FC4 and KDE : my hopes

[Chris Jones]

> I did this on my third machine. IT went through without a hitch I am
> very satisfied. However I have been a bit quizy to do this on my main
> desktop, as I fear loosing it for any amount of time right now. I did
> this move to kde-redhat out of pure fustration as some apps I wanted
> were giving hell to complie without KDE 3.4

Whilst I am a Fedora and KDE junky myself, and always look for the lastest 
release, I have to say I think Fedoras approach on this is correct. 

Fedora has to stick to a single release - to go from KDE 3.3.x to 3.4.x as a 
normal update is too big a jump for most people. It is not 100% painless (For 
me for example, its was mostly smooth using the kde-redhat repository, apart 
from the fact the kmilo went mad... A quick web search showed this was a 
common problem and kmilo should be disabled. after doing this kde 3.4 is 
fine). 

Whilst I wanted to go to 3.4 to see what it is all about, I accepted the fact 
that things might break. Many users don't want this and thus to do so as a 
"standard" update would be wrong. Fedora should stick to the version frozen 
at release and only release important updates (security etc.) which can be 
back-ported from the current release to that used by Fedora. 

The current kopete problem is an example of something which is in the grey 
area - The fix to get it working again is in CVS, but I presume will only be 
in the next KDE 3.4.x release - Do you consider MSN messaging essential that 
Fedora should back-port it to 3.3.x ? Personally I think not...

I would add though, despite what I say above I do get the impression that KDE 
is not as well tested as gnome within Fedora. I accept they have to have a 
default - but I think that Fedora should aim to be desktop neutral, and give 
the same level of support to KDE (and XFCE and so on...) as it does gnome.

Chris