This is just my opinion. I can be wrong, and often am. And judging something as massive as KDE4 has to be more subjective than objective… but seriously, IMO, it really is the worst Desktop Environment ever. Yeah, I know it’s not really a crazy bloated piece of crap, but here’s the thing… it behaves EXACTLY like a crazy bloated piece of crap on my computer. What elevates KDE4 to such epic awfulness is the fact classic that such a classic Desktop as 3.5 is being destroyed. Many will disagree, ands theior opinions will be at least as valid as mine, but had to say that, at least once.

However, there’s another side to it. KDE4 is the most important software R and D project ever. I bet that more than one classic Desktop is going to emerge from the brilliant groundbreaking work that these brilliant groundbreaking people are doing. It’s going to be worth even this.

KDE4 deserves our support, but it does not deserve to be KDE3’s murderer. However, if KDE3 dies, it will be it’s fans who are most to blame. Let me explain how the free software thing works, because so many of you don’t seem to get it. If you want to keep using KDE3, shut up and keep using KDE3– if not all the time, as much as you can. KDE3 will continue to be maintained if it keeps a userbase, but right now, no one believes that it will, because the distros are dropping it. So stop complaining, and master your fate by remastering your favorite KDE3 live CD to start your own distro, or maybe try mine;

http://www.thekiarablog.blogspot.com

Don’t worry about how you’ll manage future updates, don’t worry about whether it’ll be any good. Just do it! Don’t expect the people who, God bless them, actually love KDE4 to be responsible for keeping KDE3 alive.

Even if KDE3 is no longer supported, a live CD can keep older software secure. (Fixing a compromised system is as easy as a reboot. Take it from me, you learn an awful lot… and now I don’t complain about KDE4 anymore. The important thing is that its no longer my problem, because I know that my distro isn’t about to go over to KDE4 any time soon… or EVER. And if I need the latest software, that’s what my hard drive is for.

Anybody who wants help can reach me at my blog. I’ll do what I can. Me no guru!

You think that I haven’t tried KDE 4.3, don’t you? I love it when you guys just assume that I’m talking about KDE4.0. Actually, that’s not true, I sort of hate it.

Yes, yes, I know. They’ve come a long way. KDE4.3 isn’t bad. In fact, I’d call it the second best KDE I’ve ever used.

Why would I want updates of KDE3? To make it more like KDE4?

I’m fine with KDE3 not getting any more real development. It doesn’t need it. That’s kind of the point. It’s why we’re here. In a limited way, KDE3 is sort of perfect. It can’t really be improved, and so it seems natural and just for the developers to head out in a new direction. The KDE developers are too talented and ambitious to confine themselves to bugfixes and security updates, and that’s all that KDE3 is going to need. So this an excellent opportunity to start a big ambitious long term project. This is important work. I support KDE4, to the the extent that it’s not being shoved down my throat.

Who decided that the big ambitious longterm project would be the only choice? From here, it looks like Novell and Canonical started the stampede, and then everybody else just lined up behind them.

I’m not convinced that there won’t be any maintanance on KDE3, (though I’m preparing for that eventuality). KDE still has a lot of users, and if KDE completely closes the door on KDE3 while there’s a userbase… I promise you, that’s going to be when the fork happens. Only KDE can decide to fork KDE. The KDE team is smarter than I am; no doubt they figured this out long before I did.

One thing that I have noticed is a vast discrepency between the online world and the real world I see in front of me. In the real world, almost everybody I know hates KDE4. It used to be everybody, but there’s one guy in my lug who likes it now.

Right now, maintainance is frozen, not because the users are abandoning KDE3, but because the distros are abandoning KDE3. This makes sense, because for most distros, keeping two versions of KDE around is a pain in the ass. The only exception may be a couple of distros like Vector and Zenwalk, which are Slackware based, and use XFCE for the default desktop. The logistics of offering their users a choice aren’t all that daunting.

What we need are some user-generated distros. The KDE4 “public nonoption” was decided for us by corporations and developers. Users were not consulted. There’s nothing unjust about this. “Free as in Freedom” means that everybody does what they like to do. Corporations like to scramble to get in on the next big thing, and developers like development. Users can create their own live CD distros, and we ought to, because development is only going to accelerate. If we don’t want to be forced to use whatever the developers shove at us, we need to create our own options. With alkl these distros, there’s room for one or two that is comitted to KDE3.

People don’t like change. I’m amazed at how many times I’ve seen this observation employed condescendingly by those who then profess amazement at the manifest truth of that observation. They demand a logical reason why I prefer KDE3, or else I’m irrational and therefore wrong. I have logical reasons, but they’re really just rationalizations. Here’s the problem: I don’t enjoy using KDE4. I just don’t. It’s so carefully planned out that I don’t feel that computing with KDE4 is a creative act. I have opportunities to be creative only where they have been provided for me. I was fooled into thinking I liked it, but I was merely impressed by it. Turned out that’s not the same thing. Once I stopped being impressed, it was all over.

I am waiting for a Stable KDE 4.3 desktop from pclinuxos and mepis.

4.4 and 4.5 will introduce a bit more polish on the base of 4.3, but largely the cool stuff will be in the new features which are taking advantage of our the new infrastructure we’ve developed. Gnome is following us in this regard, btw, see for example tracker/zeitgeist (copying Nepomuk, luckily they cooperate) and the new desktop shell, an inflexible version of what Plasma could do.

And the innovation we’ve done is noticed. OpenSuse’s decision on the default choice for KDE and Nokia’s dumping of GTK are just the beginning. Many formerly Gnome shops like Collabora are moving to Qt/KDE development now, and the KDE companies like BasysKom, KO GmbH and KDAB are flourishing like never before. Actually, if you’re looking for a job and have some Qt skills…

So this blog would’ve been the basis for an interesting discussion if it was posted in 2008. Now, it’s just obsolete.