KDE: What a monster!

[Da Rock]

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 16:04 +0000, RW wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:56:15 +1000
> Da Rock <rock_on_the_web at comcen.com.au> wrote:
> 
> 
> > I'm also ashamed that they released it in a hurry to compete in this
> > condition to a very sceptical Window$ crowd. 
> 
> People have to use KDE4 in significant numbers for it to mature. The
> real problem was not that they released it, but that Linux distributions
> rushed to make it the default version, or in some cases the only
> version, in their packaging systems. From what I've read, many people
> in the KDE4 project were not happy about this. If most distributions
> had either followed the Debian approach of keeping KDE3 as the default,
> or the FreeBSD approach of leaving it up to the user there wouldn't have
> been such a problem. One of the worst aspect of OSS is the pervasive
> attitude that software is either bleeding-edge, or it's obsolete.
> 

Thats a fair comment for the linux crowd... :)

> BTW, I don't think it's really fair to suggest that KDE4 is trying to
> ape Vista, it looks to me as if the've both just borrowed a lot from
> OS-X, A lot of the other stuff in KDE4, has been under development for a
> long-time.  

Another fair comment, but they were still competing with Vista to the
punch and only just made it- consider the media releases around the time
of the Vista launch from the kde marketers. They were offering kde on M
$!

Personally I would have waited for the Vista cock up to reveal itself
while I tidied up kde4, THEN swooped in with this really cool
alternative to save the day. Once people realised that this could run on
a FOSS you'd get these projects mobbed with new users (good for linux
anyway).