What's going on guys?

[Arthur Pemberton]

First off, I know I have had little to know productivity so please
forgive the possible rudeness.

But I am quite concerned by the non technical challenges that KDE in
Fedora seems to be facing these days.

1. The "powers that be" of Fedora still seem to consider KDE a "second
class" citizen. I have publicly defended against this perception in
the past, so this is a bit important to me.

2. Some F9 and F10 users seem to feel very strongly about the KDE 4.x
experience. Nothing good seems to be coming out of the ongoing
discussions.

Seems like you guys have enough technical problems to deal with as it
is. What are "we" going to do about this?

I intend to put more effort in myself soon, but I have some personal
hurdles to overcome.

Arthur Pemberton

[Rex Dieter]

Post by Arthur Pemberton
First off, I know I have had little to know productivity so please
forgive the possible rudeness.

Not at all. Thanks for the candor.

Post by Arthur Pemberton
But I am quite concerned by the non technical challenges that KDE in
Fedora seems to be facing these days.

Nod. We all need to stay vigilant.

Post by Arthur Pemberton
1. The "powers that be" of Fedora still seem to consider KDE a "second
class" citizen.

Really, what makes you think that?

Post by Arthur Pemberton
2. Some F9 and F10 users seem to feel very strongly about the KDE 4.x
experience. Nothing good seems to be coming out of the ongoing
discussions.

Let me offer a different take: I think it's been valuable... both in
hearing all sides' opinions, and in identifying folks' concerns. From
the recent fedora-list thread, my perception of it was that most people
seem to be satisfied with how things are progressing, and that there are
only a few very vocal members of our community who are genuinely unhappy.

Post by Arthur Pemberton
Seems like you guys have enough technical problems to deal with as it
is. What are "we" going to do about this?

Some very interested people seem to be unhappy about decision-making,
but only after-the-fact. Heck, an analogy I've been tempted to use
recently is this: sometimes folks who don't vote end up being those who
complain most about their elected politicians.

fedora/kde is always open to new ideas and (constructive) criticism, so
my point is that if these folks are genuinely that passionate about kde,
I'd challenge them to become more involved in the process.

-- Rex


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[Paul Johnson]

Post by Rex Dieter
From
the recent fedora-list thread, my perception of it was that most people
seem to be satisfied with how things are progressing, and that there are
only a few very vocal members of our community who are genuinely unhappy.

I've gone to Ubuntu, so you don't hear me complaining about it here anymore.

My complaint against kde-redhat group was wrong. The weakness of KDE
4 is certainly not a fault of RedHat/Fedora or Rex D. I accused
Fedora of trying to subvert KDE by releasing F9 that way, and I was
completely wrong. KDE 4 is a weakness caused by the KDE team itself,
as far as I can see. KDE had all those cool features in 3.5.8 and then
they disappeared in 4.0. I'm not a developer, but I think it would
have been smarter (more honest) to label KDE 4.0 as KDE 3.9 or
something like that, so distributions would stay away from it. But
when they labeled it 4.0, the temptation was irresistable.

The F9 also adopted the beta xorg framework, and so adopting the
not-yet-ready KDE was entirely consistent.

Fedora is not alone. I'm seeing the same complaints about Ubuntu and
SUSE as well. In Ubuntu I'm running Gnome-compiz at the moment, but
I'm eager to see what happens with KDE 4.x. In the Compiz forums,
there is some excited conversation about the 4.1 edition integratin
Compiz into KDE 4.1.

PJ

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
Seems like you guys have enough technical problems to deal with as it
is. What are "we" going to do about this?

Some very interested people seem to be unhappy about decision-making,
but only after-the-fact. Heck, an analogy I've been tempted to use
recently is this: sometimes folks who don't vote end up being those who
complain most about their elected politicians.
fedora/kde is always open to new ideas and (constructive) criticism, so
my point is that if these folks are genuinely that passionate about kde,
I'd challenge them to become more involved in the process.
-- Rex
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--
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas

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[Rex Dieter]

Post by Paul Johnson

Post by Rex Dieter
From
the recent fedora-list thread, my perception of it was that most people
seem to be satisfied with how things are progressing, and that there are
only a few very vocal members of our community who are genuinely unhappy.

I've gone to Ubuntu, so you don't hear me complaining about it here anymore.

Ubuntu has kde-4.0 available too, just they went through the much extra
pain to make it parallel-installable to a kde3 desktop too.

Post by Paul Johnson
... KDE 4 is a weakness caused by the KDE team itself,
as far as I can see. KDE had all those cool features in 3.5.8 and then
they disappeared in 4.0. I'm not a developer, but I think it would
have been smarter (more honest) to label KDE 4.0 as KDE 3.9 or
something like that, so distributions would stay away from it. But
when they labeled it 4.0, the temptation was irresistable.
The F9 also adopted the beta xorg framework, and so adopting the
not-yet-ready KDE was entirely consistent.

Thanks for the followup Paul. True, there's pros/cons that go into
every decision on when to include these bits in fedora. It just so
happens that we don't agree 100% on whether the pros outweigh the cons
in these cases. And that's ok. :) I'm also ok with possibly/someday
agreeing with you that it wasn't the best decision to include kde-4.0,
but I don't think I'll ever get there.

warning... another soapbox moment coming on...
Leading the pack wrt free software and innovation, is sometimes a little
painful. We've seen that recently in fedora, for example with
PulseAudio, NetworkManager(0.7, *still* not released), xorg, and now
kde4. I'm more than glad to help blaze the path for others to follow.

-- Rex

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[Arthur Pemberton]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 6:58 AM, Rex Dieter <***@math.unl.edu> wrote:
[ snip ]

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
1. The "powers that be" of Fedora still seem to consider KDE a "second
class" citizen.

Really, what makes you think that?

The ongoing '"Default" spin of Fedora' thread leads me to believe that
things are far from cozy. Maybe "powers that be" was a poor choice of
words.

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
2. Some F9 and F10 users seem to feel very strongly about the KDE 4.x
experience. Nothing good seems to be coming out of the ongoing
discussions.

Let me offer a different take: I think it's been valuable... both in
hearing all sides' opinions, and in identifying folks' concerns. From
the recent fedora-list thread, my perception of it was that most people
seem to be satisfied with how things are progressing, and that there are
only a few very vocal members of our community who are genuinely unhappy.

I'm glad that there is some value in this

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
Seems like you guys have enough technical problems to deal with as it
is. What are "we" going to do about this?

Some very interested people seem to be unhappy about decision-making,
but only after-the-fact. Heck, an analogy I've been tempted to use
recently is this: sometimes folks who don't vote end up being those who
complain most about their elected politicians.
fedora/kde is always open to new ideas and (constructive) criticism, so
my point is that if these folks are genuinely that passionate about kde,
I'd challenge them to become more involved in the process.

That is my perception as well. What I don't have a grasp of is the
significance of the numbers.

I like KDE and I like the Fedora community, but how much effort can
you guys put in for what could literally eventually be for only dozens
of user?

The combined effect of highlighting a single "Desktop Spin" and the
some what unintuitive procedure from getting a clean KDE desktop from
the DVD media doesn't seem to bode well for us.

On a more positive note, if at some time in the future, I can commit
to maintain a website or sub-site to highlight KDE in fedora efforts,
would that be considered a good idea? or something that may breed
additional division?

[Rex Dieter]

Post by Arthur Pemberton
[ snip ]

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
1. The "powers that be" of Fedora still seem to consider KDE a "second
class" citizen.

Really, what makes you think that?

The ongoing '"Default" spin of Fedora' thread leads me to believe that
things are far from cozy. Maybe "powers that be" was a poor choice of
words.

Yeah, that's lame. They should just own-up and call it the gnome spin.
They *claim* the "Desktop" spin includes only best-of-breed apps... if
so, where is k3b or amarok (among other very fine and deserving kde apps)?

Post by Arthur Pemberton
What I don't have a grasp of is the
significance of the numbers.
I like KDE and I like the Fedora community, but how much effort can
you guys put in for what could literally eventually be for only dozens
of user?

Don't sell KDE short. There are *many* kde users, particularly outside
the US.

Post by Arthur Pemberton
The combined effect of highlighting a single "Desktop Spin" and the
some what unintuitive procedure from getting a clean KDE desktop from
the DVD media doesn't seem to bode well for us.

I'm curious, what is your definition of "clean KDE desktop" ?

My current beef is that gdm is unconditionally installed everywhere
(except when using KDE Live image), and I'm working on getting that
resolved for F10.

Post by Arthur Pemberton
On a more positive note, if at some time in the future, I can commit
to maintain a website or sub-site to highlight KDE in fedora efforts,
would that be considered a good idea? or something that may breed
additional division?

That would be fabulous. Would be ideal to host such information within
fedora's site/wiki, but beggars can't be choosers. :)

-- Rex


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[Arthur Pemberton]

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
[ snip ]

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
1. The "powers that be" of Fedora still seem to consider KDE a "second
class" citizen.

Really, what makes you think that?

The ongoing '"Default" spin of Fedora' thread leads me to believe that
things are far from cozy. Maybe "powers that be" was a poor choice of
words.

Yeah, that's lame. They should just own-up and call it the gnome spin.
They *claim* the "Desktop" spin includes only best-of-breed apps... if
so, where is k3b or amarok (among other very fine and deserving kde apps)?

Exactly, I understand the decision to use Gnome as a default, but not
making it clear that the user only gets Gnome is unfair (in that spin)

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
What I don't have a grasp of is the
significance of the numbers.
I like KDE and I like the Fedora community, but how much effort can
you guys put in for what could literally eventually be for only dozens
of user?

Don't sell KDE short. There are *many* kde users, particularly outside
the US.

Okay, thanks for that assurance, I had no grasp of that myself.

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
The combined effect of highlighting a single "Desktop Spin" and the
some what unintuitive procedure from getting a clean KDE desktop from
the DVD media doesn't seem to bode well for us.

I'm curious, what is your definition of "clean KDE desktop" ?

See your next paragraph.

Post by Rex Dieter
My current beef is that gdm is unconditionally installed everywhere
(except when using KDE Live image), and I'm working on getting that
resolved for F10.

Having Gnome apps in the KDE spin is fine by me. I actually like that
the system-config tools are in Gtk, although I wish that they have no
*gnome* deps.

However, choosing KDE when installing and getting GDM on your first
successful boot is definitely confusing when you first get started
with Fedora at least.

Post by Rex Dieter

Post by Arthur Pemberton
On a more positive note, if at some time in the future, I can commit
to maintain a website or sub-site to highlight KDE in fedora efforts,
would that be considered a good idea? or something that may breed
additional division?

That would be fabulous. Would be ideal to host such information within
fedora's site/wiki, but beggars can't be choosers. :)

I will look into it, and get back to you. Pre migration, I had wiki
access, but wiki aren't all that good for "rich content".