KDE 4 to Be Released on January 11th

VincenzoRomano writes "It's official! KDE 4.0 will be released on January 11th of next year. The release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release. At the very first Alpha release on march 11th, the release date had been forecasted to October 2007, and then shifted to the end of the year with the second Beta. Despite this, the promises for the fourth version are quite interesting and maybe deserve a 'stay tuned'."

Sounds familiar

Sounds like the Vista launch, pushed back a little further with each test version. Maybe its better for the KDE team to set a date like July 2008 and surprise everybody when they are ready to release it in January?

Re:Sounds familiar

That's not really correct, IMHO.

The difference with Vista is that the KDE team really has some major interesting new technologies now, though most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective. This will change over time. I assume KDE 4.1 will be more about applying/improving those underlying technologies, rather than introducing them.

Aside from the desktop itself, a large number of applications have also vastly improved.

Re:Sounds familiar

...most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective.

As a common user, I care about
1) eye candy
2) rendering times

The last time I tried to use SuperKaramba was a joke and most of the eye-candy features seem to be designed to crash KDE more than anything else. If it now "just works" then I'll be happy. Most of the real improvements are entirely Greek to me.

Re:Sounds familiar

The rendering times should have improved, so has the potential for eyecandy but IMO that's minor. The area where KDE is improving the most is when it comes to the framework. For example, take Phonon which is a multimedia wrapper API for backends like xine, mplayer, gstreamer etc. What does that mean for you? Well, it means the application developers will spend a lot less time dicking around getting sound and video working and instead provide more end-user features. It means that if you got it configured right once, a different KDE app won't work because it's trying to use some other backend that doesn't work. It's not like it's going to rock your boat, I mean having this working is pretty basic right? Well, for the most part KDE is about making the basic things simple. There's a lot of "basic" functionality that can be really complex and waste application developers' time with few tangible results. It they still can't manage to make something flashy and cool with all the time that's freed up, well that's not really KDE's problem.

Re:Sounds familiar

well i think that kde 4.1 would be more suitable for the end user because a lot of great kde applications like k3b aren't yet ported to qt4, but kde 4.0 should be released soon so developers could port and test their apps in a stable kde4 desktop

Re:Sounds familiar

Nope, KDE 4.1 would be more suitable for users because it will be a lot more polished and it will introduce features that couldn't be included in the 4.0 release. However, KDE3 apps would be able to run on KDE4, so you won't miss things like K3B.

No need for a hard KDE ship date

KDE is already great. There is no burning business need to release an update. No shareholders to let down and start a class action.

For me, KDE is already good enough. I'd rather wait until KDE4 is really solid than ty get it out on some arbitrary ship date.

Re:Sounds familiar

Close. KDE 4 was set to be the next Vista. What happened was that right when KDE 4 was first being planned, they hyped one particular aspect, Plasma, as being as revolutionary as icons were when they were first introduced, before any code was written. Unfortunately, this technology was MIA for a long time, and it was introduced at a very late stage. The real problem is that it replaced lots of stable code that is absolutely critical to the user experience - the panel, desktop, etc. This really shouldn't have happened, but it was a core developer's pet project. The result is that it's still unfinished, despite them already having released a "release candidate" (which everybody else expected to be basically finished). And anybody pointing out how screwed up the release schedule was got attacked by fanboys.

So it was set to be the next Vista. But thankfully they actually managed to keep their egos in check and put off the release until the code is in a better state. This is a positive thing. I was seriously considering switching to GNOME until I heard about this.

It gets worse

There's been a particularly heated exchange going on in the developer's blogs which started with someone describing the new desktop/plasma as "useless crap [blogspot.com]." Aaron Seigo (the above mentioned core developer) then replies in the comments "i'm tired of this shit".

Now, one of the complaints leveraged was the lack of familiarity a KDE3 user would have with the alien and unfinished Plasma desktop due to a lack of migration path from the familiar kicker/kdesktop/kmenu. After a few [blogspot.com] more [blogspot.com] exchanges (which are displayed in all their sordid glory on Planet KDE [planetkde.org], Mr. Seigo then announces [blogspot.com] that he already had some code written to implement a more traditional menu system, but in light of being pissed off by people pointing out some pretty glaring flaws, he will not work on it anymore. Classy.

The whole thing is just childish and immature on both parts and doesn't really fill me with confidence, especially in light of the unfinished and buggy RC.

But again, the only problem with the KDE4 platform so far seems to be Plasma, and it's unfortunate since the project as a whole really seems ready to shake up the Linux desktop. Unfortunately the most visible part of it isn't up to snuff.

Re:It gets worse

urg, first, please just .. .aaron. not "mr." i hate that.

however, you missed the point of why i said what i did. it was, quite specifically, to not reward negative community behaviour. if i was a "take my ball and go home" sort of guy, i would've been gone with a lot more than a menu a long time ago.

i'm sorry you (or the grandparent poster) don't like how plasma has come around. i wish it could've gone a different way. perhaps when you try to do something really interesting that's a non-trivial amount of work that tends to push at pretty much every boundary in the frameworks (from x on up) we can have some fun story swapping sessions. until then ...

Re:Sounds familiar

For heaven's sake, don't spread FUD! That "stable code base" you talk about was a mess to mantain (note that Aaron J. Seigo, the Plasma lead developer, was also kicker's mantainer) and to add new features you broke others etc. Plasma it is not by any means aseigo's pet project: there are quite a number of developers involved in developing and polishing it. It matures at an amazingly fast pace, even.

The "fanboys" you talked about were people rightfully ticked off by the constant, uncostructive and negative attitude on the part of the complainers, which did not bring any improvement and only demotivated the developers. Those people did not even bother testing later revisions (right now there's a daily VM image floating around), report bugs or even offer *constructive* criticism.

Re:Sounds familiar

For heaven's sake, don't spread FUD! That "stable code base" you talk about was a mess to mantain

It was a feature-complete, stable mess to maintain. Sure, it's a good idea to replace it with a better design, but not immediately before a major release when the rest of the desktop is pretty much finished and not if you can't finish it on time.

The "fanboys" you talked about were people rightfully ticked off by the constant, uncostructive and negative attitude on the part of the complainers

Those negative attitudes didn't come from nowhere. The initial criticism was reasonable, but it was met with stone-walling and blowing people off. Then they kept releasing beta after beta that didn't work right, continually telling people to wait and that they were trolls for complaining. It is that which really kicked off the flaming you see today.

which did not bring any improvement and only demotivated the developers.

If you're echoing the complaints that people aren't "constructively" criticising, I think you're wrong. When you take something that works and totally breaks it, it's your responsibility to fix it, and you shouldn't complain when people point out it's broken and want it back the way it was. There really isn't anything more to elucidate on when you tell somebody that they just fucked everything up and you want it back the way it was.

Those people did not even bother testing later revisions

Can you blame them? "Here's a beta". "But it's totally broken!" "Stop complaining, it's not finished yet. Here's another beta." "This one's broken too." "Stop complaining, it's not finished yet. Here's a release candidate." "Nope, still broken. Aren't release candidates supposed to be at least feature-complete?" "Stop complaining! It's not supposed to be ready until 4.1!"

When you continually feed somebody shit, eventually they are going to realise that the next spoonful isn't going to taste any better. Not testing later betas is completely understandable in light of how the stability has been misrepresented. The devs already know what they need to work on, they don't need testers to tell them. The real WTF is that if they already knew what the problems were and that it wasn't finished, why did they tag a "release candidate" that had absolutely no chance of becoming 4.0?

Re:Sounds familiar

> but not immediately before a major release when the rest of the desktop is pretty much
> finished and not if you can't finish it on time.

so, we didn't do what you shouldn't do ... good.

> when people point out it's broken and want it back the way it was. There
> really isn't anything more to elucidate on when you tell somebody that
> they just fucked everything up and you want it back the way it was.

hm. see, here's the issue. you think nobody was aware of the regressions at any given point in time? so to have people annoyed, in your face and even asking the same questions several times a day with no real constructive input when there is complete awareness of the situation is not only galling, it's a waste of time. thanks for playing, but unless you have something useful to add to a conversation ... go find someone who isn't me to have it with.

i know how counter that is to the way those raised on slashdot have come to think about interacting with others online. it's also common sense.

the worst part was that at every stage as we added things that needed to be there ... approximately zero people who were the endless whingers about that specific thing would take any note. they'd just settle into the improvements silently at best and whinge about the next most obvious thing (often which we were already working on) at worst. criticism is fine; heck, one could view every patch that changes something fundamental in your code as a "criticism" of the existing code if one was petty enough. what makes criticism bad is when it is empty of content that moves the process towards the goal lines.

dealing with the skewed mindset of many of the users of free software is probably the most horrific thing about working on something in the open. it's amazing to me how so many people see it as some sort of right to be able to make developing in the open as difficult, demoralizing and time consuming as possible.

so i finally just said, "i've had enough, you people start showing some basic responsibility as participants in this process, communication being part of that process. otherwise, you can go somewhere else because i'm not going to take part in that abuse of the process."

i wish more developers would do the same. maybe then the fanboi whingers (on all sides, around all projects) would start to smarten up just a wee bit and we could get on with a much happier development cycle.

So what makes this better than 3?

Anyone have a link handy to a list of new features?

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

Here's [wordpress.com] a list of the major changes and the reasons behind them.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

Keep in mind these are only the controversial features that people have whined about the most. There are tons of new features in the individual KDE apps that aren't mentioned there.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

The most noticeable difference to me is that it's built on Qt 4, which is much faster, uses less RAM, and has stellar Windows, OSX, and X11 compatibility.

Most Qt4 programs (all that I've written for that matter) don't need a line of code changed to work on OSX or Windows.

What are the main differences between KDE & Gn

I've used both, but I'm curious about what people think sets them apart in terms of design philosophy and usage.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

KDE aims for a Windows-ish philosophy of "everything should be configurable". There are options for just about everything, so you can tweak your desktop to be just the way you want it.

I realize that you needed a good Windows/OS X dichotomy with which to compare KDE and Gnome, but you call Windows configurable?!? I've worked extensively on KDE, XFCE, and Enlightenment, and some with Gnome, and you're right: KDE is exremely configurable, far moreso than Gnome. But Gnome is on par with, if not considerably MORE configurable than Windows. Windows is essentially locked as it is, even with those "power users'" tools.

      I'm highly looking forward to being able to use KDE as a WM for Windows systems, without the added cruft of a Cygwin environment.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

Windows is essentially locked as it is, even with those "power users'" tools.

Windows is infinitely configurable by power users, often remotely.

All you need to do is persuade the regular users to click on the right web link or email attachment, and you can do what you want with their box.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

In GNOME you can not open files with applications isn't officially GNOME sanctioned to open those files, and there is no way to change that

Yes, there is. Select a file, right click and select Properties. In the Properties window there is an "Open With" tab which lists all the programs that are currently registered for that file type, and lets you select the default program. At the bottom there is a button "Add". Click that and it will bring up a list of applications, as well as a little expander for "Custom command" which will allow you to enter absolutely any arbitrary command you wish to run. Stick whatever program you want there, hit okay, and lo and behold that program will be in the "Open With..." options for files of that type from then on. Not that hard really.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

I still wonder who or what that mythical power-user is, because I don't think I ever met one in person. The skript kiddie that spends 6 hours per day hunting themes and posting screen shots to forums? Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced developers I know barely change anything in their computer's configuration, even keeping the default OS X desktop image.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

If I had mod points, I'd definitely mod you up...

I agree completely; most people I know who are "hardcore" linux users spend time tweaking their systems, but it's usually just to the point of getting all their hardware working, and then maybe glitzing it up a little bit, usually by downloading a theme they think looks cool. The thousands of fancy customization options usually get left behind, and completely reconfiguring how applications look and run is totally beyond what they care to do. The linux users want to *USE* linux, not waste hours and hours digging into arcane details to reach some potential "perfect setup".

Windows can be tweaked too, but definitely much less-so, and there isn't much support about it either. I don't know anything about tweaking MacOS, other than the fact that i've never seen anyone using a recent version of MacOS that looked like it had been customized any significant extent.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

At first I agreed with you two, but then I started thinking.

o My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace). The left control key doesn't work, so I have X configured to rebind the capslock key ask control.
o I have tons of non-standard apt repositories configured for different programs that I want to keep up-to-date automatically.
o I configured a 32-bit chroot environment so run WINE and Opera work with a 64-bit OS.
o I have a few locally-compiled apps, some of which I've added shell support for.
o I've customized the keyboard shortcuts, albeit mostly to mimic windows. I prefer Win+R to Alt+F2, so shoot me.
o A buncho of UI adjustments (mainly the Kicker)

OTOH, I do still have the default background.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

o My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace).

Which, the keyboard or the wife?

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

>> My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace).

> Which, the keyboard or the wife?

Yes. :-)

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

The point is not to change everything. The point is to be able to change everything. If you look at my desktop, it isn't much changed from the default. I have an extra kicker panel on top with a few useful applets and I use the Polyester style, but other than that I haven't tweaked things much.

However, there are dozens of little tiny obscure features that I use and love, and that wouldn't exist if KDE weren't so configurable. Examples: I have a "stay on top" button on the window titlebars, which I use fairly often, I have several windows configured with custom settings through "Special Window Settings" (to make them show up on the right desktop, for example), I've disabled icons on my desktop altogether, I've tweaked my keyboard shortcuts and configured the extra keys on my keyboard for common actions, and a whole bunch of other little things that I've added over the years. These are less than 1% of the available options, but the point is that they're the 1% that I care about.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

Powerusers, like other users, prefer to use the defaults when they're sane and appropriate. But the 1% that I do change are the things that annoy the hell out of me, and that 1% isn't very different. Think of it this way, you can get into any car and drive. But, you may want to adjust the mirror up, down, left, right and that separately for the one on the left side, right side and center. And don't get me started on adjusting the seat, or hanging up a CD cover on the sunscreen, or adjusting the fan or the air conditioning or change the radio frequence, volume etc. Do I use them? Quite rarely. Would I get really annoyed if I learned it was bolted down and not changable? Yes. I'm a great fan of easy setups - this is what you must do to use it in a meaningful way. I'm also a big fan of "advanced"/"expert" settings, where the user could seriously bork the application. Gnome is too much either safety scissors or scalpel. I'd rather have a swiss army knife - looks rather complicated but it's not worse than finding the one function you do need.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

I still wonder who or what that mythical power-user is, because I don't think I ever met one in person. The skript kiddie that spends 6 hours per day hunting themes and posting screen shots to forums? Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced developers I know barely change anything in their computer's configuration, even keeping the default OS X desktop image.

In between these two extremes there are people who actually use their computer. You don't have to change everything to make yourself more comfortable.

Here are a few things that I tweak/use regularly:

• Window manager: sloppy focus for the mouse, no autoraising or anything. If I want to raise a window I'll click on it, thank you very much.
• Decoration: I drag close icon to the left, with the right being sticky/minimize/maximize.
• Desktop: new desktops come with big widescreen monitors. I usually remove taskbar, put the panel in bottom left corner and put KasBar in the top right. this way the space on the left is completely free - and is the size of the regular 4:5 monitors. Great for VNC, reading papers or having a big terminal.
• On my notebook I changed desktop background to be a slideshow that changes every 20 minutes. When you concentrate on something you will perceive these to go by much faster - after 10 or 20 it is likely time for another meal.
• Konqueror !! The first thing I chased down on Kubuntu Gutsy is how to switch away from Dolphin. Doplhin is fine manager if you don't have many files. Konqueror is the best thing after the shell tools - with the order being reversed when you have images. Right now I have a window open, with several tabs open in different simulation runs, some showing particular documents and this all mixing transparently the documents on my local systems with those on remote systems (using sftp://). And if you are writing a webpage you can have local source in one table, destination public_html in another and a test display in yet another. Just drag files from local to remote when you are done editing and click refresh to display the results !
• Konsole - the first thing I do is kill the menubar and everything else that uses up space, though I now keep the tabs. There is much misunderstanding about terminals. What they are is the perfect (and only) way to display a matrix of symbols with perfect control of individual elements. If you make an image you can squeeze more info into it, but you cannot tell which exact pixel is that dot unless you use a magnifier and kruler. And, of course, you can dump output from find/grep and see it align visually.
• Sessions in Kate are wonderful if lists of files you are editing extend way past screen.
• I set my default viewer to gwenview - so I can change files by using a scrollwheel. If you have many similar files rotating the wheel makes an animation (I could just make a real animation - but why bother typing)

I think this is about it - does anyone else has tricks to share ?

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

does anyone else has tricks to share ?

• kpdf has a checkbox to stop obeying DRM.
• Yakuake is a awesome Konsole based terminal, it works similar to how Quake's terminal pops down when you hit tilda.
• I use fish:// for file access over SSH instead of SFTP.

KDE File Manager

Konq was the killer app for me, I have to confess I'm a little worried about Dolphin becoming the default file manager. I've not used Dolphin much yet, but it will have to be pretty damn good to match what Konq could do. Will I still be able to have terminal, web and file panes all within the same tab? How about dragging images from a website to my /home within a single window, or middle clicking a file or link to open it in a viewer in a new tab? Konq allowed me to keep the amount of open windows to a minimum. I guess time will tell and I should start playing with Dolphin.

I should note that I bloody hate Dolphins (my ex loved the damn things). They aren't as cute as you think, they smell of fish and have attempted genocide [wheelock.edu] on porpoises and even attack humans [scotsman.com]. Why is it that every crystal swinging hippie who lives 1000 miles from the sea wants to be a marine biologist? Dolphins!

Re:KDE File Manager

Konqueror isn't going anywhere, and it will still be the preferred file manager/etc. for power users. Dolphin is included as a simpler file manager with a different design philosophy, that's all. But you don't have to use it if you don't want to, as the same old Konq (KDE4'ified, of course) will still be a click away.

Re:KDE File Manager

"A click away"? That doesn't sound like the KDE I know and love.

It should be exactly 17 clicks away: menubar -> Preferences -> Options -> Settings -> File Manager Settings -> ... something about a platypus ... scrolling list of Latvian surnames ... -> ah, the Dolphin/Konq switch.

Usually we don't get the tiniest little feature without 49 new checkboxes to control every last aspect of it. If they manage to add a whole new file manager, but allow you to switch back with *one* click, they've already lost. I might as well use GNOME.

release it when it's done

just release it when it's done

Re:release it when it's done

Rasterman, is that you?

Re:release it when it's done

I'll answer this question when I'm ready.

But that means

That it will miss the all-important Christmas Shopping season! Just think of all those disappointed kids who wanted KDE4 from Santa.

who might slip the release date?

the release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release.

One simple question: Why can Microsoft not slip release dates without getting flack, but it's okay for open source projects? Both are slipping for the same reasons.

Still slooooooow...?

I don't use either KDE or Gnome (if I can help it), since they are both so damn slow. My systems mostly run IceWM with Rox Panel and Konqueror as the file browser and of course Firefox as the web browser.

KDE can do whatever they like to their system, but if they don't improve the window manager, then it is all still a waste of time.

KDE vs. Xlib/Unix

What, as a programmer, can I do with KDE/Qt that I can't do with, say, Xlib and Unix APIs? I mean, why do we need all this bloat, all this added complexity, all this cruft? I understand that Qt is portable, but so are Xlib and POSIX, that, too, have been ported to (for example) Windows. How much better off we programmers have become now that we have access to the multitude of non-standard development environments, libraries and tools?

As sort of a disclaimer, I can say that do not find the desktop metaphor useful; an environment consisting of openbox/xterm and a text editor is all that I need most of the time.

Excellent news for old-farts.

I love the KDE backend (dcop, kio-slaves, et al.); {I am a little worried that it might provide an avenue for malware in the future a-la Windows}.

Good news: the memory footprint of 'Strigi' is supposed to be lower then Beagle
Great news: You can install/use KDE4 without 'Plasma' (KDE 4 eyecandy)
Awesome news: KDE-based apps should work on Mac & Windows (properly ported)

Firefox has done an awesome job of weening people off Internet Explorer as "The Internet", as more killer-apps (Amarok I am looking at you) become available on Windows it will be easier to get folks to switch.

I use Fluxbox as my WM with KDE-base and KDElibs for my backend. Conky is as fancy as it gets for my eyecandy. I look forward to KDE4 because of all the good stuff that I can make use of. I just hope to $deity that they keep the eye-candy as optional. I am not looking forward to their whole concept of active-desktop/"its where you work dude"/make it an experience that people can interact with.

Rule #1) The DE/WM is HOW you access your programs, and should be invisible to the process.
Rule #2) Just because the median processor/ram is 42-times more powerfull then it was x-years ago does not mean that your programs can be 42-times more bloated.
Rule #3) Keep everything optional. Just because you think that everybody on the planet is stupid for not wanting something, does not mean everybody actually does want it.

I love k3b

This isn't exactly about KDE, but I have seriously considered moving to linux simply for the K3B CD/DVD all-in-one application. There just doesn't seem to be any real substitute in Windows. The best you can hope for is to use several programs in combination with each other.

Display bug kills my KDE experience

I really don't care about any new features in KDE. It is already fast and packed with enough power to get my work done. All I want is for the KDE team to fix one annoying bug that has been in Konqueror for years. If you use the most compact view available, listing the icons from top to bottom, long filenames are drawn incorrectly, leaving artifacts all over the window. To reproduce the bug, use the small icons (from top to bottom) or list mode of Konqueror or Dolphin, navigate to a folder with lots of files/folders with long names, and scroll to the right [photobucket.com]. There is no way that I can use a file browser with a bug like this. The fact that the bug happens identically in Konqueror and Dolphin indicates that it may lie in the QT libraries. In any case, it's been listed as a Konqueror bug for years. I'm using Thunar in Xfce for now; Thunar puts more space between icons than I would like in its Compact List view, but at least it renders everything correctly. Once the KDE team decides to get around to fixing this, I'll start using KDE and recommending it to my friends.

KOffice on Windows?

When will KOffice (supporting ODF) run on Windows?

Summing up the responses....

Bah! What do I need Plasma for? I arrange small rocks in a grid and emulate xterm myself! My refresh rate is up to 0.00006 Hz! It's good enough for me, it's good enough for anyone!

Christ, what a bunch of e-peen waving. So you don't use KDE. Don't piss on all the users who like it and the developers who put so much work into it.

I'm guessing that's the Linux release date...

so when can I run it on Windows?

GNOME fanboy

Wants to know why I should pay attention to this? I switched fully to GNOME in nineteen ninety something because of all the UI crack. I'm wondering whether I should look again at KDE now?

Dolphin is neat, but unKDEish

I'm excited about most of these changes (if only because of what will be done with them once the developers are used to them) but when I installed Kubuntu Gutsy I got an early glimpse of the KDE 3.5 version of the Dolphin file manager, and it's a bit of a letdown. It's neat for what it is, and very easy to use. In fact, it's simplified in a rather smart way, with some neat utilities cleverly docked on the left and right sidebars. But the thing that has always drawn me to KDE is Konqueror. About 90% of KDE users will echo that.

Heck, I even use Konqueror when I'm in GNOME sometimes. I've never had a file management app that can access so many protocols in such a standard way (URLs, so smb:// for a Windows share, sftp:// for and SSH share, and it can even speak POP, IMAP and a wide range of others because of a subsystem called KIO). Yet Konqueror's perfectly simple to use. If you didn't know the advanced features were there you could use it like a simple Windows Explorer or Finder interface and be happy, so I'm not sure why the developers thought Dolphin was needed. Why not outfit Konqueror with a way to lose its address bar and have some sort of Simple Mode?

At any rate, to turn Dolphin off, go into your System Configuration and find the File Associations. Under Inode and Directory you need to change the order of Konqueror and Dolphin. Fixed.

Re:A fixed release date is not a good idea

First, it can put undue pressure on the developers causing a release of faulty code. And missing it looks embarrassing.

On the other hand, not having a release date can make your project into a massive vaporware joke... for example, Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:But does it run Windows?

Yes, with Qt4 we should see KDE apps on all, Mac, Windows, and obviously, Linux. It will be nice to see some of the apps I use on a day to day basis (like Kile) ported to Windows. If someone starts using KDE apps, it'll ease the transition should they ever choose to switch to Linux.

Re:A fixed release date is not a good idea

offtopic
      WOOOSH!
/offtopic

Re:A fixed release date is not a good idea

Ever hear the old adage: "Work expands to fill the time alloted." I suppose you could also say work compresses to fill the time allotted and that could lead to poor quality. I believe this is your point. However, if you have no deadline at all, development tends to languish and that negatively impacts quality as well.

Re:But does it run Windows?

Yes, just google for kde 4 windows. You'll see that a Windows port of KDE 4 is ongoing. See this Wiki [kde.org].

But for the moment it's just a project so if you are really interested in seeing KDE 4 ported to Windows, jump on the boat and help !

Re:Birthday for me?

I'm a GNOME user, so I didn't know much about KDE4. Here are some interesting links I just found while researching what KDE4 is going to include:

KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop [linux.com]

KDE 4.0: Well worth the wait! [blogsavy.com]

KDE 4 is almost ready to go [desktoplinux.com]

KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 features new shell [desktoplinux.com]

KDE 4: some reasons for design decisions [wordpress.com]

I don't think I'll switch from GNOME, but KDE4 sounds like it will have some cool features.

Re:Birthday for me?

So wait, they're adding a bunch of features, making it multiplatform (via QT4) and it's going to be faster. Maybe they can pass on some programming pointers to Microsoft. I'm amazed how quickly Compiz Fusion runs on my discount laptop, I only wish Vista would run as quickly. Flashy doesn't have to mean slow.

Re:Birthday for me?

My friend, you are misinformed! Thanks to SVG support, you can make GNOME's footprint as big or small as you like, with no loss of quality whatsoever!

Re:A fixed release date is not a good idea

Calling it "redcrap" really makes your point seem considered and well thought out. And who's this "we" you're referring to?

Then again I don't know who the enemy in the GP's post is supposed to be. I guess I'm one of those ignorant fools who thinks that open source software development isn't a war to be won, but rather about providing the best possible software for users.

Re:decent control panels?

will there be (or is there already) some sort of control panel to view installed media codecs, and add/remove/test them?

No. Linux isn't unified in this sense. Each program determines what format it wants its codecs in (of course). Thus, each program has to come up with its own way. It's the same way in windows, really, except that you've got some 'standard' codecs.

It's a matter of taste, really. Personally I don't want a control panel for it, I just want to drop the codecs in a specific directory and then I want it to be used. Others want it differently, of course.

Re:Birthday for me?

Same here. I noticed many people have this day as their birthdays. Weird! :D

Re:Why bother?

Yes, because the licence and terms of a product's code is directly related to it's quality. Oh wait.

Re:decent control panels?

Is there and 'add new hardware' control panel. I recently bought a TV card that was supposed to 'work out of the box' on linux. But as usual I had to fuck around with config files telling kernel modules to load.

Well, to be entirely fair, "add new hardware" is fairly irrelevant most of the time.

Stuff that works out of the box tends to be autodetected, even if it does require those config file tweaks. Stuff that doesn't or can't work out of the box wouldn't fit very well with the standard Windows "add new hardware" dialog -- it's not as if there's going to be a driver CD -- although I believe there's a similar option for adding in support for various disabled-by-default binary kernel modules (nVidia, for example).

Re:Birthday for me?

It's your birthday, we can have cake and a nice party with all your friends. Won't that be nice.

applications

What kind of bizarre version of Windows are you running that comes with even one third of the applications that KDE provides?