[CS-FSLUG] Linux Today - Is desktop Linux too fragmented to succeed? A friend tells it like it is!!

[Eduardo Sánchez]

I must run to work, but I would like to point out this:

On Sunday 03 May 2009 16.08.15 Timothy Butler wrote:

> 	KDE needs two things, I think, to be what it really should be
> (because it has always been technologically sound): stable and
> simple.
>
> 	Stable in this sense: In 10 years, KDE has broken binary
> compatibility 3 times. GNOME and Mac OS have broken it once, and both
> with sufficient ease of running older library side-by-side that few
> people noticed it. Windows has not fully broken it ever. KDE ought to
> commit to insuring ABI integrity for 10 years -- even if it means
> eventually having multiple versions of the libraries, so long as one
> configuration tool can manage all of them. With Qt now LGPL'ed,
> businesses might consider it -- rather than their traditional
> preference for GNOME -- but they'll want assurance that KDE is
> serious about business first.

It's perfectly doable, and I don't think it's much of KDE's business. 
Right now I can run KDE3 and KDE4 apps simultaneously because Slackware 
provides a KDE3 compatibility layer (with selected libraries, and so 
on). This comes at the cost that right now I am not able to compile KDE3 
stuff on this machine (only KDE4 stuff). But the point is that binary 
compatibility *can* be done in a matter of something as simple as 
installing packages, and even an undermanned, underpowered and simple 
distro can do that in a very simple way. Why the Fedoras and Ubuntus of 
the world can't, then?

>
> 	Simple in this sense: even if you do provide massive configurability
> to the user, it should be hidden in advanced dialog boxes. The basic
> configuration boxes should be simple enough that a novice can feel
> confident changing basic settings without reading a manual.

I think systemsettings does the job quite nicely.

Blessings, 

Eduardo

-- 
Eduardo Sanchez, B. Th.
Traductor Público Inglés-Español
http://shadow.sombragris.org
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 Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
 Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
   Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
 And--"A blind understanding!" Heav'n replied.

	-- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
	   

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