I've updated KDE to 3.4.2 in Fink Unstable. The most notable changes are:
- updated to 3.4.2 (heh)
- removed ssl/non-ssl distinction, now it always links against the system-provided OpenSSL; created kdelibs3-unified and kdebase3-unified, with upgrade packages for backwards-compatibility (the only split-up package left is kgpg, and the kdesdk3-svn package, which has an ssl/non-ssl variant)
- kdevelop should actually let you make ADA and C/C++ projects without bombing out (Java support is still disabled, the exception-handling code makes Apple's linker freak out)
- updated to amarok 1.3 (gotta say, it's pretty damn sweet!)
- koffice updated to 1.4.1
- KXMLEditor updated to 1.1.4
- many other miscellaneous changes
that’s great, but how many people will ever run X11 KDE? A few thousand maybe? how many people would run native KDE? 10 million? 20 million? that’s the reason we all read this blog, waiting for news of native KDE.
if youre too busy to code it yourself, why not just take a management role over project, supervise some other coders to do the actual work? sure, it’s open source, anyone is free to dive in and code it himself without your help, but in practice no-one is going to begin such an undertaking alone when it is well known that you ‘own’ this port and have the most experience at it.
I’m supporting hundreds or thousands of users *right now* who use the stuff. I will always attempt to make them happy before I devote my time to adding more users to my plate.
There’s nothing I want more than enough time in the day to have all things, but I can’t. I have a life outside of building open-source software, I also have a responsibility (if there is such a thing in the open-source world <g>) to the people who already use KDE day-to-day on the mac to keep things working and fix bugs.
I’d be happy to manage things if there was someone wanting to be managed, there have been a few people who have said they want to help porting, but they’ve not had the time to devote to ramping up to it either. I had hoped that as soon as kde4 development happened, we’d switch build systems, so I could start building the kde/mac port *right*. But, that’s not happened, they’re still limping along with unsermake and “maybe someday we won’t use libtool” and I’m not terribly interested in working with a build system that’s actively hostile to Mac OS X native development. In the meantime, I’ve got a metric buttload of other things to do just to keep afloat with what I’m already maintaining.
I’ll get there, eventually. In the meantime, *you* are welcome to look at the patches and start getting things up and running. If you (or anyone) are holding back because I “own” it, don’t. I want to see it happen, but I’m realistic about my time. It won’t be soon. Go for it, I’ll help any way I can…
Thanks for your great work!
Long to build but very worthy at last.
Well, just wanted to say that we appreciate your contribution very much!
Have a good day!
Like bodgebo, the only reason I’m checking your site is to see
if there is a new native KDE version availabile.
… and everytime I check, I’m disappointed.
Now, I do know that the great thing about open source is that nobody forces you to spend time on it, or to use it, and as a user that means that while I have used KDE on linux for over 4 years,
I’m not really interested in running KDE programs in X11.
However, I would seriously doubt that any of your existing users would be unhappy if they could use KDE WITHOUT X11.
So to keep existing users happy, and gain more users (me, for example), the smart thing to do would be to make KDE work without X11.
I remember trying your non-X11 port a year or so ago, and deciding that it was too slow to start up, and in general clearly unfinished, but I also remember that it included many programs, so at the time I was expecting to see great improvements within a short time-frame, NOT somebody dragging his feet, and instead using his precious spare time on fink projects that could maybe be better left to somebody else to do.
in fact, I have to admit that after upgrading to 10.4, I have not reinstalled fink, and I have not missed it…
now.. a native KDE, that would be something that would excite poor users like me!
Holy crap … “dragging his feet!!!”
I for one am very pleased that RangerRick is concentrating on the X11 version … you’re doing a fantastic job mate … here at CERN (www.cern.ch) there are many people using kdevelop on macs, because of you.
Sure a native port would be nice, but as a coder myself I appreciate why you’re doing it this way, and am extremely grateful to you for your hard work.
To Hell with Fink and KDE! Your precious free time better be spent on me! 😛 (j/k). Seriously, I see first hand all the time RangerRick puts into his projects. I’m amazed at how well he can multi-task! He’ll have a build running, trying to debug some error from work at 11pm and play WoW all at the same time.
But really, if there’s someone to blame that he’s not done with KOffice or the X11 version, then blame me because I gave him something else to use on his laptop other than a powerbook. Although, there is something sexy about the open source work he does and how he’s constantly exploring for new technologies.
sorry if my previous comment was a bit “inflammatory”…
I think that one thing that would be useful is to try to explain why it’s taking so long to have a native port.
Of course everybody has his own motivations and priorities, and maybe its just because I’m a stupid user that I don’t manage to understand this seemingly unexplainable priority given to X11.
I think that many people would gain a better understanding of the situation if you told us that for example:
* The Native port contained a lot of code scattered in many classes that the KDE maintainers were unwilling to accept as patches and you had to maintain a “diff” locally.
* Native KDE is a lot more work to maintain, as KDE developers keep adding X11-specific code that keeps breaking Native KDE for every release.
* The native KDE port you did a year ago just seemed ready, but in reality there was a lot of work needed to finish it.
* The first application that you start up on your mac is X11, and you prefer to do all your work in X11, coding in KDevelop, browsing in Konqueror, etc, and you rarely use native mac programs, such as Safari, and so for you X11 is no big deal.
* even if native KDE existed, you would still use X11 every day, as you use non-KDE X11 programs.
My priorities go:
1. life
2. maintaining existing things that Fink users use and depend on
3. [other]
KDE/Mac falls under [other]. I only really work on KDE/Mac when all of my other Fink-related stuff is up-to-date.
In addition, I put off KDE/Mac for a while because there were a number of things planned for the kde4 codebase that hadn’t been done yet that would make things easier for me. No point in doing 2x the work when I can wait 6 months and do it then.
Of course, every time someone complains about how I’m spending my spare time because it would be more useful to do [x] because [snapshot of user population without any hard numbers] would like it, part of me wants to rebel. 🙂
It will happen when it happens. It will happen faster when people help (and a few have been looking into helping now, yay!).
KDE is friggin’ BIG. Working on it essentially by my self takes a lot of time. Working on it *twice* (which is basically what needs to happen to work on KDE/Mac) is even more time.