While surfing around on Teh Intarwebs, I’ve read complaints from people that we’re doing
something radically new to the user. Some of those users seem to have problems with all
that “radically new” stuff. Honestly, I don’t think they have seen anything we *can* do
yet. With KDE 4.1, we have pretty much implemented functionality that was there, made
applications smarter, and polished the looks. Almost all of the work on the UI,
especially in Plasma has been put into recreating functionality from KDE 3.5. What is so
radically new to it? Having a shallow look, both — KDE3 and KDE 4.1 have quite a
similar interface. Panel with tasks in it, an application starter menu, a simple clock
with a calendar, a virtual desktop switcher and the systray. Just about
everything is in the same place where people using KDE 3 used to find it. And in
4.1, you’ll have icon groups on your desktop that work just like kdesktop’s
filemanager, only a bit more flexible. Overall nice improvements, but certainly
nothing radically new as a whole. That’s probably as far as it can get with
re-creating the traditional desktop. Nobody wants to create an exact copy of KDE
3 at this point anyway. If we would have wanted that, we wouldn’t have started
this journey that is KDE4.
KDE 4.1 looks like it is. It’s a relatively conservative traditional desktop. If
you look at the KDE 4.0.4 implementation of openSUSE, it’s even very close to
how KDE 3.5 looks like and works. Besides that, you have enough choice to run
any traditional desktop around, whether that’d be KDE3, GNOME, XFCE, or whatever
you like. And in August, we’ll release KDE 3.5.10 for those that prefer 3.5.
See, we’re nice people, we’re not abandoning 3.5. We don’t want you to move.
It’s completely up to you. KDE 3.5 is rocksolid and works really well in many
aspects. KDE 4 has not reached its full potential yet. You will be able to
decide yourself when it’s time to move to KDE4, if ever. And if you happen to
fall in love with KDE4 applications, which is quite possible, they also run just
fine in KDE 3. Surely the developers do need some room for innovation and trying out new
ideas. It would be strange if we kept adhering to all those traditions and
copied 3.5. And it’s why we created KDE 4 in the first place. Two years ago I
talked with a Canadian friend on the phone about KDE 4 and Plasma in particular.
The idea was back then to create a desktop that is backwards compatible with
what people are used to, yet offers new cool stuff that gets you hooked. With
KDE 4.1 we’ve probably reached this goal. A desktop that’s pretty close to 3.5’s
functionality. Regarding those relatively small adjustments we’ve made to the desktop
shell, one could wonder what some people say when their filemanager and
applications start dealing with information, rather than with data
understanding relationships between information, people, … and works with
metadata and semantics, rather than a hierarchic filesystems. (that’s what
nepomuk might bring us at some point) What about when we start blurring the
lines between the desktop, the network and other devices. Will people start
freaking out then? A couple of days ago, I read that 166 new SVN accounts have been created in
the last 6 months, that’s a lot of new blood. That’s 166 people that plan to
contribute to KDE codebase on a regular basis. And those are people that are
obviously attracted by the direction KDE is taking. So what will KDE 4.2 look like? Judging by what the Plasma team has
accomplished in the last couple of months and the magic crystal ball, we might
see some mighty cool new things. I’m certainly looking forward to integrated
uiserver and Plasma notification applet, the concepts of detachable extenders
and Plasma’s ZUI integrated with KWin and generally made more polished. I’m sure KDE 4.1 will be a blast, and if people still complain that it
doesn’t do exactly the same as 3.5, we can probably never get it right for some.
I’ve personally always found KDE a friendly bunch of people that like creating
cool and free technology together. Let’s concentrate on just that. Happy hacking! Props to Wade for the picture.