KDE SC 4 The Good Innovative features and unique solutions. The Bad Questionable fundamental design decisions. The Broken Longstanding and often-reported bugs. What is KDE SC 4 SC: Software Collection The KDE Community's main product. It includes all software created by the community. Plasma Desktop The core environment including the workspace and panels. Key Applications Software suites and programs which provide key functionality. KDE 4: The Good Innovative features and unique solutions Plasma Desktop Configurable widgets on the panel and on the desktop. Dolphin File Manager Simple, powerful, configurable. Includes split view, sorting and preview options, and a built-in terminal emulator. Okular Document Viewer Supports many innovative features to redefine how we interact with electronic documents. KDE 4: The Bad Questionable fundamental design decisions Disregard for feature stability and users' needs Seemingly no regression testing is performed for either Plasma or key applications. Experimental and incomplete software in major releases Core features of key applications are removed between "x.N" releases. Misleading versioning scheme Hijacking of the "x.0" paradigm to release developer-preview software. KDE 4: The Broken Longstanding and often-reported bugs Wrong timestamp on files copied to fish protocol Reported in 2003 as bug #55804. "System Settings" does not change the system's settings Several bugs dating to 2004 (bug #82009) and possibly earlier. Proxy settings are not followed Introduced in KDE 4.0 as bug #155707. The Good: Okular Document Viewer Simple to use, yet many innovative features Trim Margins Fit more content onto the page without horizontal scrollbars. Continuous pan Files continue to pan even when the mouse leaves the screen edge. Accessibility options Convert to black & white, change background colour. The Bad: Misleading versioning Ignoring FOSS versioning conventions misleads packagers Usage of "x.0" version numbers The "x.0" moniker is an accepted and long- standing convention for a stable software release. Hijacking that convention and appending a "Developer Preview" subtitle does not change the implied stability of such a release. KDE SC Software which has used "x.0" version numbers for incomplete software * KDE * Amarok * Koffice The Broken: "System Settings" simply isn't The misleading name is a common source of user frustration Despite the name, "System Settings" affects only KDE settings. This causes confusion when non-KDE apps do not behave as expected. Even when the app was called Kcontrol there were requests to write configuration changes as system-wide Bug #82009 was opened in 2004, other bugs requesting similar functionality may have been filed even earlier. More Information KDE SC Users http://kde.org http://userbase.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde KDE SC Developers http://kde.org http://bugs.kde.org http://techbase.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel This slideshow http://dotancohen.com License Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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