On a slightly more positive note, I've been very nearly overwhelmed by the response from people at the Summit on Sustainability here as well as from the 4.2 release event. I have met a large number of very interesting people and am now suffering from a somewhat monumental backlog of email from them. It's going to take me a while to get through it all, but having so many new quality contacts to catch up with can only good problem to have.
I'd also like to thank the FSFE team here in Zurich (Shane, Georg and Graeme) for their time the other day. What an intense and useful set of conversations! I can't wait to start working on the issues raised; while very big topics things such as raising awareness of issues around data integrity and identity in online services are important to add to the F/OSS "agenda". Extra thanks to Georg for coming out to present at the 4.2 release event.
The local team here, particularly Luca and Pascal, have been wonderful and I have managed to not get lost even once thus far in Zurich. An amazing achievement for me. ;)
Anyways ... back to the email salt mines. ;)
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23 comments:
Thanks for all the hard work. The trouble is always that everyone knows they are right and everyone has to accept they might be wrong. It's a shame about the relatively sparse coverage of 4.2 release, but people will start to hear about how cool it is one way or another.
Enjoy the new release for some days. I enjoy it too.
Best wishes from a happy KDE 4.2 user.
Hi Aaron
I enjoyed your speech in Zurich very much. A very honest thing: I had two friends left and right which aren't really into the Free Software stuff and they were the hell angry at least at he FSF guy who spoke before.
The reason is, he spoke like a priest or a pastor telling the truth and the rest says amen. I disliked this very heavily too.
I mean, 90% of the people already knew most of what you and Georg said. So if the other 10% walk out and say, well hey, that was cool, then this would be a real gain. But with that kind of presentation, Georg just turned them away and that's a real pitty. At the end they just said - well, too much religion for me.
Cheer up Aaron, your work is much respected and appreciated!
A GNOME user :)
I've happened to see your presentation in Zürich as well. You did a great job!
Free software has many strengths, enough to write books about, but, for me, it can all be summed up in a word "cooperation". Every free-software contributer and pundit should have a post-it over their monitor reading "Free Software is cooperation".
Dont let the haters get to you. Keep up the good work.
Just remember that for every whiner there is about 50 people who quietly enjoy the fruits of your labor :).
And even in the case of the whiners, they are quickly running out of things to complain about. If the primary complaint about 4.2 is the file-format used in the release-announcement screencasts, you can be pretty sure that the desktop is in pretty good shape ;).
Seriously, all the complaints I hear are about 4.0 and 4.1 (to lesser extent). I hear very little complaints regarding 4.2. In time, those people will more on with their complaints. Either to other desktops, or to newer versions of KDE. But in either case, complaining will diminish.
I still remember snarling at people who disliked KDE4. And I took it personally when mindless trolls whipped up random nonsense, especially the ones who do not believe in bug reports. Considering the fact that I am not even involved in the development, I can not imagine your pain.
Anyway, KDE 4.2 is an amazing release! KDE has always kept me excited right from 4.0. With the kind of momentum the KDE project has, I am pretty sure that by 4.5 we'd have konquered the world :-)
Thanks for sticking to your guts.
Aaron, you should know by now that a number of people were never going to like KDE 4 after all these years leading to it. Let's be honest, you've experienced it before. The sound of silence from many is deafening right now and if KDE 4 starts getting the coverage it deserves from now on the noise will be even more deafening. It's just the way it is. They don't matter though.
We've reached something of a technological impasse right now where no other open source desktop can start doing what KDE does and will do in subsequent releases to compete with Mac OS and Windows. Hell, no one can even complain about the license for developers now. The bottom of the barrel is dry in terms of anything that might be really newsworthy or even rooted in fact.
If you thought somebody like Microsoft were the ones who were going to be trying to drag you down underwater, think again. None of it matters though.
Aaron, the work of you and the rest of the kde-community is amazing...grats for this excellent release!
Sorry Aaron, having a lot of trouble feeling much sympathy for you. Let's recap.
1) Release a new version of popular desktop environment (which is known for it's configurability and stability) in a buggy, slow state missing a lot of basic functionality.
2) Don't label it a beta or developer's release because you want more people to use/test it.
3) Act surprised when people bitch and moan about #1.
I mean seriously. You released a version of KDE (a final version, after beta and RC versions) where users couldn't alter the size of the panel. Should people have listened to you and other KDE devs and known that this was just a starting point, and there was better to come? Yes. Should distros have waited until at least version 4.2 before including it in distros? Yes. But... should you have expected a hailstorm of scathing reviews and legions of internet trolls like myself to complain and endlessly criticize the release strategy? YES.
Just ignore it. It will eventually blow over. Stop responding to most of the press, even when a notable like Linus tells someone he prefers cocoa puffs to frosted flakes and websites run with the story. It's not worth it, and by responding, you generally only make things worse.
I think the author of the LWN article made an interesting point when he wrote that KDE devs were probably so excited about what they had accomplished, they lost the ability to take a step back and see how most users would view the new KDE. A lot of users don't care about your vision, about the new paradigm, or what may happen in 2-3 years. They care about the fact that they can't have icons all over their desktop or autohide the taskbar.
So ignore all this puffery. There will always be a mention of the 4.0 release debacle in KDE4 related release articles, but that is the price you'll have to pay for your mistakes. In my unwanted and unrequested opinion, most of this could have been avoided if the state of plasma was a bit more mature in 4.0. But it doesn't matter now. The past is the past. The 4.2 release annoucement on kde.org was done well and stated perfectly. Congrats on 4.2.
@nononononononononono:
Actually, I'm pretty sure that when KDE 4.0 came out, the release announcement said that it was a "developer's preview". As to KDE 4.1, the release announcement said it was an "early adopters" release.
I really don't know what you're complaining about, unless you're saying that the disros should have waited for a production release before shipping KDE4 as the default desktop.
Though you (and the rest of the KDE team) really can be proud of your achievements, please try and learn from your mistakes. Don't overadvertize software still in development, and please don't close wishlist items as WONTFIX just because you do not consider them worthy of implementing. Listen to the users, and for fscks sake customizability is a GOOD thing - what you might think are overly detailed settings might certainly be not.
@yman
You might be pretty sure, but you're wrong. The 4.0 release announcement said nothing about being a developer's preview (see? and round and round it goes...).
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/
I'm not complaining about anything. No one forced me to use 4.0 or 4.1, and I had and have other options. I'm simply making statements and offering an opinion, as are others in the comment section of this blog. The distros most certainly should have waited until 4.2 to include KDE4, but I don't fault the distros for what happened.
Nonononono: What do you hope to accomplish with your whining? But hey, let's amuse you, and play a little game of "what if".
Suppose KDE-devels decided to delay the release of 4.0 by one year. Which means that instead of releasing 4.2 few days ago, they released 4.0.
Now, how exactly would things be better? Sure, this "alternative" 4.0 would be better than the actual 4.0 was. But would it be as good as 4.2? Hell no! 4.2 builds on 4.0, 4.1 and bug-rerports/wishes made against those. If they were just now making the first release of KDE4, that foundation would not exists. NVIDIA-drivers would still be buggy. Wishes made by users would not be implemented since they never occurred to the devels. Bugs would still be unfixed because devels can't check everything.
So we would have WORSE software at this very moment that we have right now. How exactly would that be better situation that where we are right now? Answer: it wouldn't. We would be worse off. We would be running software that had less functionality and more bugs than we are running right now with 4.2.
So please explain your rationale.
Seriously: why don't you build yourself a bridge and GET OVER IT? 4.0 is in the past, and no amount of whining from you is going to change that fact. And thnks to 4.0, we have better software right now than we would have, had you had your way.
@no-boy: you keep bringing up that one announcement. two things are really off about that approach:
a) we communicated clearly everywhere else, prior and post.
b) i, and others, have taken responsibility for that point. no shirking has occurred that that one communique could have been better.
but to sift through all the communication that we put out in the last 18 months, pick that one example and keep harping repeatedly on it is really disingenuous on your part. i get the impression that you can do a lot better than that.
which is to say, whatever your opinion is, we've covered that particular issue so move on or i will help you move on when it comes to comments on my blog here.
I installed Kubuntu with KDE 4.2 and latest Nvidia drivers on a brand new BenQ X31 notebook for a customer on Saturday.
He wanted to try a GNU/Linux distro with the "latest stuff" and we gave it to him. Gave him a rundown when he came in to pick it up and he was just blown away by KDE 4.2. He looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. At one point he said, "you've opened up a whole new world to me".
This was the high point of my working week. So thank you very much Aaron and the entire KDE team. You guys are just kick ass.
@Aaron
I only mentioned that release announcement because yman mistakenly made an assertion that KDE4.0 was called a "developer's preview".
However, that one announcement was not the sole problem. The two developers who claimed that KDE "didn't need users" weren't very helpful. Neither is the current trend of trying to shift the blame to distros.
@Janne
My "whining" was in response to Aaron's posts about the continued emphasis on the release controversy of 4.0.
You can imagine an alternative history however you wish (in your case, always favorable to whatever the KDE devs choose no doubt), but the truth is we'll never know how things could have turned out differently had 4.0 truly been labeled a developer's release. Perhaps the developers would have gotten near the same amount of feedback, given linux users enthusiasm for trying out beta and early releases. Perhaps distros would have actually held off for a bit and not included 4.0 or 4.1 as default installs. Perhaps Aaron and other KDE folks could have focused more on developing and less on PR damage control.
Perhaps KDE's brand name would not be as tarnished as it is currently is because of the controversy. Who knows?
4.2 is indeed a nice desktop environment. I think the KDE team deserves a lot of praise for their work, and I think KDE has a strong future despite these initial missteps. I'm sorry if I don't follow the pattern of unconditional praise and brown-nosing on this blog.
Nonononono: "You can imagine an alternative history however you wish (in your case, always favorable to whatever the KDE devs choose no doubt)"
What I said is just pure logic. Had they only released 4.0 few days ago, it would have meant that the number of usesr using KDE4-codebase during the last year would have been fraction of what it was in reality. How many normal users run SVN-snapshots on their desktop? Not many.
So they would have had less users using KDE4. That would have meant less bug-reports and less wishes. It would have meant less bugs fixed and less features implemented. It would have meant less fixes in third-party software.
All that is just pure logic. If you dispute it, it just proves that you are detached from reality.
"4.2 is indeed a nice desktop environment"
Why do you then insist on keeping on whining about things that took place year ago? What matter is where KDE is right now and where it is heading. It doesn't really matter where it has been. Should we still talk about how first 2.6-kernels weren't that good? Or how first GNOME2-releases weren't that good?
What about KDE's "tarnished" reputation? I think that is seriously overblown. Vocal minority (like you) might insist on whining about things that happened year ago, but everyone else has moved on. And even the whiners and complainers who think KDE4 is crap, will come around as new versions keep on rolling, and they see just how good the desktop is becoming.
But I guess even when we are running KDE 4.5, you will still be here, complaining how "KDE 4.0 was mislabeled! I demand that the developers flagellate themselves and beg for forgiveness!".
"I'm sorry if I don't follow the pattern of unconditional praise and brown-nosing on this blog."
This isn't either/or situation. I didn't praise KDE4.0, since I found it unusable for me. So I didn't use it. Does that mean that I have to keep on whining about it even after one year? Hell no! Does that mean that I should not praise KDE-devels for the amount of improvements that went in to 4.1 and 4.2? Hell no!
The only "praise" you have given is "4.2 is indeed a nice desktop". Everything else has been whining about 4.0. I don't think that people are expecting you to build an altar for KDE-developers, but what could be expected is a little less whining about things that are firmly in the past. It serves no purpose and it accomplishes nothing.
@Janne
Had they only released 4.0 few days ago, it would have meant that the number of usesr using KDE4-codebase during the last year would have been fraction of what it was in reality. [...]
So they would have had less users using KDE4. That would have meant less bug-reports and less wishes. It would have meant less bugs fixed and less features implemented. It would have meant less fixes in third-party software.
All that is just pure logic.
Is not. Because we power users use software features to a greater depth, we would have been stepping on the same bugs and, accustomed to doing it, report them to get fixed. A lot of duplicate reports wouldn't have been made, and Linus would have continued using KDE 3.5 without a doubt. Guess it all boils down to that famous question: how much wood could a wouldpecker peck?
@eMPee584: so you'd be using it from svn and reporting bugs this last year? you and 10s of 1000s of others? that's how we managed to get things polished up, after all.
you also are operating under two other assumptions that i'm really not sure are accurate:
* assumption: release #s are for users. release #s mark milestones in development, and 4.0 according to our conventions means "no more breakages in the stable libraries". binary incompatible, API-shifting changes were going in as late as a couple weeks before 4.0. it's very, very hard to develop apps against such a code base.
* assumption: developers and users will stick around if no release is made. it's very discouraging for developers to work and work and see no release. it's a great way to lose contributors. and users aren't much different. during the 2 years of dev leading up to KDE 4.0 many users switched to other environments that were making releases. people seem to forget that.
it's pretty easy to look around and find projects that don't make releases, and they tend to have one thing in common: despite the quality of the technology they proceed at a snails pace (fewer devs) and have virtually no users resulting to ever extending delays in release ... rinse, repeat, never release.
..still commenting on two day old blog posts is probably not inline with our bleeding-edge life style but here we go *g
Just to say, i didn't really make the second assumption, and though you come up with some valid points and reasoning, we will never find out about the numbers for certain. Reality is a non-linear non-triviality so any reasoning about potential lines of history is like an uninitialized void pointer.. kinda the beauty of watching /dev/urandom flow by XD
The former one, well to keep on riding a dead horse: quality issues caused by a highly in flux API is one thing. But the aspect of it that caused the community rioting was that at the time of the 4.0 release it might have been beneficial to the course of history, if public communication had made very clear to all involved entities: this release is marking the finalization of the APIs, everything else still breaks, either be prepared to get burnt & assist with debugging or *don't touch it*.
However as it turned out now, though a lot of friction was caused and some upset people are probably still crying themselves into sleep - the state that some might have implied from the 4.0 marketing gibberish is actually reached now (which on its own is nothing short of an amazing fact!), and it looks like a fun downhill ride from here. So uhhm whatever let's friggin ROLL ;)
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