KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 192.168.1.50]
on July 17, 2008 09:03 AM
Yes, big marketing problem. KDE should have supported running KDE3 alongside KDE4 for longer - this is why Fedora for example offer only KDE4 in F9 "because running KDE3 and 4 together is not supported upstream". THAT was the problem - not supporting running the two in parallel - NOT releasing KDE4. Sure it would have required extra developer effort, and perhaps it just wasn't there, but if KDE was a business it it what they would have had to do.
However, I have been using KDE 4 trunk for the past 4 months on my production computer. With Fedora 8 if there is a problem I can switch back to KDE3.5 (or XFCE) with a minimum of fuss, my emails are all still there etc. There have in fact been very few showstoppers that have made me need to switch back. As a result I have been using KDE4 and reporting bugs - which I hope has helped the quality of KDE4. If they had NOT released KDE4, then I wouldn't be.
My 2c - you ain't seen nothin yet. KDE4.1 will be solid but not too innovative. 4.2 will be buggy again with the new stuff (akonadi, nepomuk etc) but by 4.3, KDE will blow away the Gnome and Vista competitors.
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KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.168.1.50] on July 17, 2008 09:03 AMYes, big marketing problem. KDE should have supported running KDE3 alongside KDE4 for longer - this is why Fedora for example offer only KDE4 in F9 "because running KDE3 and 4 together is not supported upstream". THAT was the problem - not supporting running the two in parallel - NOT releasing KDE4. Sure it would have required extra developer effort, and perhaps it just wasn't there, but if KDE was a business it it what they would have had to do.
However, I have been using KDE 4 trunk for the past 4 months on my production computer. With Fedora 8 if there is a problem I can switch back to KDE3.5 (or XFCE) with a minimum of fuss, my emails are all still there etc. There have in fact been very few showstoppers that have made me need to switch back. As a result I have been using KDE4 and reporting bugs - which I hope has helped the quality of KDE4. If they had NOT released KDE4, then I wouldn't be.
My 2c - you ain't seen nothin yet. KDE4.1 will be solid but not too innovative. 4.2 will be buggy again with the new stuff (akonadi, nepomuk etc) but by 4.3, KDE will blow away the Gnome and Vista competitors.
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