KDE 4 Delayed Until January
Trouble has been breaking out at the north pole ever since Mr. S. Clause was alerted that KDE 4 will not be released in time for Christmas. Although no official statement has been made, the speculation is that there may not be enough time to order replacement toys for all those geeks.
In a further worrisome development, the coal industry announced a price increase in response to unusual demand from a north pole buyer whom they declined to indentify.
Despite these grim circumstances, there is still hope. Mr. S. Clause plans to give all of his elves one-week courses in computer skill and programming. He hopes that if all his elves assist the KDE team, they can still pull off the release of KDE 4 before Christmas and save the day!
The Real News
The KDE team has decided to delay the release of the much anticipated KDE 4.0 until January 11th, according to KDE Dot News. This is not the first time KDE 4 has been delayed and it seems like the KDE team is, understandably, having trouble meeting the level of the excitement surrounding KDE 4. Still, I believe that the KDE team made the right call. Would you rather have a half-baked version a month earlier or a really incredible desktop a month later, or even a year later?
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:36 am
Well, I don’t think it is that bad. After all, I heard that all Santas helpers are of the Gnome-type!!!
… I’ll get my coat…
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 am
This is a tradeof and classic in management.
In one hand, waiting one month more (or even 4 months) is not a great deal, for the project to be in good shape/with right APIs. That will prevent user grief, support overhead, and coding mess if the APIs are not suited to the developers’ needs.
In the other hand, waiting “even a year later” would definitively be a mistake. “Release soon, release often” is the mantra for project life in open source, and more generally in many extreme programming projects. If you wait longer, you take the risk to have user leaving you, taking the wrong approach and not fulfilling the needs, as well as causing more grief. If that is the case, the goals were simply too ambitious and the project has huge chances to fail anyway, whatever the man power you give it.
KDE is indeed well managed: there is a roadmap, ambitious but feasible, it is followed with less than 50% derive (slip of 6 months for now I think for KDE4, on 1.5 year development - in software this is a performance), it is not bloated (each version is better and faster), the API is clean and refactored, the sources are self contained (only 3-4 major packages to build instead of zillions of libraries) and the apps are integrated and functional. The rest is polishing.
So KDE4 will certainly be a great version… as always, in 6-9 months, when 4.0.2 for instance will be out, that is when distros integrate it.
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:04 am
Finally! Some real innovation on Desktop Linux! I know we had all sorts of good things before Apple and MS, but it was beginning to look as if they were catching up.
A Dec. release would have stunk. The RC was barely usable.
However. I’m not switching to KDE until they completely change the K menu and the bottom bar. I don’t know, KDE just always feels so bulky compared to my GNOME. However, all these new APIs are very tempting. I personally think that KDE and GNOME should work together, but the communities wouldn’t agree with each other.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
It’s way better to wait until January, KDE3 still works better than anything else, but man it is getting hard to wait.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I think the KDE team made the right choice, KDE4 looks temptimg i might actually switch from gnome, KDE3 just did not cut it for me personally at lease not as a whole.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Of friggin’ course the team is going to get it right before releasing it. Otherwise, they’d be like the big monopoly.
Seriously, thanks to the team for all you do, and for doing it well. If I have to wait a month or two or six, so what? I’ll be happy to have KDE4 when the team is ready for me to have it.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Hi there…Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin..holy Sunday