The KDE 4 release team started a discussion about a possible release schedule. In the meantime, the developers added the Oxygen icons to kdelibs.
The KDE 4 release team started a discussion about a possible release schedule for KDE 4. Of course nothing is set yet but the topic is now hot and some interesting problems and point of views come up. For example it might be that there will be an kdelibs API freeze in roughly a month – Aaron Seigo mentioned that this could be possible.
Also, the question came up to set a date at which developers would have to decide if they stick to the main release schedule or would pick their own. Remember: KDE is a great desktop and ships in one block, but there are “additional” applications which use the KDE libraries but are not part of the core desktop (they are often part of extragear, though). Amarok or k3b are atm prominent examples of applications which are often used but do not follow the core release schedule. And it could be that other applications split as well – or try to get into core.
The libs freeze would be the first signal that KDE 4 is shaping up – of course there would be still the possibility to change things, and an API freeze is an API freeze, and nothing more. But it would be a start. And it shows that the KDE release team seriously aims at autumn 2007 for KDE 4.
In other but related news Oxygen hit the mirrors, or better, kdelibs. As Aaron wrote:
the oxygen icons are now in kdelibs and licensed under a creative commons v3 attribution, share-like license. libs and base are ported to the new icon names, and will be committed in the coming days along with a switch to oxygen as the default.
This is an important step since Oxygen is a beautiful icon set. It will be one of the main things users will sense and hopefully enjoy.
As you see KDE 4 is on the way and comes into shape. I’m really looking forward to the next article of Troy Unrau’s road to KDE 4 article series.
/home/liquidat 
Whose “fall”? If Aaron’s, then I’m worried. He’s in Canada, so it can be virtually any time. 🙂
I have read on several blogs that KDE 4 s aiming at the end of Q3/beginning of Q4 2007. 🙂
@Roy: Well, fall as in autumn 😉
Seriously, I’m not a native English speaker, I changed it to the British way just to be sure.
Haven’t you heard, there is no fall in Canada. There is three seasons, winter, almost winter and construction
Ok, now I’m a bit confused. I once been to Canada (ok, only for three nights) and it was winter…
What happened to the other seasons I’m used to? Were they stolen? And was is construction?
*confused*
@voislav
Close…
Almost Winter, Winter, Tourist
@liquidat:
The joke is:
There is the Almost Winter Season, the Winter Season, and Construction Season. Since roads, buildings, etc are best built when it’s above freezing, that only leaves a few weeks to do construction.
Whose fall/autum? Roughly speaking, when it is fall in the northern hemisphere, it is spring in the southern one… You are being ‘hemispherist’! This is pure discrimination!
You guys missed “still winter”.. Just because we’re in Canada, doesn’t mean we don’t have four seasons. 😛
in future, please allow people to announce things rather than start “reporting” on threads on mailing lists that are anything but finished.
we purposefully have not made a public announcement about the release schedule because:
a) we’re still working out the details; october might not be the final date.
b) we haven’t even taken it to our own developer community (see point ‘a’)
we figured it would be really poor form to announce it to the public before letting other kde developers on kde-core-devel look at it and provide feedback. aka “consensus building”
this kind of behaviour makes it increasingly difficult to have public discussion. unless a certain amount of respect can be shown by the broader community, it will encourage the project to be come more insular. that is something we have worked hard not to be; in fact have become much more open in recent years. it’s not nice to see people taking undue advantage of that.
it really comes down to which you would rather have: an open project where those who wish to follow and get involved can but which in return asks for simple cooperation and respect, or an insular project where you can’t hear anything because nothing is public until we’re ready?
please, let’s exercise restraint and a modicum of respect. waiting another 2 weeks for this news wouldn’t’ve killed anyone and would have made our job easier.
=/
@aseigo:
I tried to do my very best: I just said that the discussion is going on (not that there is any decision), I didn’t mention October or any other final date, and I didn’t link to any post directly. I linked just to the thread so that no one thinks any of the provided schedules is fixed or anything. Also, I used quite a lot of “might” and “could” and similar words.
But if it causes trouble I see that I still have much to learn, that I still have to find the correct way.
I’m sorry for the trouble, believe me, the last thing I want to do is to cause trouble or problems to the KDE community.
And of course I’m aware of the tightrope walk KDE does by becoming more open and even discussing such important things in the public.
I think that it’s DEFINITELY about time to start freezing things up, and getting a shippable release out on KDE4.
This release is already starting to sound like Windows Vista — the release that was meant to be released in 2003, and finally made it in 2007.
I don’t remember anyone ever talking about a KDE4 release back in 2003.
So jetteroheller, your one of the KDE4 devs then ? Actually have you even checked out what is in SVN.
I don’t think that starting to freeze it right now would be a good thing. IMHO it’s probably about 50% usable now. I would think you would want more than 50% of the functionality working before you start freezing it no ?
Do you understand what freezing means?
@aseigo
I wouldn’t be too worried about people providing blog or news posts about what’s being said on the development mailing lists, I think it’s an advantage.
Personally if I see a project with a well managed PR campaign* I get suspicious. On the other hand when I see independent bloggers like liquidat post a link to a discussion about a draft timeline, I feel growing trust for all the times KDE devs have said things are starting to fit together.
I also trust the KDE devs more because I know that if they started posting bad things on the mailing lists, it’s likely that it will be blogged about. I haven’t heard any bad things (well people said bad things about dolphin, but personally I like dolphin) so I assume everything is going according to plan.
Of course you can get misconceptions, and bad information, but you can and will get that anyway. Remember http://osnews.com/story.php/16783/Has-the-Desktop-Linux-Bubble-Burst/? Its better in the long run to let anyone read the mailing lists, and blog about it, you’ll get half truths, and information that changes tomorrow. But that’s more accurate than wild guesses. And you also get the trust of being open.
* By that I mean a way of filtering information so that only good news gets out, and bad news doesn’t. Not something like the brilliant Road to KDE4 articles.
@ voislav:
Yes, a friend of mine from Canada told me that one.
@ liquidat
When posting this to UseNet and Netscape I used the word “autumn”. No confusion there! 😉
@aseigo:
Sorry, Aaron. This is “publicity”. Like everything else, it has positive and negative effects, and you can’t have only the positives. Please, do show not only supreme coding abilities, but also the wisdom to understand – it’s better to have such discussions pre-announced. Yes, it makes life a bit harder. But try to think where a more “closed” approach will take eventually the KDE developer community, and you will get the point.
(I am not a KDE developer. And I am sorry for my poor English.)
On the east coast of the country, the seasons are slightly different: pre winter fog, winter, post winter fog, 2 weeks of spring 🙂
Hello Liquidat,
A very informative blog you have, which I visit very frequently. I have a question being a new entry to the Unix/Linux Scene, If I install the new Fedora 6 would it have the new KDE? Also, if not, how can I install it once it becomes available.
I read somewhere, that they are bringing the new Gnome interface as well and I am not sure what to do and which one to go for.
Thanks and Regards
Mutahir
PS : Keep writing 🙂
Mutahir, KDE4 is not released yet, and its not recomended that people use it unless they are actually working on it.
@Mutahir: As Tortanick said, KDE 4 is not released yet. And believe me, at the moment it is not in a state where you can use it in any productive way at all.
However, once it is released it will appear in almost every distribution around and you can easily install it.
Believe me, you will not miss the day when KDE 4 is released…There will be installation howotos everywhere, don’t worry, you only have to be patient 🙂
Btw., every comment I don’t like will be deleted. This is especially true for all comments which are insulting…