nixternal

We are seeing more and more questions relating to Kubuntu 8.04, the Hardy Heron, and KDE 4, and some KDE 3 as well. So to hopefully save you some keystrokes on IRC, forums, or mailing lists, lets try this out first.

• Will there be a KDE 4 Live CD for 8.04?
  • YES
• If So, when will it be available for download?
  • Take the date of this blog post and look at about a week hopefully. Some infrastructure changes are needed first, which are currently being addressed.
• Once again, if so, then where will it be available?
  • A good place to keep an eye out will be Kubuntu.org for an announcement. They should be released somewhere under THIS directory.
• Hey, KDE just included the ability to resize the Plasma Panel, is that included in your latest 4.0.1 updates?
  • A straight answer would be maybe, however we really want to follow the release schedule set forth by the KDE community, so if one of our developers don’t create a patch and include it right now, all you have to do is wait a month until 4.0.2 is released.
• If KMail or Kontact for KDE 4 isn’t ready, what am I supposed to use for Email?
  • We are using KMail and Kontact from the KDE 3 PIM series. It works quite well, pretty much the same as it does in KDE 3. I am using it, with POP3 of course, and haven’t had any issues with it at all.
• Since you are working so hard on KDE 4, what about KDE 3?
  • We haven’t forgotten about KDE 3 at all. We are still working hard at fixing bugs, improving some functionality that was promised at UDS, and still supporting it. How long? Well that will only be defined with time of course.
• Can I upgrade from KDE 3 in a previous release, say Feisty (7.10) to KDE 4 in Hardy (8.04)?
  • We haven’t included a way just yet in doing this. We are working with KDE as well as other distributions to hopefully have something available by the release after Hardy (8.04). Right now, an upgrade path from KDE 3 to KDE 4 isn’t all that important as we are not looking at replacing KDE 3 with KDE 4 just yet, we are allowing them to run side-by-side on your computer.
• Hey, I am not a huge fan of the new default wallpaper for KDE 3 in Hardy, is that going to stay?
  • We have heard this from a few people on IRC. If you know of a wallpaper that is better, cleaner, easier on the eyes, more professional, and FREE in all senses, then send us an email to with a link to your suggestion, and any background information such as licensing, the artist or whatever else you think is important.
• Hey, I am a budding developer, can I help?
  • Sure you can help. It would be nice if you could stop by the Kubuntu development channel (#kubuntu-devel) on Freenode’s IRC servers and say “HI” as well as what you are interested in helping with, maybe explain your qualifications. If you are new to development and aren’t highly experienced, don’t worry, we don’t typically bite and can work with you. We have plenty of bugs for you to work on
• Hey, I am not really a developer, can I help?
  • Sure you can help. The Kubuntu support channel (#kubuntu) on Freenode’s IRC servers is a great place to start helping. Join the channel and provide any support that you can. Maybe you are good at doing artwork, our art team (1 person is all we have I think right now) can always use the help. How about some documentation writing, that is available as well. I will start working on a plan of attack along with Jonathan Jesse as we are reaching the GUI freeze that will allow us to start documenting. We should have some KDE 4 documentation available for you to write as well.

Sorry, had to throw in some “come help us” stuff in the end there

Also, another thing that needs to get done, not so much for Kubuntu, but for KDE is documentation as well. I know myself and Phil have been quite busy of late, but it would be great if we (all developers and documentation writers) could all get together in a quiet location on IRC and maybe hash out some plans. If you are working on an application in the KDE trunk and it needs some documentation, whether it is just updating old documentation, or writing from scratch, just ping me on IRC (nixternal of course) and I will start working on my TODO list that has been a work in procrastination. Sorry to those who joined the channel a few months ago to help with some documentation and didn’t get much out of us, that was my fault and I really do apologize. Hopefully this time around I will have some work ready. I plan on getting a nice list together and separating it according to skill level, before I ask for help from the world again. If you want a head start and want to meet or greet some of us on IRC, stop by #kde-docs on Freenode’s IRC servers.

Thanks everyone!

OK, I wasn’t going to do this, you know jump in on all of the “Kubuntu is treated like a second class citizen by Canonical” posts, but I have had enough time to let off some steam, and even joke around a bit with it. So here is my take…

I am actually 50/50 on the entire “2nd class citizen” outtake for a couple of reasons. I would be wholeheartedly into saying that Canonical is indeed treating us Kubuntu people like a second class citizen, but there are factors that permit this feeling.

Factor 1: Would hiring one more developer for Kubuntu really help Kubuntu lose this 2nd class feeling? The answer is simply no. I know some of you just flipped your lid on that one, but it is true. Think about it. If Canonical does decide to hire a second paid Kubuntu developer right now, where would they pull that person from? More than likely from our current pool of community developers. So that means we have 2 faces to Kubuntu from Canonical, that’s pretty much it right now. Another paid developer isn’t going to help us, Kubuntu, from pulling in the slack. There will still be the same exact amount of people working on the project, except instead of one person being paid, we now have two.

As you can see, it is factor 1 that prevents me from saying the whole “we are treated as 2nd class citizens.”

Factor 2: When the Gnome side of our community, whether they are Canonical or not, come up with an idea such as bullet proof x, printer configuration, Compiz support stuff, and so on, they never come to the Kubuntu people and say, “Hey, we are working on project x for Ubuntu and was wondering if you all thought that something like this would be good for Kubuntu, how about lending a developer to the project so we can work side-by-side.” In the past two years of contributing to this project, I can’t think of one time where this has happened. If it did, I never seen it, and the Kubuntu community is about as transparent as they get in terms of communications. This is something that definitely needs to be worked on.

As you can see, it is factor 2 that makes me want to say “yes, we are treated as 2nd class citizens.”

Ooh, damn almost forgot about Factor 3!

Factor 3: Marketing. I am sorry, the type of marketing I have seen coming from this entire community has been lackluster. Ubuntu has some marketing, thanks to all of the websites who “ooh and ahh” over us, but this type of marketing only goes so far. It goes as far as the people who read those websites. Maybe there is marketing going on over in Europe for Ubuntu, but in the states, all I have seen are LoCo teams busting their asses just to hit a very small target. This doesn’t work, and isn’t going to work. Gorilla, grass-roots, word-of-mouth type marketing advances only go so far. Linux has been around now for more than 14 years, but I am willing to place my money that the word “Linux” means absolutely nothing to say, 50% of the Windows users in the world. So that means even less could tell you what “Ubuntu” is. Why is that? Marketing is lackluster. But guess what, it is lackluster for Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, and anything else you can tie to the front of buntu. So this here makes me think we aren’t such a 2nd class citizen, as our marketing sucks just as much as everyone else.

Damn, I almost published this without Factor 4, and I am free of any type of legal or illegal medication right now

Factor 4: Kubuntu 8.04 will not be LTS. This screams 3rd class citizen to me honestly. KDE 4 wasn’t the alleged reasoning behind this decision from Canonical. They were uncertain about just how long the KDE community would continue supporting KDE 3. Is this Canonical’s fault though? Yes and no to be honest. Yes, because transparently I never heard of, nor seen, any type of communication from Canonical to KDE asking for explanation. No, because transparently the KDE community never said much about the future support publicly, until after Canonical’s decision. Of course those of us who work with both KDE and Kubuntu already knew that KDE 3 wasn’t going anywhere. I don’t work for Canonical, so what behind the scenes communications they had or didn’t have, I cannot speculate on it, but I will say transparently, the ball was dropped, unfairly.

Like Jono said, “Canonical pays for thousands of free Kubuntu CDs to be produced, all via ShipIt” (notice my link to ShipIt actually goes to Kubuntu ShipIt and not Ubuntu’s ShipIt like Jono did, conspiracy anybody?).

Kubuntu is extremely glad that Canonical stepped up and offered us this service. It is a wonderful service and we truly are happy to be apart a part of it. Now with that said, seeing as I was once a LoCo team leader, I used to get my typical LoCo team ShipIts. And wouldn’t you know, less than one-fourth were actually Kubuntu. I could go through my emails and give you the exact breakdown, but I don’t need to be that big of an ass The Ubuntu Chicago guys will all tell you, Kubuntu CDs were our #1 request. #2, well that was reserved for Xubuntu. People never had to request Ubuntu CDs because we had them falling out of every orifice possible. There is definitely mistreatment here, and it is something I hope gets addressed for the next LoCo ShipIts that go out.

So what have I proven here today? Absolutely nothing! WHAT? Ya, absolutely nothing. We can all sit here and bitch about this in our blogs, on IRC, in email, or whatever communication protocol we can complain on next (anyone up for Skype, Twinkle, Gobby…?) Nothing is getting done in order to fix this “2nd class citizenship” we keep hearing about, for like a year now. If there is a bitch or complaint that is the same for a year, don’t you think it is time our community comes together and attempts to fix this? Gnome vs. KDE, Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu, boohoo this isn’t fair…this shit has to stop, it isn’t healthy, and nothing is being done to fix it.

So what do you propose Mr. Smarty Ass Pants? Simple, why don’t all of us (Canonical, Ubuntu, Kubuntu) sit down and figure out how to work together for a common good. Lets create competition, coopetition, and a much healthier environment, especially if we want to attract new users. Hell, if Microsoft and Apple can do it, then so can we. Who knows, maybe we can truly benefit our upstreams by this, only one way to find out.