I thought this was a really nice letter that was sent to us, so I'm
passing it on to the community. I did already get in touch with him
about the 4.0 release, but I'm happy to forward along responses on any
other topic.
--Jeff
Forwarded message:
Dear KDE Team,
I would like to extend my gratitude for your years of gruelling work
and dedication to the KDE Desktop. It was due to your outstanding
work on the KDE 3.x series which finally gave me the push to discard
Windows and use GNU/Linux exclusively on my machines. The sheer
configurability of the environment made working on my computer a joy,
far more so than the bland desktop of Windows 2000 and XP. The full
software integration with the desktop out of the box made for far less
effort than with any other environment, a thing which gave me a strong
bias against Gnome and GTK applications in general. Then you amazed me
again with the announcement of KDE4, and I waited with baited breath
to see what new wonders you had in store. Needless to say, I was
disappointed for more than two years while the bugs were worked out,
but the result was a highly polished desktop that nearly made me
forget the KDE3 days altogether. The smooth, fluid elegance of KDE is
a testament to the passion you put into every line of code, and like
all labors of love, its perfection is a slow and painstaking process.
It is for this reason that I wanted to express my thanks with a
semblance of eloquence before I expressed any criticisms. The Open
Source community is extremely mercurial and can often be cruel when
changes to their favorite platform do not meet their expectations, and
I refuse to add further insult. That said, here are my observations,
both on my machines and from the postings of other users over the
years.
KDE has always been at the forefront of innovation on the GNU/Linux
platform. It was the first to incorporate such things as integrated
support for USB devices and filesystems, mp3 players, and the like.
For this reason, it has always had to be cutting edge, and stability
has historically suffered as a result. It is a classic trade-off
between state of the art features and long-term stability, and KDE and
Gnome have always been at opposite ends of that spectrum. Your gift
has always been to fuse cutting edge with a beautifully polished
interface, and to listen closely to your user base at every step of
the way. However, the consequences of the trade-off have been hasty
integration of features and the inevitable introduction of bugs which
hinder the stability of the platform. By the time the primary release
approaches mission-critical stability, it is abandoned so development
can begin around the newer Qt version. The last time you abandoned a
KDE version in favor of the newer library, a large chunk of your
users, including myself were forced to other desktops in hope that
KDE4 would be stabilized within a reasonable amount of time. However,
as many have discovered, the philosophies behind desktops can be
vastly different. As a Gnome 2/Mate user, I can tell you the Gnome
team is much less inclined to heed input from the community, as was
seen with the release of Gnome 3 and the complete abandonment of the
standard desktop environment in favor of a unified one which was meant
to spread to tablets and smartphones. As a GNU/Linux user, I have been
continually disappointed by the Gnome team's refusal to heed the
wishes of its users for a purely desktop environment, but feel more
than a little trapped because while KDE4 is now stable enough for my
use, you have already begun work on its replacement. As silly as it
sounds, when KDE 3.10 was dropped in favor of the extremely buggy and
obviously beta KDE 4.0, I felt as if I had lost an old flame, never to
see her again. I remained bitter for several years, especially
because I was forced to either use Gnome or return to Windows. Even
as I write this letter from the Mate environment, I both long for KDE
again and worry that history may repeat itself.
Like all labors of love, the next KDE platform will inevitably take at
least a year after initial release to become stable enough to be
considered worthy of mission-critical environments, however to
continue disenfranchising your users with such quick transitions from
one major release to another will only lead to further disappointment
and even distrust. As a user of GPL software and a KDE lover, I would
like to pose the following suggestion: Grow in wisdom, not only from
your own experience, but that of others as well. You have made a wise
decision indeed to make KDE 4.11 a Long-Term Support release. It is
perhaps the wisest decision you have ever made. If you use an STS/LTS
model for KDE5, it would be stable enough for mission-critical
environments much sooner, and we would never again fear another
KDE4-esque upset.
In closing, I would like to thank you again for such a beautifully
engineered desktop. I pray that God will bless you in your endeavors,
not only in KDE, but in your homes, families, and your finances.
These are hard times indeed, and I hope you have peace wherever you
are.
David "LowTekk" Cole
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