----- Original Message ---- > From: Neil Bothwick <n...@digimed.co.uk> > > Okay - that's not entirely KDE's problem; though it would have helped a > > long way with the KDE4 transition if they kept a few people working on > > those issues. > > How would you feel if you were a KDE dev told "we're all going to play > with the cool new toys now, but we want you to stay here and look > after the boring musty old stuff."? It would be bad enough if you were > being paid for it.
Many software developers are exactly in that position. So what? it's what you do when you want to maintain something. That's the also very much the case with numerous kernel developers - they work to keep older versions going as Linus and team move to the next version. So yes, there are even volunteers that will do it. > > The big issue is that in moving to sole development of KDE4, distros > > started to drop KDE3 and replace it with KDE4. For example, Kubuntu > > 8.04 TLS dropped KDE3 and used KDE4 long before KDE4 was really user > > worthy - long before KDE was calling it user worthy. > > I think that says more about Ubuntu than KDE, after all ,they'd done a > similar thing with GNOME/Unity now. There were other distros too. Gentoo dropped KDE3 around 4.3. > > But KDEs actions > > of moving sole development to KDE4 prompted most distributions to do > > likewise. > > Many distros, especially the enterprise focussed ones like SUSE, kept 3.5 > around for quite a while. > > > Had they kept a small team working on at least the build issues until > > KDE4 reached 4.3 then the transition would have likely gone a lot > > smoother. > > True, but no one expected it to take that long to get ready, and > diverting resources to look after 3.5 would have meant it taking even > longer. > > > > So install a distro that still supports KDE3 if that's what you want > > > or need. KDE 3.5.10 is still there, it hasn't been withdrawn from the > > > shelves. You're hardly likely to use Gentoo for such users, so lack > > > of core support for 3.5 in Gentoo is not an issue either. > > > > > > > While I am not personally interested in it, please name one. > > > > Gentoo doesn't support KDE3 any more. You have to go to Trinity to get > > the newer, forked KDE3 series. Last I heard they were equivalent to a > > 3.5.12 or so; but I haven't seen anything on the Desktop list for a > > while about Trinity. > > > > Needless to say, you may be very hard pressed to find a modern, > > up-to-date distribution that offers KDE3 support. > > If it defaulted to KDE 3.5, it would be neither modern nor up to date. > But at the time of the transition, when KDE4 was still too flakey for > many, there were several - openSUSE for one. Difference between "modern, up-to-date and functional" versus "modern, up-to-date, and bleeding-edge". If you are aiming for bleeding-edge, then yes, moving to KDE4 at 4.0 would have been fine. But most don't use or want to use bleeding edge - they want functional. In both cases they still want modern and up-to-date. Ben
