[carlosponti]

Originally Posted by kveldulf980

That's potentially a very good idea. It would be nice to see a "Lite" version where a lot of the default eye candy and other extras are all disabled. Of course the argument would be that one could simply do that themselves. Still, I think people would download and install it if someone packaged it up.

easy enough to do with open source. It doesnt seem like forked projects live very long before being abandoned or merging back with the original source code. There are only a small amount that make it or outlive the original project.

[MikeTbob]

I can't really agree or disagree, just for the simple fact that I haven't tried KDE4 yet. I fear the worse and hope for the best, I'll be using KDE 3.5.9 until I see good reports of KDE4.2 or so.
The Gentoo KDE4.0.* FAQ states:

Q: Does this mean KDE 3.5 will be gone soon?
A: Not at all! KDE 3.5 is very stable, and still gets minor bugfixes from upstream. While KDE 3.5 won't see new features anymore, we do plan on maintaining it for a long time.

Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Gentoo KDE 4.0 Guide
I hope a long time means, like several more months at least.

[gruven]

I really hope that they make kde4 into something that I will love, because after using gnome, I have decided that I love kde.

I will be on kde3.5.9 until it is deprecated I suppose.

[blackbelt_jones]

As a matter of fact, there is a KDE 3.5.10 planned for a couple of months from now, so KDE 3.5 not dead yet. One of the developers told me in another forum that he personally wouldn't be averse to keeping KDE 3.5 alive with security updates into perpetuity.

It strikes me as kind of unreasonable to want to stand still and move forward at the same time. Instead of a "fork", it might be more practical to just keep KDE 3.5 alive with security updates into perpetuity, instead of further development. I wonder how much work that would take?

I have no doubt that the developers know what they're doing. The problem is, I don't have a clue. I don't understand the difference between widgets and icons, except apparently, widgets are in and icons are out. Still awaiting word on the fate of applets. WTF is this dashboard thingee? Hey, Konqueror just crashed! Hey, it crashed again!

But you see, it's not finished. A good idea might have been to finish it, and then promote it. Most people have no business running this thing in its present form, but KDE insists on pushing KDE4 on its website. KDE 3.5 is relegated to the lower fifth of the fifth of the download page. Right now, everybody at KDE insists on making the public responsible for their public relations, which is absolutely asking for a lot of unnecessary noise. But these are smart people. Right now they're feeling defensive, and they're not going to admit to any mistakes, but I suspect that next time, they'll be a little wiser.

This is something completely new in the world, and I want to see them succeed, even if I'm not sure that I'm going to want to use it myself. As a matter of fact, I don't usually use the Desktop environment now. I use fluxbox to manage KDE applications, especially Konqueror. Konqueror and fluxbox go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I keep flipping out because I can't find the filter bar in Konqueror in KDE4 . Dolphin has a filter bar. Are they trying to force me to use Dolphin? I'm getting angry. Oh no I'm starting to change...

[techieMoe]

Is there a planned "drop dead" date for KDE 3.5, or are they continuing development on it for the foreseeable future, at least until 4 is considered feature-complete?

[ozar]

Originally Posted by techieMoe

Is there a planned "drop dead" date for KDE 3.5, or are they continuing development on it for the foreseeable future, at least until 4 is considered feature-complete?

I read on one of the KDE dev's blog that KDE 3.5.10 is due out next month. Not sure about any dates for total abandonment of the 3.5 series, but if it continues without any new features ever being added, surely it would be headed for the DE graveyard.

[MikeTbob]

Groklaw has an article about KDE 4, it's a fairly long read but it seems to be pretty good to me.
Groklaw - KDE on KDE 4.0

[dalinux_n00bie]

Originally Posted by MikeTbob

Groklaw has an article about KDE 4, it's a fairly long read but it seems to be pretty good to me.
Groklaw - KDE on KDE 4.0

I really liked this article. I think it sums up the whole debate and the issues very well.

[masinick]

I have two systems with KDE 4 - Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Remix, which I really like, and openSUSE 11.0 with KDE 4. Both work reasonably well with KDE 4, even if it is not perfect.

I especially like the Kubuntu implementation, it is surprisingly fast and smooth.