Thank You Carla
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Aug 22, 2011 4:35 AM EDT |
Your analysis of the KDE situation is, as far as I am concerned, excellent. I can get KDE4.3 to do what I want....but in order to do that, I have to force/manhandle/ladyhandle [sorry :-) , couldn't resist it] it into a KDE3.5 format. Once there, KDE4 is efficient, stable and does all I want. Aaron and the KDE team, did what they wanted......but even now, I believe that is not what the users wanted. My perceptions are that all the users wanted was an improvement in the speed and flexibility offered by KDE3.5. My best suggestion is that the KDE4 team use a KDE3.5 screen/view as the default. But it is probably too late for that now. Rotating screens and glitz have no place in serious and efficient computer usage as far as I am concerned, and the same goes for the various desktop views that confuse one horribly in KDE4, until you manage to force a life-line through the swamp of options. Even Xfce is now becoming the KDE4 that should have been produced - lean, mean, fast and flexible and Linus is even rejecting Gnome3 in favour of Xfce. Surely somewhere, somehow, the message that continues to be almost shouted from from the rooftops must get through to the teams ??? No, probably not, and that's sad. It is not as if the developer teams aren't giving of their best....but I still firmly believe that they are not listening to the users. |
| tracyanne Aug 22, 2011 5:16 AM EDT |
You took the words right out of my mouth, it must have been while... no never mind. I just read the article and Carla's response, and was about to say something similar. |
| MALsPa Aug 22, 2011 5:57 AM EDT |
I liked Mr. Seigo's replies to Ms. Schroder's comments. Mr. Byfield's reaction was thoughtful, too. Honestly, the negativity is so... tiring. |
| tracyanne Aug 22, 2011 6:20 AM EDT |
I think one of the problems surrounding KDE4, GNOME 3 and Unity, and the reason why the negativity continues, is that a lot of people believe, and justifiably so, that they are not being listened to. The projects are basically abandoning their core users. Particularly in the case of KDE4 and GNOME3 (in the case of Unity it's Canonical). I believe, and certainly speaking for myself, the negativity stems from a profound sense of frustration. For example in the case of KDE4, the only way I could have had any influence on the project was as a developer, I got the sense very early on, and after swaping emails with Aaron Seigo, that unless I was a developer any and all of my comments would be disregarded. Also given that my vision, and my understanding, of what KDE4 would be (based on the early logs and postings etc on the KDE site) was quite different from what they gave us, it was unlikely that even if I was a C++ developer, that anything I contributed would be considered fit for Thier vision. So also in the case of GNOME 3.. the developers have a vision that precludes anything almost anything any user has to say. If you don't buy in to the vision there is nothing you can do or say to influence the project. There was no way ordinary users could influence KDE4, and I suspect, given that KDE5 will be based on KDE4, that there is little to nothing that can be done there either. So there isn't really anything left to the general user and commentator. How, I wonder is it possible to be positive about a project that abandons it's users. |
| jacog Aug 22, 2011 7:57 AM EDT |
"For example in the case of KDE4, the only way I could have had any influence on the project was as a developer" Again this. It's just plain false. Their bug/feature tracking system provides a perfectly reasonable way for users to campaign for their own wishes to be implemented. The reason I can comfortably say this is because I have seen several of my own desired features/priorities implemented this way. It takes time, but then this is to be expected. |
| hkwint Aug 22, 2011 8:04 AM EDT |
TA: Yeah, seems "Open" is not equal to "democratic", and "developers" are not equal to "users". |
| tracyanne Aug 22, 2011 8:30 AM EDT |
@jocog, No, I was told if I wanted what I saw as important I should write it myself. But you miss the point. in both cases, KDE4 and GNOME 3 (and no doubt), unless I buy into their vision, and I don't, my "bug" reports will be ignored. |
| jdixon Aug 22, 2011 8:35 AM EDT |
> Their bug/feature tracking system provides a perfectly reasonable way for users to campaign for their own wishes to be implemented. Campaign for? Perhaps. But if the features you want don't fit the developers' goal? Good luck. I'll simply use a desktop which does what I need and skip all the drama. To put it simply, when the developers tell users who are simply asking to keep functionality they already had with an earlier version to go *beep* themselves, I have better things to do than give them my time. |
| JaseP Aug 22, 2011 9:01 AM EDT |
I really agree. I dread when Ubuntu 10.04 reaches end of Life... I'll have to start either distro shopping or switch to one of the respins, like Xubuntu... Gnome shell is a no-go for me, as is Unity. I HATE, HATE, HATE, with the red hot passion of a thousand suns, the whole "put your application menu at the top of the screen" thing... On top of that, it doesn't jive with using the machine as a HTPC, the way I've already set (most) my machines up. The menus need to stay with the applications you are using, not be taken away from the window you have open. |
| jdixon Aug 22, 2011 9:17 AM EDT |
And just to show that Seigo hasn't learned much, if anything: >> "Mr. Seigo and the KDE4 team took a big steaming dump on KDE3 users," > That's a great example of being an anti-cheerleader. It's full of emotional invective and, to be frank, unecessary and ultimately dishonest insult. It's no better than being a chealeader, yet our community tends to be just fine with that sort of behaviour. This, in a nutshell, is my issue with how we handle public discourse. No, it's not a dishonest insult. It's the absolute truth. And Seigo still refuses to admit it. >> "and I do not recall any of them ever acknowledging that they terribly mishandled the transition to KDE4." > I did acknowledge the issue many times, publicly, including taking responsibility for what we could have done better. And yet no single public apology to the users he insulted. Yeah, that's taking responsibility alright. > I also examined the other aspects of the issue, since my goal was not to placate you (and the sense of entitlement many seem to feel) with mea culpas, but to truly learn from the affair. Which is more important to you? If there were any sign you were even capable of learning from the affair, it would be far more important. Given that you can't, and you have no intention of placating anyone, neither matters at all. > However, the acknowledgement and ownership of issues was rarely in turn acknolwedged. Why? Because our public discourse to often hyper-focusses on negative events, ignores positive settings and concentrates on ways to pick each other apart. No. Because your "aacknowledgement and ownership" made absolutely no difference. KDE4 remained inaccessible and unusable to former KDE3 users. Words may sound wonderful, but unless they're accompanied by actions, they're usually meaningless noise. > .. as can be see in the sentence you wrote above. It's very unfortunate and sad. What's sad is that the KDE4 developers still think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread; and if only those poor, unfortunate, misguided, spiteful, and uneducated users would simply see... |
| TxtEdMacs Aug 22, 2011 9:28 AM EDT |
JP,Quoting:I HATE, HATE, HATE, with the red hot passion of a thousand suns [...] Cool it. Do you know that a massive sun like object put out more light energy in a more energetic spectrum, but die at a young age and shrivel after a tremendous blast into virtual nothingness? HATE will eat your inners, just move on to other options. Settle for being annoyed at hijacking of a popular project, but there are others perhaps better ones for your needs than the ones that jilted you. There is life after a divorce. [Oddly, seriousness crept in - damn it] YBT |
| dinotrac Aug 22, 2011 9:50 AM EDT |
@MALsPa It's not as tiring as having to rely on people like ASeigo and crew when your living depends on your workstation. Breaking trust is a very bad thing, not matter how "tiring" it may be. I don't tolerated it from my children, and the children at the KDE team should not receive a free pass. |
| tuxchick Aug 22, 2011 11:02 AM EDT |
My people :) There are more comments that have not been posted yet, which should be entertaining. I've avoided reviewing KDE4 until it gets to a point where I can say something positive about it. They are doing some interesting technologies such as the semantic desktop and Activities, which has the potential to be a seriously useful power tool for users with complex workflows. I'm going to write up something on this discussion for LXer. |
| Fettoosh Aug 22, 2011 11:43 AM EDT |
Quoting:They are doing some interesting technologies such as the semantic desktop and Activities, which has the potential to be a seriously useful power tool for users with complex workflows. TC, Now you are talking. Just make sure to include the new Plasma Active in your review. Although it is still in development, there are demonstrations and ISOs to download already. Links to Demos I haven't had the chance to play with Activities that much yet, but they are a lot more than just grouping of screens/pages/windows. They enable users to include applications, documents/files, etc. in the grouping and are a lot different than Gnome Activities. These technologies might not be for everyone, but they won't bother anyone who don't use them. [Edited: fixed Link] |
| ComputerBob Aug 22, 2011 11:47 AM EDT |
Here's my comment, so I can be included in tc's article. |
| DrDubious Aug 22, 2011 12:36 PM EDT |
I try not to even get into these discussions most of the time - at this point it's a holy war, made all the worse by the fact that the "anti-KDE project" (Gnome WAS, after, all, SPECIFICALLY founded with the intention of replacing KDE due to what at the time were legitimate license concerns) just did the same "You REALLY want innovation? Fine, we'll innovate." don't-keep-things-the-same change with Gnome3, and now people who were happily using Gnome and hating KDE can't keep claiming KDE is anti-user while Gnome "listens to their users" any more, and now they're positively apoplectic. Personally, from what I remember of the KDE4 fiasco, the problem was really that kde 3.5 had been stretched, patched, and tangled with great effort into a state where nearly all of the functionality that people wanted was there, but couldn't be stretched more. At the same time, since the functionality was all there, I seem to remember that people were constantly complaining about KDE's APPEARANCE instead ("eye-candy" was a phrase I remember popping up a lot)...and so KDE4 focussed on that. My own experience with the initial KDE4 releases was NOT actually that it was "unstable" or "bad", just that it didn't DO much of anything besides present shiny bubble icons instead of the flat "WIndows 98"-style icons that was in favor in KDE3/Gnome at the time. I tend to agree that the trade-off at the time was lousy. At this point in KDE's lifecycle, though, my only complaint is that nepomuk's main visible function seems to be to crash and/or pop up cryptic messages at odd times without providing much (visible) usefulness, but since the rest of my system seems to be fine, I don't really have any complaints at the moment. Instead of the eye-bugging, spittle-flecked hatred at KDE4 and Gnome3, I think many people would be better off taking a deep breath and just moving to XFCE (which is quite nice in my opinion, even though I still have a mild preference for KDE over it.) The throbbing, rage-bulged veins in your forehead will thank you. |
| MALsPa Aug 22, 2011 12:49 PM EDT |
> Instead of the eye-bugging, spittle-flecked hatred at KDE4 and Gnome3, I think many people would be better off taking a deep breath and just moving to XFCE (which is quite nice in my opinion, even though I still have a mild preference for KDE over it.) The throbbing, rage-bulged veins in your forehead will thank you. Agreed. Seigo: "...like crabs in a bucket." :) Loved that one. |
| jdixon Aug 22, 2011 1:08 PM EDT |
> Instead of the eye-bugging, spittle-flecked hatred at KDE4 and Gnome3, I think many people would be better off taking a deep breath and just moving to XFCE I was using XFCE back in the KDE 3.5 days, as I considered KDE to be too bloated for my systems, which tend to run on the older/slower side. I'm still using it today. That doesn't mean I'm just going to let folks like Seigo lie about what they did without raising an opposing voice. |
| ComputerBob Aug 22, 2011 1:12 PM EDT |
Many of us have valid criticisms and concerns, without "eye-bugging, spittle-flecked hatred" or "throbbing, rage-bulged veins." Any attempt to characterize all critics that way is simply a strawman that doesn't belong in an honest discussion. |
| dinotrac Aug 22, 2011 1:16 PM EDT |
@cb - I rather liked the "eye-bugging -- etc" stuff. Highlights the arrogance of the writer because it is saying "How dare you take a position other than the one I deign correct? You cannot possibly be a rational human being." Seriously, who works up hatred for some idiot developers working on a desktop? Sure, I was pissed off at having to change to a new desktop after years of very happily and productively working with KDE, but... ya know what? Anger is rational when it is justified. |
| skelband Aug 22, 2011 1:29 PM EDT |
"...the problem was really that kde 3.5 had been stretched, patched, and tangled with great effort into a state where nearly all of the functionality that people wanted was there, but couldn't be stretched more" Well if that was true, why could the under-the-covers architectural issues have been fixed without overhauling the entire KDE eco-system as seen by the user? Surely incremental enhancement is a better model that a total rewrite of everything in one go? The same is true of Gnome 3. If the Gnome infrastructure need such a big overhaul, why mix it into a huge upheaval with the Gnome Shell? Are the two things that inseparable? Surely, the Gnome Shell is just that, a shell. As a Gnome 2 user, I wouldn't mind so much if the changes weren't so fundamental or radical and all in one go. Two final comments on all this talk of "if you don't like it, you can try something else". Firstly, this is small comfort if your preference was for what you already have. Isn't one of the biggest trumpeted benefits of Open Source software that you are not forced down the continual upgrade cycle, something that Microsoft is regularly lambasted over? Yes, you could stay with Gnome 2 for as long as the distribution you are using will support your current hardware, but that will only take you so far. Secondly, if you contribute work for a software eco-system like KDE or GNOME, you also take on a mantle of social responsibility. What you do affects thousands, maybe millions of people. That is not something you do lightly. |
| MALsPa Aug 22, 2011 1:30 PM EDT |
> Seriously, who works up hatred for some idiot developers working on a desktop? Quite a few people, looks like. It's the derogatory insults ("idiot developers," etc.) that get me. |
| dinotrac Aug 22, 2011 1:37 PM EDT |
MALsPa -- Telling the truth is not being hateful. Honestly, given the events surrounding KDE, how could the phrase "idiot developers" be anything but plain-spoken truth? |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 22, 2011 3:37 PM EDT |
If it's not obvious, a +1000 for Carla from me. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. |
| jdixon Aug 22, 2011 4:37 PM EDT |
> Well if that was true, why could the under-the-covers architectural issues have been fixed without overhauling the entire KDE eco-system as seen by the user? Because that would have required real work without a lot of glory? > Surely incremental enhancement is a better model that a total rewrite of everything in one go? Linus seems to think so. It's actually a debatable point, but most people who do a total rewrite have enough sense to support the older version for a few years afterwards, while the new version works itself into shape. > Secondly, if you contribute work for a software eco-system like KDE or GNOME, you also take on a mantle of social responsibility. What you do affects thousands, maybe millions of people. That is not something you do lightly. Bingo. |
| lcafiero Aug 22, 2011 5:50 PM EDT |
JaseP -- I thought Ubuntu 10.04 had a LTS version, or at least my daughter is running 10.04 LTS on her ThinkPad (the wayward child . . .), so Lucid Lynx support will still be there for awhile. I'm with Steven_Rosenber -- Both Bruce and Carla get high marks for two great articles. |
| JaseP Aug 22, 2011 6:50 PM EDT |
@ lcafiero... Yes. Your right, but it seems like the going trend is more of this "you'll get the desktop we want to give you," crap. So, I'm not optimistic things will be better when the LTS is dropped. Hopefully, a Gnome fork or improved (insert your favorite WM here) will be available to address my future problem. |
| lcafiero Aug 22, 2011 7:27 PM EDT |
JaseP -- True, but my point is that you have awhile before 10.04 with its GNOME 2-point-whatever desktop environment becomes, for lack of a better term, obsolete. My bet is long before then something will come along. |
| kingttx Aug 22, 2011 7:38 PM EDT |
<SIGH> The FOSS community needs a Benjamin Franklin. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 22, 2011 7:42 PM EDT |
While I have an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS system running right now and am somewhat happy with it, it would have been better to keep 9.10 (pre-aubergine) as the LTS. I can only hope that Unity will be in better shape when 12.04 comes along and that Ubuntu doesn't stuff a lot more alpha-level features into what will be the next LTS. Trying to be positive when the facts on the ground don't support such positivity is fanboyism. If GNOME and KDE, or the communities around them, don't want "negative" articles, they could do EXACTLY WHAT CARLA SAYS and not pull the plug on the previous version of their DEs until the new versions are ready for general use and don't lack functionality. In your heart, you know she's right. |
| DrDubious Aug 22, 2011 8:19 PM EDT |
So...what I'm seeing is that there are people out there that are really upset because they want a desktop written by "idiots", but only if the "idiots" do it they way they want it? Seriously, I don't see the point of this flaming argument, but I see a lot of people REALLY personally invested in it. The "THOSE IDIOTS ABSOLUTELY TOOK A BIG STEAMING DUMP ON ME!" (to paraphrase, and yes, I admit I'm embellishing with the all-caps in this case) comments really don't quite sound like "absolute truth" to me and, indeed, DO sound like metaphorical eye-bugging spittle-flecked hatred. I especially don't see what people think they're going to get out of it. Are the Gnome or KDE developers REALLY going to see one of these comments one day and say "oh, gosh, I didn't realize I was absolutely taking a big steaming dump on you, here, let me pull my pants back up and go re-write KDE3 and Gnome2 for you instead"? I mean, I get it - a lot of people really wanted things to be new and updated but at the same time not actually changed somehow because they liked the old way of doing things. Now they're enraged because they can't upgrade while keeping the older systems and don't like the newer systems, and their calls to go back to the old systems is "being ignored" by people committed to the new system. I can understand that being annoying. The question is - what do people think will solve this problem? RIght now, the developers are getting a lot of "WE HATE YOU!" and "*I'M* your user, stop doing what YOU want you selfish prick!", and probably aren't all that motivated to help out people that hate them. That leaves you (both the eye-buggingly-enraged and the mildly annoyed and everyone in between) with the choice of using what the developers are doing anyway while simultaneously proclaiming how bad it is, or using something else (or, yes, getting productively involved and trying to influence future development that way - admittedly, I tend to agree that this is probably not going to be all that effective unless a LOT of you do it, and I don't think there are that many people who have both the time and the willingness). What incentive can be offered to whom to get what the angry people want? I'm pretty sure "we might stop accusing you of taking a dump on us most of the time" isn't really sufficient to convince all of the Gnome and KDE developers to abandon their current development plans. Being a developer of a popular set of free software must SUCK - the "reward" seems to be pretty Faustian. Personally, although I generally like the KDE desktop environment in general and am fond of several KDE-based applications (namely KVIRC, Digikam, akregator, kmail, and dolphin/konqueror [the latter mainly for ioslaves]), if they continue to be unable to work out some of the irritating bugs (kmail refusing to send email - and, yes, I have participated in that bug report - for no apparent reason and varied nepomuk tantrums in my case) I'll likely just end up migrating over to xfce. It's just not worth ranting about. People get so tribalistically invested in things like this. I'm not sure where a comment about many people who are enraged got expanded to "all critics" but it's a pretty good demonstration of the "with me or attacking me and my tribe" mindset people get into. That reminds me, there's a US election coming up next year, isn't there?... |
| patrokov Aug 23, 2011 12:26 AM EDT |
DrDubious, The reason for the anger and hatred is quite obvious. The developers took away something that people loved (or at the very least, had bonded to), all the while telling us we were stupid and antiquated for loving it. And when we complained we were told to bug off. Nowadays, Seigo always sounds SOOOO reasonable, until you realize that he's covering up the fact that he foisted his unwanted vision upon us in the same way MicroSoft foisted the unwanted Ribbon upon us. Seigo = Steve Ballmer --> Hate. Oh, and many KDE apps have never worked quite as well since the change. Amarok regularly gives database errors. Kontact/akonadi has been a nightmare. And why they didn't include a migration tool to automatically look in the old .kde directory and import the appropriate data (playlists, e-mail, contacts, etc.) is beyond me. |
| Ridcully Aug 23, 2011 12:46 AM EDT |
I remain hopeful that both Xfce and Trinity will fill the enormous gaps (in user satisfaction) that Gnome3 and KDE4 have produced. Linus has opted for Xfce and my preliminary skirmishes with that DE shows me why.......It's sorta like KDE3.5 and fast, sleek and rather good. Trinity however is my principal hope. I continue to see enormous numbers of development emails across my email client and I keep hoping and hoping that one of the distros will finally pick it up as an alternative DE......Trinity is of course, a highly updated and improved KDE3.5: http://www.trinitydesktop.org/ I keep waiting and waiting to see a version for openSUSE....but not yet...sigh. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 12:48 AM EDT |
But what good is anger and hatred at this point? And, what good can possibly come out of tossing insults at these developers? I only see more hard feelings coming out of all this. |
| cr Aug 23, 2011 1:03 AM EDT |
It's an interesting twist on the KDE/Gnome desktop flame wars, when the hottest flames are now coming from their own camps rather than each other's... |
| Ridcully Aug 23, 2011 4:13 AM EDT |
MALsPa......hatred is utterly useless and is generally an unpleasant reflection on the person exhibiting it - moreover, it gets nowhere. I don't think anybody in the LXer debates has ever displayed hatred for the developers. There is however, intense frustration and anger ~ not so much at the developers, but over the perception that they are not listening to the frustration of the users. I continue to believe that what the Gnome and KDE teams have produced was not what the users wanted but what the development team wanted, and so far my own perception suggests that what they did was for THEIR satisfaction, not that of the end users. But as far as I can see, 3-plus years of protests have done nothing to change the developer's directions in KDE and I am reasonably sure that the Gnome3 team will be equally reluctant to admit that the way they have moved is not what was wanted. I remain pragmatic and as long as I can force KDE4 to behave like KDE3.5, I'm happy. cr.....I never joined in the KDE/Gnome wars.....pointless. I argue daily with a friend of mine over Gnome and KDE, but that's between us and a lot of fun. Each of us loves the DE he uses and each of us enjoys poking fun at the other for their "mindless dedication". I wouldn't call the present situation a new development for KDE.....but it is new for Gnome as far as I can see. One would have thought the Gnome team would have taken the KDE4 experience to heart, but obviously they have not. Like I said above, I can see Xfce and Trinity taking over where Gnome and KDE have gone to complexity for the developers' satisfaction.....And that isn't hatred or anger, it's just plain cynicism. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 5:19 AM EDT |
@DrDubious: >I mean, I get it You most obviously do not get it. And that's fine. You don't need to understand free software to enjoy its benefits. The problem in this case, is that the team developing a major free software project relied upon by a large and loyal user base seems not to understand free software. That's not so fine. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 5:30 AM EDT |
>But what good is anger and hatred at this point? Agree completely. But for somebody who seems able to use this newfangled internet thingy, you [ claim ] seem not to understand the notion of a blog. When somebody makes comments in a forum, they invite comment. I don't know if Charlie Manson has a blog, but I think it would be entirely fair to remind visitors to the blog that the man orchestrated some of the most gruesome murders in American history. It would be completely fair and accurate to call him a killer and a manipulative liar. Some people would consider that to be extremely insulting -- but you really cannot insult with the truth. Aaron wants to run away from his own actions. It's completely fair to remind users of the truth. If he were to stop running -- and it's possible that the email to Byfield is a tiny step in that direction -- the truth would change and the past become nothing more than dust. I'd like to see that. More to the point, I'd like to believe that KDE is in the hands of responsible adults. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 7:41 AM EDT |
> But for somebody who seems able to use this newfangled internet thingy, you claim not to understand the notion of a blog. ?? Please point out to me where I ever claimed "not to understand the notion of a blog," dinotrac. > I continue to believe that what the Gnome and KDE teams have produced was not what the users wanted [...] Ridcully, it would be much more accurate to say that "what the GNOME and KDE teams have produced is not what SOME users wanted." Many of us are quite happy with things, but we're far less vocal because we don't have much to complain about. I'm happy using just about any DE or WM these days. I still have one distro version (Mepis 8) up and running that uses KDE 3.5, and I regularly use a lot of other DEs and WMs. I may like one better than another, but sometimes it seems that my preferences change with the wind. But I'm one of those people who would choose KDE4 over KDE3, if I had to choose. I like to install and use different DEs and WMs, but I haven't even bothered to install Trinity. So, really, the whole reason I'm posting in this thread is to speak up for some of us folks who are not dissatisfied with the way things are going, who think that the KDE and GNOME teams are doing a pretty good job, and who appreciate what they've been doing. Not all of us feel that the devs "don't listen." Not all of us think they're "idiots." We very well may be the majority of "the users." Who really knows? |
| dixiedancer Aug 23, 2011 8:04 AM EDT |
When I got really mad at a playmate, my daddy used to tell me, "A bulldog can whip a skunk, kiddo, but it ain't worth it." |
| TxtEdMacs Aug 23, 2011 8:44 AM EDT |
[serious] I am a partisan of neither Gnome* (though I was a cash contributor, albeit a small amount) nor of KDE. Nonetheless, this discussion makes me think that many on this forum either suffer from terminal dementia with concomitant loss of memory or are the direct ancestors of Stalin's gangsters whose specialty was air brushing history. The shouting began either with KDE partisans or the actual developers at the time of KDE 4.0's release. At that time the newest version of KUbuntu was being released with the default to the existing version (which I presume was 3.5) and the howls were deafening if you could hear the cries in text (as I can) " ... IT'S READY [! | .]** " What can one believe when that assertion may be, at best, viewed as self induced lunacy or bald faced lie to force a mass of current users to be testers of a flawed package? What bothers me more is neither side seems to remember this happening or are too ashamed to admit name calling began even before this package was dumped upon the unsuspecting. I must admit I am not as excited nor as wounded, simply because I just want whatever is my windows manager to stay out of my way. I do not refine my desktop as many here seem to have done. My needs are simple that can be met with a couple of monitors holding different applications or for relaxation one with a video feed. Enough, [most serious ends here, though some resides in the footnotes below. You have been warned.] YBT * My early introduction to KDE 4.0 was due to my interest in leaving Gnome, which I knew was on the path of being more intrusive. Moreover, I tired Evolution popping up when an option to post or email when I used Thunderbird and wanted no part of the former. When I inquired how to remove it, I imagined gasps of shock that would have been appropriate had I wanted to murder their favorite pet. No it cannot be done (why not?) ... ** I would guess it probably was an explanation point given the din, however I cannot attest to that being true. Moreover, I do not wish to pursue a probable fruitless search on another dumb topic. I have so many other constructive ways to waste my time, why that? |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 9:04 AM EDT |
> But what good is anger and hatred at this point? And, what good can possibly come out of tossing insults at these developers? I only see more hard feelings coming out of all this. Anger and hatred are never "good". But they are normal human responses to unpleasant events. As such they must be dealt with. One of the best ways to deal with them is to vent; to let the emotions out in verbal form. It's also one of the least destructive. > And, what good can possibly come out of tossing insults at these developers? I only see more hard feelings coming out of all this. Very little. But since the developers cared nothing for the feelings of the existing KDE3.5 users, why should the users care about theirs? Personally, I'm not going to allow the KDE4 devs or to supporters to rewrite history to suit themselves without an opposing viewpoint. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 9:13 AM EDT |
dixiedancer's was the best post in this thread, IMO. :) |
| gus3 Aug 23, 2011 9:17 AM EDT |
Anger and hatred are NEVER "good"? Perhaps in some circumstances. In some others, not so much. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 9:40 AM EDT |
I don't know when hatred is ever good. Anger is certainly a normal emotion, but holding on to anger, especially for a long time, is a decision. Some people are better than others at choosing to just let it go. |
| ComputerBob Aug 23, 2011 9:45 AM EDT |
I started looking for something to replace Windows on my computer around the year 2000. For several years, on and off, I tried many, many different distros -- purchased from one of those online places, because my dial-up Internet account was way too slow and unreliable to download any isos. When I first began using Linux, it was as a hobbyist, dual-booting various distros alongside of Windows, which was my "work OS." As I learned more about Linux, and grew to trust both my skills and the distros that I was using, I eventually (in July, 2006) reached a point where I began using Linux full-time as my "work OS." From that point on, my distro-hopping days quickly came to an end. I was no longer interested in trying out every DistroWatch distro-du-jour -- I had WORK to do. So I settled upon Mepis Linux for a year or so, before moving to Debian Linux, where I've stayed ever since -- first using Debian Stable, then Debian Testing, and then back to Debian Stable. For the past few years, I've used only Debian Linux every single day in my home office -- no Windows dual-boot "safety net." From my earliest Linux days, I found KDE to meet my needs much better than Gnome, so I always used KDE -- to get WORK done. Then KDE4 came out. I read all about the bugs and controversy, so I put off trying it. In fact, it got to the point where I was holding back a few hundred Debian upgrades for several months, because those upgrades would have switched me from KDE3.5 to KDE4. But, after reading review number XXXXX that assured me that "KDE4 is READY!!!!", I finally tried KDE4 for the first time -- version 4.3.4 (plenty of versions past the dreaded 4.0 bugs, right?) Nope -- it turned out that even KDE 4.3.4 was unsuitable for my uses, and prevented me from doing my WORK. So I moved on to Xfce, and have been using it since February, 2010, to get WORK done. Why did I capitalize the word "work" throughout this posting? Because I am no longer a Linux hobbyist. I no longer have the time or motivation to try out every new thing that comes along, or to learn a whole new paradigm in order to be able to use my computer, or to fuss and fidget with onscreen gadgets and settings and gizmos. I have WORK to do, and I need my computer help me -- or at least to get out of the way -- so I can get that WORK done. God bless Linux developers and Linux hobbyists -- we need you to create the tools that we use, and to fiddle and futz and troubleshoot the cutting edge stuff for us. But please don't assume that your programming or hobbyist needs are the same as the needs of those of us who depend on our computers to get work done. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 9:59 AM EDT |
@Malspa - My bad. Editing error. It should have read "you SEEM not to understand the notion of a blog." I'll fix it now. See what a little constructive criticism can do if somebody's listening? |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 10:00 AM EDT |
@ ComputerBob: Just because someone dual-boots or multi-boots or tries out different DEs and distros doesn't mean that the person should be labeled a "Linux hobbyist." Perhaps you considered yourself to be a "Linux hobbyist" when you were doing those things, but that's you. Those people use their computers to do the things they need to get done, just like you do, and what they think of as their work is no less important to them than your work is to you. Having multiple distros and DEs installed often turns out to be a better approach for getting things done because you end up with more tools at your disposal than you might have with only one distro or DE. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 10:08 AM EDT |
@ dinotrac: Correction acknowledged. You SEEM not to understand that I completely "understand the notion of a blog." :) What you think I understand or misunderstand means nothing to me, but thank you for trying to enlighten me. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 10:12 AM EDT |
@MALsPA >but thank you for trying to enlighten me. No thanks required. I know better than to try. |
| MALsPa Aug 23, 2011 10:34 AM EDT |
@ dinotrac :) Good one. Clever. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 11:09 AM EDT |
@MALsPa - Through enough spaghetti at the wall, something's bound to stick. ;0) |
| TxtEdMacs Aug 23, 2011 11:22 AM EDT |
Quoting: [Throw] enough spaghetti at the wall, something's bound to stick. What a waste of, presumably, good pasta. YBT |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 11:33 AM EDT |
> In some others, not so much. There's a difference between good and appropriate or called for, Gus. |
| gus3 Aug 23, 2011 11:49 AM EDT |
How could anything be simultaneously appropriate and bad? Or, conversely, inappropriate and good? |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 11:53 AM EDT |
>How could anything be simultaneously appropriate and bad? Or, conversely, inappropriate and good? Well, POV may come into play. Prison is clearly a bad thing for convicted felons, yet fully appropriate. A youtube video portraying your boss as a talking weasel would be highly inappropriate and yet --- good, great even. |
| skelband Aug 23, 2011 11:54 AM EDT |
@MALsPa and others The issue at stake here is that the Gnome developers have turned GNOME into something fundamentally different from what it was before. I'm all for moving forward and improving things. However, Gnome 3 is *NOTHING* like Gnome 2. It is an entirely different piece of software. It is about as different from Gnome 2 as KDE. So, what we have is a situation where a few high-ranking developers have hijacked a software eco-system and decided to totally rewrite it to be a completely different kettle of fish. As far as I am concerned, that is sheer vandalism of the worst kind and worthy of the scorn being poured on it. If they wished to build a DE with an entirely different paradigm, they were perfectly entitled to do so. However, rather than doing that, they decided to railroad their ideas onto an existing product and in the process alienate a large swathe of people. It's absolutely disgraceful. |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 12:07 PM EDT |
> If they wished to build a DE with an entirely different paradigm, they were perfectly entitled to do so. However, rather than doing that, they decided to railroad their ideas onto an existing product and in the process alienate a large swathe of people. Exactly as the KDE4 developers did. :( |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 12:12 PM EDT |
> How could anything be simultaneously appropriate and bad? It is appropriate, especially given the possible penalties, to pay your taxes each year. But can giving money to an outside agency which will undoubtedly use it for purposes you would never condone yourself be considered a good thing? If you have cancer, chemotherapy may be both appropriate and called for, but few who have gone through it would call it good. There are literally thousands of things in life which are necessary, appropriate, or called for which cannot be considered good in and of themselves. |
| DrDubious Aug 23, 2011 1:03 PM EDT |
I am somewhat amused to discover that my not seeing how continued angry yelling at developers who don't want to develop what the angry people WANT them to develop means I "don't understand free software". Apparently, developers developing free software who want to go develop some other kind of free software instead don't understand free software either. I kind of thought the "free" part applied to developers as well. I most certainly do get it - someone had been developing free stuff that a bunch of people liked, and then they stopped, and the people that were getting the free stuff weren't getting it any more. It's like having someone stopping by to give a bunch of people a free hamburger every day for lunch, then one day they start showing up with a plate of rice and beans. "I've decided I want to give out vegetarian stuff now." "But..we don't LIKE vegetarian food! And you've been giving us free burgers so long we've been planning our budgets around having that free burger for lunch, not to mention my nutritional planning! Can't you just go back to burgers?" "Well, no, I'm doing vegetarian now, I think vegetarian is better for you. Maybe if you give it a try, you might come to like it. Otherwise, you may have to go find someone else who's interested in doing burgers." "YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO US!! We made your free burgers POPULAR! You can't stop giving them too us now!" It would (and indeed does) annoy me, too - having to choose between having only a couple more updates before my old-but-comfortable system stagnates due to lack of development or changing to something else is kind of a pain. I personally still kind of miss the more complete metadata display that KDE3 had when you displayed file properties, and I'm still not seeing a massive benefit to all this "semantic desktop" hype nor the seemingly kludgy "nepomuk" thing that still doesn't seem very useful. To quote skelband: "So, what we have is a situation where a few high-ranking developers have hijacked a software eco-system and decided to totally rewrite it to be a completely different kettle of fish." - arguably a fair (possibly with futile hyperbole, but still fair) description of both the KDE3-KDE4 and the Gnome2-Gnome3 changes. None of this still explains what the continuing arguments are supposed to do to convince anyone to start providing the old free stuff that the angry users want again. It seems pretty clear that the best the Gnome3 or KDE4 developers could hope for if they tried is a smug "Yeah, you BETTER do what we say" with the occasional "Remember back when you were being an idiot?" tossed in for fun. I don't think it's going to motivate them to go back to Gnome2 or KDE3. What will? Or are there really many people that figure if they hurl invective at their chosen project (and sometimes anyone perceived as making excuses on their behalf, aparently) long enough that they'll eventually just do what they're told? I'm not surprised that the trinity project doesn't seem to get much press - I haven't checked, but I imagine they don't have all that many people who want to commit to developing the same thing forever indefinitely (lest they incur the wrath of some Users(tm) for changing things in a possibly unpopular way). I'm guessing the Gnome2 fork that was recently announced may end up in the same state, but we'll see. I'll put the question out here one more time: those of you infuriated by the Gnome and/or KDE developer's new plans - what are you going to DO to solve your problem? Or are you just infuriated because you don't see anything that you think you CAN do besides being publically angry? |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 1:19 PM EDT |
DrDubious - No, the fact that you don't understand free software means you don't understand free software. The free in free software is about freedom, not about price. Any adult understanding of freedom, realizes that freedom includes notions of responsibility and respect for the freedom of others. |
| tuxchick Aug 23, 2011 1:33 PM EDT |
DrDubious, you're right that being mean to other people is wrong. Every other point you raise has been discussed and answered to death. Your biggest mistake is to place a money value above all other considerations, that when users don't pay money then they have no rights. I guess people don't read stuff, like what Skelband said and I quoted:Quoting: if you contribute work for a software eco-system like KDE or GNOME, you also take on a mantle of social responsibility. What you do affects thousands, maybe millions of people. That is not something you do lightly. Free software is not some trivial thing that doesn't matter. Users have every right to hold developers accountable. Especially devs who seem incapable of learning from recent history. |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 1:45 PM EDT |
> None of this still explains what the continuing arguments are supposed to do to convince anyone... Personally, I'm not trying to convince anyone to do anything. But the KDE4 developers (and now apparently the Gnome3 developers) did not take the needs or desires of the existing users into to account, and then when those users complained told them they were the problem, that there was nothing wrong with the software. As long as people keep trying to excuse that or pretend it didn't happen, I'm going to keep pointing it out. Yeah, I may get tired of it eventually, but... > None of this still explains what the continuing arguments are supposed to do to convince anyone to start providing the old free stuff that the angry users want again. Nothing anyone can say or do is going to convince the KDE4 developers to start providing KDE3 again. But then nothing ever was going to. That decision had already been made when they started KDE4. The Gnome team hasn't stated when they'll stop supporting Gnome2 yet. We'll have to wait and see on that. > Or are there really many people that figure if they hurl invective at their chosen project (and sometimes anyone perceived as making excuses on their behalf, apparently) long enough that they'll eventually just do what they're told? I've never hurled invective. I've merely pointed out, and continue to point out, that the KDE4 devs betrayed their existing user base. Do what they're told? I've never told them what to do. And frankly, who cares what they do? They're irrelevant. Their own actions have made them so. They have no interest in supporting actual users, so why would any user in their right mind take any interest in what they do? They've finally succeeding in making Linux running their environment what Microsoft always called it: A toy OS which no one can count on for getting real work done. Fortunately, Linux isn't dependent on their environment. > ...those of you infuriated by the Gnome and/or KDE developer's new plans - what are you going to DO to solve your problem? I'm not infuriated by their plans. I'm only upset that they claimed users who were only trying to use their systems were the problem rather than the software they produced. I know many of those users, some personally and the rest virtually, and I know they weren't the problem. The software was. As to what I'm going to do? I'll do what I was already doing: use XFCE. The few KDE apps I used are replaceable. I don't need KDE4 or Gnome. If XFCE goes away, there are other options. And if worst comes to worst, I could always use Windows if I had to. |
| skelband Aug 23, 2011 2:38 PM EDT |
@Dr Dubious: "I'll put the question out here one more time: those of you infuriated by the Gnome and/or KDE developer's new plans - what are you going to DO to solve your problem? Or are you just infuriated because you don't see anything that you think you CAN do besides being publically angry?" Well let me toss that right back you and ask, "What can ordinary Gnome users do?" There's no point telling them that they should try something else. What if something else won't do? What if someone's 80-year old granny has been using Gnome for a couple of years? Who is going to tell her that her entire Linux world is about to fall apart and there is nothing she can do about it? There is no point telling them that if they don't like it, they should get involved with the project and instigate change from the inside. Nobody is listening, at least not unless you are part of the "inner circle" of developers that do get listened to. There's no point telling them that they should just stick with what they have, because their entire Linux eco-system will stagnate. So what's left? Only anger, disbelief and resentment and you can honestly say that you are surprised? Current Gnome users don't have a voice and feel impotent against these cloistered people. And let's face it. Gnome users ARE important, they are probably the most important aspect of Gnome. If it weren't for the users, what is the whole point of the exercise anyway? |
| skelband Aug 23, 2011 2:50 PM EDT |
It's not all bad news of course. The GIMP developers, although they are few, have listened to public opinion and we now have a single window mode option. That's how free software is supposed to work. Blender, another great free software project listens to users all the time and they now have a fantastic product that is getting better all the time. When you listen to users, you build up an enormous body of supporters and contributors that will sing your praises to the rooftops. That's how it is supposed to work. |
| jdixon Aug 23, 2011 3:16 PM EDT |
> When you listen to users, you build up an enormous body of supporters and contributors that will sing your praises to the rooftops. Yep. And when you don't, you don't. Instead you lose supporters and contributors and get bad press. Funny how that works, isn't it? |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 3:21 PM EDT |
@skelband - Shame on you! Your thoughtless mentioning of projects that are working the right way can only serve to make the KDE and GNOME developers look bad by comparison. Do NOT mention well-run projects that create great output by incorporating the input of their user base. Got that? |
| skelband Aug 23, 2011 3:46 PM EDT |
That is an interesting point actually. Blender just recently had a total makeover. The UI has changed out of all proportion. The new UI has had wondrous praise heaped upon it. Users of 2.49 had a lot of work to migrate to the new UI. Some of the functionality in 2.49 has not yet made it to the 2.5 release set. Strangely though, I've heard only praise for this achievement. What was different? The discussions about the new UI were endless. There were mock-ups of what it should look like. The new UI was focussed NOT on departing in a totally different direction, but bringing much-needed order to the chaos that had gradually accumulated. The changes were focussed on one area, that of rationalising what needed rationalising. I reckon the Gnome developers would have had a much better time of it if they had just phased their development a little better and had more focus: 1) Sort out the underlying problems in the unseen infrastructure. These problems are often trotted out as the excuse for the whole enterprise. Sometimes, this is necessary and I have no beef with that as a concept. Port the current desktop to incorporate the new infrastructural changes. It's not as much fun as designing a new UI, but they had to do it anyway right? Then, and only then, 2) Develop an additional shell to be offered as an option as well as the traditional desktop. People are free to try it and feedback views etc. If they had taken this longer term view, I believe that the whole enterprise would have been much more up-beat. |
| dinotrac Aug 23, 2011 4:10 PM EDT |
>If they had taken this longer term view, I believe that the whole enterprise would have been much more up-beat. Bingo. Not to mention professional and respectful. Ingo Molnar's comments about trying to ape the Apple UI without implementing the Apple development process come to mind. |
| krisum Aug 23, 2011 5:48 PM EDT |
Imagine the GCC devs someday decide to bring a 5.0 release changing/dropping most compiler options, dropping support for most non-x86 platforms, making it binary and source incompatible with every previous release *and* simultaneously dropping support for previous 4.x releases. All this will be, of course, because the devs have concluded that gcc has become "too large and unwieldy" with so many "useless" options that a complete rewrite is the best option. The similarity of this scenario with KDE4/GNOME3 has its shortcomings (e.g. fortunately we have more choice in DEs that gcc), but it gives some idea of what the existing KDE/GNOME users have been up against. Ah, and to be on par, GCC devs will have to shout away all users who complain... Edit: Decade old articles on software rewrites and UIs (that I am sure many here would have seen but many developers seem to forget again and again): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html , http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.... |
| flufferbeer Aug 23, 2011 9:19 PM EDT |
@tuxchick and @jdixon, Double++ to both of you...I think you both are spot on!! > Yep. And when you don't, you don't. Instead you lose supporters and contributors and get bad press. Funny how that works, isn't it? So true. A commentator who I haven't YET seen in this thread basically wrote on a previous posting that if you don't like a particular desktop environment, be it KDE4/GNOME3 or whatever, then YOU JUST SHOULDN'T USE IT!! (my own shouting here) Therefore, by this latter commentator's reckoning and those of many of the opinions expressed here, we can expect to see that those distros becoming increasingly popular are those which either a) use default desktop environments _OTHER THAN_ KDE4/GNOME3 or else b) make it ridiculously easy to _SWITCH AWAY_ from these particular desktop environments. I wouldn't even be too surprised if upcoming distro reviews _BOLDLY EXCLAIM_ that a particular distro is completely unburdened by KDE4/GNOME3 baggage!! 2c |
| Fettoosh Aug 23, 2011 10:55 PM EDT |
Quoting:A commentator who I haven't YET seen in this thread basically wrote on a previous posting that if you don't like a particular desktop environment, be it KDE4/GNOME3 or whatever, then YOU JUST SHOULDN'T USE IT!! (my own shouting here)... hmm, may be busy using his/her favorite DE instead of wasting time on an endless argument!? Any ways, that sounds like a good solution, doesn't it? |
| vainrveenr Aug 23, 2011 11:43 PM EDT |
Quoting:I wouldn't even be too surprised if upcoming distro reviews _BOLDLY EXCLAIM_ that a particular distro is completely unburdened by KDE4/GNOME3 baggage!!Although not particularly "boldly exclaimed" as such, here are a pair of fairly-recent distro releases that predominantly incorporate LXDE: 1. Linux Mint 11 LXDE. Positive review just posted to LXer as 'Linux Mint 11 LXDE review' via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/154996/index.html 2. Salix OS 13.37 "LXDE" edition. Positive review posted to LXer within last few days as 'A Xubuntu Fanboy Moves to SalixOS' via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/154907/index.html Although it certainly would not be the strongest correlation regarding LXDE's relative popularity compared with other DEs, one will note in the DistroWatch 7-day Page Hit Ranking found at http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dataspan=1 that the Linux Mint and Salix OS websites are among the top increasingly-visited distro websites over the last week. It has been during the last week or so that better known writers such as Byfield have reviewed the recent KDE4 and Gnome3 developments and analyzed end-user reactions to these. Is the sudden surge in the popularity of the aforementioned LXDE distros in the face of end-users' reactions to KDE4 and Gnome3 merely coincidence ?? Perhaps not...... |
| dixiedancer Aug 24, 2011 6:37 AM EDT |
I am the author of article #2 above, "A Xubuntu Fanboy Moves to SalixOS." I'm sorry to report that LXDE positively sucked on SalixOS and I quickly switched to Xfce. I love LXDE's file manager, however, and retain it. I wanted to revisit LXDE since it had been a long time since I tried it. But too little has changed. And even with only 512 RAM and an older Celeron processor, I find very little difference in performance between LXDE and Xfce on that machine. |
| kingttx Aug 24, 2011 4:41 PM EDT |
I think some developers got tricked by all the nut jobs saying, "See Linux with its 1995 user interface? HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! You people suck!" So off they go trying to make a new GUI thinking, "We'll show you all! We can change and make a new GUI! Take that!!!" It's like watching a bad horror movie, "Don't go into that room...no, NOOOO!!" |
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