KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 71.178.62.17]
on July 17, 2008 03:18 AM
Bruce:
This article, and the one you published yesterday, both suggest that KDE made it crystal clear that the 4.0 release was, essentially, a developer's preview. This is false. Announcements from KDE suggested that this release was ready for prime time.
All it talks about is improvements and new features. It does not say anything about "developer preview." It does not say it is not ready for everyday use. It does not say it will crash every thirty seconds.
The 4.0 release number, and the KDE press, say to many users that the 4.0 was ready for daily use. You cannot expect all users to sit around and read Linux lists and blogs all day so that they will know that the 4.0 was not ready. I agree that distributors shoulder a big part of the blame here--they should not have distributed something that was not ready. What good is a distributor if he is bundling half-baked software? Fedora put only KDE 4.0 in its recent release, causing me to make a mental note to not use Fedora because they will bundle half-baked software. But KDE, with the 4.0 number and the "Look at this brand new ready thing" release announcement, did not help matters.
KDE should have released the thing as 4.0 beta, with a prominent statement about its half-baked nature. The failure to do so led to the predictable backlash. No problem though. KDE and other prominent projects have learned an important lesson. If you're going to release half-baked stuff, do a better job of communicating that it is half baked.
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KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 71.178.62.17] on July 17, 2008 03:18 AMThis article, and the one you published yesterday, both suggest that KDE made it crystal clear that the 4.0 release was, essentially, a developer's preview. This is false. Announcements from KDE suggested that this release was ready for prime time.
Look at the release announcement:
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/
All it talks about is improvements and new features. It does not say anything about "developer preview." It does not say it is not ready for everyday use. It does not say it will crash every thirty seconds.
The 4.0 release number, and the KDE press, say to many users that the 4.0 was ready for daily use. You cannot expect all users to sit around and read Linux lists and blogs all day so that they will know that the 4.0 was not ready. I agree that distributors shoulder a big part of the blame here--they should not have distributed something that was not ready. What good is a distributor if he is bundling half-baked software? Fedora put only KDE 4.0 in its recent release, causing me to make a mental note to not use Fedora because they will bundle half-baked software. But KDE, with the 4.0 number and the "Look at this brand new ready thing" release announcement, did not help matters.
KDE should have released the thing as 4.0 beta, with a prominent statement about its half-baked nature. The failure to do so led to the predictable backlash. No problem though. KDE and other prominent projects have learned an important lesson. If you're going to release half-baked stuff, do a better job of communicating that it is half baked.
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