KDE 4.1 is based on the recently released Qt 4.4 while KDE 4.0.4 is still based on Qt 4.3 as is the case with the whole KDE 4.0 series. So put on your update shoes and install 4.0.4 today." (reference: 5/6/2008; KDE 4.0.4 Out Now, Codenamed File-Not-Found)
Yet, I think that KDE4 is more than a big public beta. There are a lot of users out there eager to get it, and we should deliver something for them, too.
Why do you contradict what KDE says about its own product? Doesn't KDE know best if KDE 4 is ready for the mainstream desktop?
But KDE3 is still there. I am not sure in which way you feel that KDE3 is affected by KDE4; but we may all find this version of KDE3 to be the most stable ever, because most development efforts in the KDE project went to KDE4, so KDE3 received little more than bug fixes.
For people that need to get something done, KDE 3 is great! For people who want to sort out why their desktop crashed and help file bug reports, then KDE 4 is fine. In a year or so, KDE 4 may be ready, but obviously it isn't yet. I continue to have faith that Novell will do the right thing with the 11.0 release and put out a quality product. However, it scares the hell out of me when I see company men intentionally trying to lower expectations about a release when they should be proud to shout that "this will be the best release ever." It frightening similar to the climate immediately before the Mandake collapse with 8.0 that took 6 more releases to almost recover from. Now 11.0 hasn't been released yet, so no one can knock it. But after Novell has been provided with all the input, bug reports and warnings, if 11.0 is released as a cripple, the fallout may just be devastating. I don't want to live through it again... If the 11.0 release date arrives and 11.0 still isn't ready, history tells us it would be far better to slip the release 60-90 days and get it ready, than to dump it on the public crippled. -- 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