Talk:KDE/Archive 3

NPOV Disputed
I am logging this page as requiring balance, since the section concerning usability of KDE seems to be biased in favour of Gnome, and away from KDE. I see this as a neutrality issue, which is why I have tagged it as I have. Your comments on this are welcome. Thor Malmjursson 03:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC), Talk to me
 * I agree. The criticism should be made in the middle of the "Usability" section, but it is not the main idea. The former wording is better IMHO. Please see the GNOME talk page for a discussion on how a "criticism" area is bad: it is an open channel for unsorced, non-factual rants. -- Carloswoelz 14:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement also. Stupid earlier edits on this article show just how far people will go to discredit the other desktop environment, instead of using that energy to improve the one they prefer. Licensing talk should be kept to a minimum (it has the potential to ballooning into huge arguments of law and philosophy) and other critiques should be deleted outright. Claims of speed, usability differences and whatnot are completely subjective and in constant flux (version to version, platform to platform, a lot of things change) and do not belong here! Stop flaming and get back to coding. --Sheldonc 21:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, claiming things like "KDE has been criticized on usability" seems rather ridiculous, the so called "complexity" mentioned in this section is seen by many to be one of the better features of KDE... I think a "criticism" area is very very bad, it is just inviting people to criticize things, and constructive criticism is an art few seem to master. Perhaps it is true that licensing talk should be kept to a minimum, if that means avoiding discussing in detail all licensing aspects. I believe that the section "Licensing issues for developers of closed source software" is very important however, not only are the criticisms here (needing to buy a commercial license for certain things...) almost unique in both the open source and closed source desktop worlds, this is important for people wanting to write software for KDE and these facts generally seem to get swamped in the rubbish people tend to say when talking about this. As far as criticisms other than concerning the license of Qt, I have seen many, many, many of them over the years and I cannot say that I consider any of them are either objective or completely justified. 84.102.180.68 11:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC) Josh1024
 * Since sentences like "KDE has been criticized on usability" are gone, so why is this page still tagged as that the neutrality is disputed? I personally can't see anything what isn't neutral. Cristan 10:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * See the last paragrah of the usability section. It almost waxes poetical about how easy KDE is to use. --James 07:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it's probably just an overreaction from the people above saying that any common criticisms of KDE make an article NPOV. Remember, bad things should always be kept out of Wikipedia. :P (nothing quite like an NPOV argument about a...desktop environment). Lord Bob 17:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that the section crediting an actual study on usability is acceptable, but claiming that tasks "are simple" isn't really neutral. It's not credited, so it's just somebody's opinion. I could find you some people who think multi-variable calculus is simple, but that doesn't mean everyone feels that way. Djhobo9 18:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I've kept an eye on this NPOV dispute for a little while now, and it looks like there is consensus on what needs to change, but nobody has had the nerve to pull the trigger yet. I have changed the final paragraph under the "Usability" section to strip out the cheerleading and be more objective. I have left the NPOV-dispute warning at the top of the article pending public comment, and will remove it within a few days if there are no further NPOV complaints about this section. -- SteveAtlanta 14:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for beating a dead horse, but can't we just remove the Usability section outright? Considering 'usability' is dependent on the user's preferences, I fail to see the point of having a section that would be dependent on point of view on an encyclopedia that values neutrality. Besides, the GNOME article doesn't have a section discussing it's usability; what exactly would warrant such a section being needed on the KDE article? NeoChaosX 03:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

A small note on KDE and GNOME being friends would be helpful
A small note on
 * KDE and GNOME being friends
 * how they have to cooperate to become better (think ISV support, freedesktop.org, better drivers, ...)
 * how, exactly because they are differents, they are able to attract different types of users from Windows (and macos x, but this is less important), which is the real concurrent
 * how the morons who tends to flame the other desktop environment cause a lot of harm to the very desktop they think they defend, since nobody profits on propaganda on the long term, and the only result of the flaming is that in 100% of the cases, somebody "on the other side" will flame back

Such a paragraph would be very helpful if we want that the two articles not be regulary vandalized by proud idiots (and that's the most polite term I found)

The posts in defense of GNOME by Aaraon Seigo during the infamous and stupid Linus's flaming can be use as a starting point for the redaction of this important paragraph.

Cross-posted to Talk:GNOME

I propose to continue the discussion/redaction there


 * Excellent idea. there are many many parts of KDE and GNOME that are common to both desktops.


 * 84.102.180.68 11:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC) Josh1024

KDE 4 Screenshot
Is that screenshot real or just a mockup?

Quote from an interview about KDE 4 with one of the developers from just ten days ago:

JL: Any chance of a sneak screenshot? AJS: Not at this point, sorry. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/12/kde4.html?page=2

This makes me believe that our screenshot is not worth that much... --Michaël 13:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to say that Image:KDE_4_Early.png is a mock-up. I distinctly recall seeing that picture (or a similar one) over at KDE-Artists.org in their Kollaboration forum (which is, unfortunately, currently offline and being moved to a different server).  IIRC, the thread I remember seeing it in was a request for concept artwork/mock-ups related to improving the system tray and/or kicker. &mdash; Jeff | (talk) | 10:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, definitely a mock-up. I just went to bug the folks in the KDE-Artists channel on Freenode, and Jonathan Riddell confirmed that it was a mock-up.  I agree with Michaël that the mock-up probably isn't of value (here or at the KDE4 article).  Riddell did point me to canllaith's article on KDE4, which includes actual screenshots from the KDE4 development branch.  While about six months old, according to the people on #kde-artists, the main work toward KDE4 being done right now has been in the KDE libraries, so I imagine there wouldn't be significant cosmetic differences.  I'll probably upload one of these to replace the (fairly useless) mock-up. &mdash; Jeff | (talk) | 11:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

On Portal:Free software, KDE is currently the featured article
Just to let you know. The purpose of featuring an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain the feature for a week or so. The previous feature was Python programming language. Gronky 17:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

What constitues a GNOME/KDE app
User:Thumperward on Talk:GNOME insists that the term "GNOME application" applies only to applications which are in GNOME CVS, and are part of the GNOME release process. I disagree, and reverted the article to its original form until some kind of wider consensus was reached on what appears to be his unilateral redefinition of "GNOME application" -- on whether it is acceptable or not. Thumperward is continuing to revert the article in an attempt to force his view over and above and discussion of the matter. We are currently way over the 3RR and getting nowhere. I therefore feel it necessary to widen the matter. The issue is larger than just GNOME, it also applies to KDE applications. What are the views on this? I understand the distinction between GTK apps and GNOME apps, and Qt apps and KDE apps... that is not really the issue at the moment. Does not being a direct part of the KDE project and not stored in KDE CVS mean that an application is not refered to as a "KDE Application". For the sake of keeping the discussion in one place and manageable, could any replies please be added to Talk:GNOME. Thank for any input. - Motor (talk) 09:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

"Debate without End"
The Debate without End article written by Timothy Butler is the most slanted FUD I've read in a long time. It amounts to a huge troll complaining about the price of a commercial Qt license? Even though linking to this article degrades from the factual value of the entire article, I left it there for now and added a more informed response to the article. Cheers --Sheldonc 03:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of K
It says at the beginning of the article that the meaning of K was dropped, so that it doesn't stand for anything now. However, the link it points to for reference says only that the meaning of the K was changed; it does not detail whether the K's meaning was changed to something else or dropped entirely. If the K does have meaning, this obviously needs to be changed, but if the paragraph is correct and the K has no meaning any longer, a less ambiguous citation should probably be found and used. I will modify the statement in the article to be less specific and simply say that the name of the K was changed, for now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.224.63.121 (talk • contribs) 01:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Facts 'KDE' stands for 'the K Desktop Environment'."
 * From the source cited (http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/myth/55):
 * "Myth KDE means Kool Desktop Environment
 * Ergo: it now stands for "K". I have reinserted the old phrase. --Swift 18:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Native, out-of-the-box support
Does this mean that KDE4 will natively support Windows and OSX software, or will developers just be able port their software to KDE more easily if they wish to do so? According to the interview (http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/12/kde4.html?page=2), it appeared to be the latter, while the wording of the Wikipedia entry suggested the former. That's why I changed the text.

Good article on hold
Hi all,

I am placing this article on hold for the moment.

My main concern is the "Minor release" section which seems needlessly detailed and without any real purpose.

I am also wondering what is meant by the bullet point "Support for core libraries in Windows and Mac OS X." in the "KDE 4" section.

I will promote the article when these issues are addressed.

Cedars 10:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
I've always pronounced KDE like "Katie", but I'm wondering if the proper pronunciation was (like the name Katie) or  (all of the letters individually). --Kuroki Mio 2006 02:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * From my experience it's always been the latter (pronouncing each letter individually). NeoChaosX [ talk | contribs ] 02:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Links
This article has a large list of links. I'm not sure how the English Wikipedia deals with that, but for example the German Wikipedia has the rule to only have roughly five links. This goal is often achieved by linking to other link databases (Dmoz for example). Would this model fit here as well, or is the way of collecting all links here preferred? --Liquidat 17:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the policy is to check the links, and only keep the best ones (as per WP:NOT). --h2g2bob 19:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone beat me to zapping the links :-D But heres some I think may have been used as references:
 * Debate Without End: Anti-Qt Article on ongoing licensing controversy
 * Qt, the GPL, Business and Freedom: Pro-KDE Article explaining the licensing controversy
 * I'm really just posting them here for easy reference if fact tags start appearing or something. --h2g2bob 20:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I got rid of them. Decided to knock everything sans the official site and one other site officially associated with the project. As far as those websites go, other editors can feel free to use them as references. NeoChaosX (he shoots, he scores!) 20:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, looks much better now, from my perspective at least. It is really confusing that the English Wikipedia didn't settle on a specific number of links (just for orientation anyway)... --Liquidat 00:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)