Mailing List Archive

090810 Tomáš Chvátal wrote:
> Hello guys,

Hopefully, there are 1 or 2 gals using Gentoo desktops too (smile).

> With this e-mail I hope to convince a few of you to step up and help us
> maintain kde3 packages. But first things first, current state:

-- current state well described, but snipped --

I was using KDE 3.5.x happily, but one look at 4.2.1 was enough:
I'm not interested in bling, rotating cubes, widgets or the rest of it.
What was I to do ? Assuming KDE 3 will disappear sometime in 2010 ,
what could I use instead ?

First, I updated Fluxbox to 1.1.1 & found it does everything I want
& is on balance slightly better than KDE 3.5.10 , let alone KDE 4 .

Then I dropped Kjots in favor of a simple text file,
which is much easier to edit (with Gvim) & back up.

Then I found that Xfce's Thunar is an excellent file manager,
less powerful than Krusader, but far better than Dolphin 4.2.1
(I prefer the CLI for everyday file management, but sometimes need more).
Also, I discovered Xfce's Terminal (by the same hardnosed developer),
which is an adequate replacement for Konsole for simple use:
it doesn't yet have session management, but hopefully will soon,
while it does offer a much wider choice of fonts (incl Luxi Mono ! ).

So that leaves Kmahjongg, whose 4.2.1 version lacked user-edited layouts;
Konqueror, which is sometimes a useful alternative to Firefox;
Kpdf, which is much better (3.5.10) than was Ocular 4.2.1 .
Gwenview & Krusader are independently developed & sb usable with Qt 4 .

So realistically, KDE 3 devotees have to accept it's going to disappear
unless someone does a fork, of which there is no sign,
& have to find alternatives, which seem to be available or almost.

I do plan to have a look at 4.3.1 in October or so
& can only hope Konqueror, Ocular & Kmahjongg will pass muster,
but I am very unlikely to change my view of the new desktop.

As usual, my thanks for the dedicated volunteer labor of all the KDE devs.

--
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb
ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT `-O----------O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Tomáš Chvátal posted on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:16:53 +0200 as excerpted:

> PROBLEMS:
> The KDE project (upstream) mostly stopped working on KDE-3.5 around 2
> years ago and has since dropped any support for that branch of KDE. As
> such, no one is auditing the code or fixing bugs caused by updates of
> deps and Gentoo is unable to track security patches and to fix issues
> related to updates in deps such as gcc or glibc. Also, almost all kde3
> packages will fail with new autotools (autoconf-2.64) (so far masked),
> and they will require quite a few patches to fix KDE autotools stuff
> (admin/ files).

Could you point me to anything definitive saying 3.5 is no longer
supported, an official page on the KDE site, something on one of their
lists, a blog posting, an email that can be made public, anything?

Because I asked on the kde general list [1], quoting Gentoo/KDE's
statement (at the time, I've not checked if it has been updated) in the
KDE Guide [2]:

> KDE 3 is no longer maintained by upstream,
> with 3.5.10 being their last release.

I said I was asking as that conflicted with what asegio had blogged a
year earlier, saying there'd be support as long as there were users. [3]

Anne Wilson, KDE list spokesperson apparent [4], along with some others,
basically contradicted the public Gentoo/KDE statement, saying that while
some bugs for particular kde3 apps are now being closed as unmaintained,
because kde doesn't force devs to work on older versions as they move on
with life, that's not the case with kde3 as a whole, and while there's no
further development going on, security bugs and the like are going to be
supported for some time.[5] Of course "security-bug-only" support is NOT
the type of support ASegio's blog was leading users to expect.

Someone else in the thread also points out that KDE's site (at the time,
has it updated after 4.3?) said that kde 4.2 was recommended for normal
users, but kde 3.5 was still recommended for "conservative" users [6],
those very likely to be concerned about ongoing support.


So from a user perspective, it seems like they're really trying to have
it both ways, claiming continued support when it simply isn't happening,
and effectively putting their fingers in their ears and screaming "na na
na" every time someone tries to point it out, until they give up and go
away, while continuing to complain about the issue coming up again and
again ("for the 100th time", according to Lydia Pintscher, kde/amarok/
kubuntu dev, @ [7]).

As I said in a reply, without "a clear and definitive statement on
continuing kde 3 support," "what's apparently come up 100 times is likely
to come up 100 more..." But while Gentoo has provided just such a
statement, I've yet to see such a "clear and definitive statement" from
upstream, despite enduring that "Nah na na" effect thru that whole
thread, with statements on both sides of the fence, thus nothing really
clear and definitive, tho one certainly gets a feeling for the general
trend.

Now with this post here, it appears KDE's not even claiming security
support any more. Yet they clearly still have users, so as I pointed out
(to much protest) in the thread, I guess [K]Ubuntu was correct in
deciding not to include kde3 in its LTS, with kde4 clearly not yet ready
either, despite ASegio's claim: "KDE3 will remain supported for years.
Why? Because there are users." ([1] quoting [3] again.)

So as I asked above, is there a definitive upstream KDE statement that
they:

> dropped any support for [the 3.5] branch of KDE. [N]o one is auditing
> the code or fixing bugs caused by updates of deps and Gentoo is unable
> to track security patches and to fix issues related to updates in deps
> such as gcc or glibc.

Because while I've seen Gentoo/KDE statements to that effect, I've been
unable to find definitive upstream KDE statements to that effect, and
I've both looked and asked upstream myself. Thus, if you could provide
such a statement, it would be a HUGE help.

[.All that said, with 4.3,0, I've actually finished the switch myself and
finally unmerged 3.5.10 just a day or two ago. There's still a decent
amount of broken stuff like global multi-key hotkeys and a ksysguard that
won't properly obey or retain its settings, but I've found workarounds
for enough of them, that as an "early adopter", I find kde4 at least
usably functional now, even if formerly major parts of my work flow
functionality remain "substantially broken", and have to be worked
around, and even if it did take me ~80 hours of work to reconfigure it so
that it actually /is/ at least usable at what on most /other/ projects
would be called a beta or first release candidate level. Maybe by what
KDE calls 4.5, we'll actually be reaching the x.0 level for /most/
projects, but I've always enjoyed being leading sometimes bleeding edge,
and that's exactly where kde4 is now, with 4.3, so it's actually usable
for me, now, even if that actual usability /does/ involve a number of big
workarounds for still broken functionality that worked well enough in
previous versions to have become relied upon in the course of ordinary
workflow.]

.....
Footnotes:

[1] What's the official status of 3.5.x, anyway? Thread starter:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20947

[2] Gentoo/KDE Gentoo KDE Guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/kde/kde4-guide.xml

[3] http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-bluntly.html

[4] Anne Wilson: At least, she has claimed to speak for KDE, threatening
to ban posters, etc, based on the actions of some KDE committee. It
wasn't me that got that threat so I'd prefer not to post details, but I
have a copy of the email and could probably get permission to post it
from the guy who did get threatened, if needed.

[5] See the entire thread, but particularly:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20948
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20950
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20958
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20965
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20967
etc...

[6] http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20963

[7] http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/20958

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

Duncan wrote:
> Could you point me to anything definitive saying 3.5 is no longer
> supported, an official page on the KDE site, something on one of their
> lists, a blog posting, an email that can be made public, anything?

Nothing definite that I am aware of.

> So from a user perspective, it seems like they're really trying to have
> it both ways, claiming continued support when it simply isn't happening,

With this you basically answered your own question. KDE3 has been
dropped upstream, maybe not officially, but "de facto". Nobody is
working on it, nobody is even interested.

If you want a KDE version that is maintained, you should try 4.3.
Upstream isn't interested in or working on anything older than that.

Cheers,
Ben

Ben de Groot posted on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:38:32 +0200 as excerpted:

> Duncan wrote:
>> Could you point me to anything definitive saying 3.5 is no longer
>> supported, an official page on the KDE site, something on one of their
>> lists, a blog posting, an email that can be made public, anything?
>
> Nothing definite that I am aware of.
>
>> So from a user perspective, it seems like they're really trying to have
>> it both ways, claiming continued support when it simply isn't
>> happening,
>
> With this you basically answered your own question. KDE3 has been
> dropped upstream, maybe not officially, but "de facto". Nobody is
> working on it, nobody is even interested.
>
> If you want a KDE version that is maintained, you should try 4.3.
> Upstream isn't interested in or working on anything older than that.

Thanks. Nice to see /someone/ not afraid to call it what it is.

It was way difficult, ~80 hours of hard work as I said, but I'm on 4.x
(with x=3.0 ATM) now. Paraphrasing what Winston Churchill said of
democracy (and leaving aside that whole debate as off topic), KDE may
indeed be the worst desktop environment out there, except all the other
desktop environments I've tried from time to time.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman