What is the future of Kubuntu?

[stephen46710]

My first Linux was Mandrake back in the 90's, I too am a fan of Kubuntu as it does the job of looking like Windows but not having the same problems!.

Thanks to all the Kubuntu and KDE devs out there.

[Erwin Smout]

Many have speculated on the future of Kubuntu and many have been very wrong. The truth is that the future depends on the Kubuntu community, the likes of you and I who use Kubuntu and want to continue to use it. It is time to step up and give back to the community, see a problem, then do something about it! Many make excuses that they don't have technical know how, but the fact of the matter is that there are many ways to help out, testing new software, even submitting bug reports or writing/reading documentation. There is a saying "every little helps" and this holds true. As long as there are people willing to invest their time and skills to create Kubuntu, it will keep going. But I can tell you one thing that's for sure, treating developers as if they owe you something and are an employee not doing their "job" is a sure way to discourage them. There are plenty of more rewarding and pleasant ways to spend one's free time!

I am curious as to the deadly bug you talk of? Can you be more specific?

The failure to properly upgrade the PIM database (and leave KMail working) when going from 14.04 to 16.04 seems to be a good candidate.

The failure of the software center to display *anything at all* seems like another.

I've been satisfied with Kubuntu until the upgrade. Strange things need to happen for my next upgrade not being all about ditching the K.

[GreyGeek]

You write as if Kubuntu was a proprietary commercial product that you paid for and are disgruntled because you don't think you are getting what you paid for.

KMail works great for me, with 10+ years of imported emails. I use Synaptic and apt. Akonadi gave me a momentary problem that AkonadiConsole was able to quickly fix.

Kubuntu, and Linux in general, is free software supported by developers with a passion and users willing to help by submitting helpful bug reports instead of complaints that offer nothing of help to the developers.

All of the developers are professional coders and most VOLUNTEER their time and hardware to work on Kubuntu. They have regular jobs, families and a life, but still contribute many hours per month to Kubuntu. That dedication is what makes Kubuntu the best & purist KDE implementation available, IMO. Add to that the best implementation of Btrfs and you have an unbeatable combination of man & software available. This forum is icing on the cake!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dequire]

We get a lot of backbone support from Canonical still and like you say that is VERY useful and helpful to have. The move to Plasma 5 from KDE4 during 15.04 was rocky at best and I believe with Plasma 5 now very stable and strong we have a great OS and even better community.

Well said!

[GreyGeek]

Around 1992 Eric S Raymond (ESR) wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" as an introduction to what is known as open source programming. Version 1.0 was published in 1997, a year before I began using Linux in May of 1998. I began reading his and the writings of Richard Stallman, both fierce advocates of the GPL and true Open Source programming, not the weedy garden of pesudo GPL licenses now foisted upon us by corporate interests trying to deceive for money.

One of the key elements of Open Source is that unlike the Cathedral method of programming (Corporate Temples of software creation served by High Priests of programming dictating the "law" (EULA) to users and managing teams of paid "testers" to find bugs) the Bazaar depends on USERS VOLUNTEERING to report bugs to developers. Open Source development depends on USERS and so the mantra "release early release often" arose. Users can't help if they don't have something to try. If GPL developers waited until Ver 1.0 was released there'd be no bug testing at all until the users got a copy, and then chaos would reign.

ESR writes:

Linus was directly aiming to maximize the number of person-hours thrown at debugging and development, even at the possible cost of instability in the code and user-base burnout if any serious bug proved intractable. Linus was behaving as though he believed something like this:

8. Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone.

Or, less formally, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.'' I dub this: "Linus's Law''.


My original formulation was that every problem "will be transparent to somebody''. Linus demurred that the person who understands and fixes the problem is not necessarily or even usually the person who first characterizes it. "Somebody finds the problem,'' he says, "and somebody else understands it. And I'll go on record as saying that finding it is the bigger challenge.'' That correction is important; we'll see how in the next section, when we examine the practice of debugging in more detail. But the key point is that both parts of the process (finding and fixing) tend to happen rapidly.

In Linus's Law, I think, lies the core difference underlying the cathedral-builder and bazaar styles. In the cathedral-builder view of programming, bugs and development problems are tricky, insidious, deep phenomena. It takes months of scrutiny by a dedicated few to develop confidence that you've winkled them all out. Thus the long release intervals, and the inevitable disappointment when long-awaited releases are not perfect.

You and I are "co-developers" with the Kubuntu team and with Linus himself when we test their released applications and report problems we encounter on the bugzilla site in an informative way, with as much detail as we can collect. What isn't helpful, and in fact is discouraging to those FREELY contributing their time, hardware and skills to Open Source projects like Kubuntu and Linux, is to post frothing rants complaining about an application without giving any details at all. Even worse are the ad hominem attacks questioning the developers skills and motives. In the past I've noticed these kinds of attacks increased in intensity when KDE changed versions: 1 to 2, 3 to 3 and now 4 to 5. Some of these attacks are from Noobs who are not familiar with the Bazaar type of project development, having paid money for Cathedral applications and expecting perfection (which the Cathedral never delivers on, but that doesn't seem to matter). Some attacks were from "Technical Evangelists" (an attack team created by James Plamondon at Microsoft) and Windows devotees. The attacks against KDE developers were more intense during the introduction of Plasma 4 than Plasma 5, and Plasma 5 is turning out to be a real Diamond of a desktop.

Noobs: bugs come and go, and some come back again. Software is extremely complicated. From the firmware burned into the PROMs on the MOBO to Dolphin itself, the fact that the whole stack works as well as it does is a miracle in itself! If you want perfect software locate a perfect human being who happens to be a programmer and pay him or her to write your perfect bug-free code. Until then, you'll have to put up with mere mortals who make mistakes at 2:30AM trying to meet a submission freeze deadline while having to be at work tomorrow morning at 8AM to work on other software projects. In today's narcissistic money grubbing world the fact that you can find a team of skilled coders who work together for free on Kubuntu is, to me, another miracle. One I am thankful for.

[Snowhog]

Very nicely said. Succinct and informative. With appologies to Pogo: "We Have Met the Testers, and He is Us."

[Erwin Smout]

Around 1992 Eric S Raymond (ESR) wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" as an introduction to what is known as open source programming. Version 1.0 was published in 1997, a year before I began using Linux in May of 1998. I began reading his and the writings of Richard Stallman, both fierce advocates of the GPL and true Open Source programming, not the weedy garden of pesudo GPL licenses now foisted upon us by corporate interests trying to deceive for money.

One of the key elements of Open Source is that unlike the Cathedral method of programming (Corporate Temples of software creation served by High Priests of programming dictating the "law" (EULA) to users and managing teams of paid "testers" to find bugs) the Bazaar depends on USERS VOLUNTEERING to report bugs to developers. Open Source development depends on USERS and so the mantra "release early release often" arose. Users can't help if they don't have something to try. If GPL developers waited until Ver 1.0 was released there'd be no bug testing at all until the users got a copy, and then chaos would reign.

ESR writes:

You and I are "co-developers" with the Kubuntu team and with Linus himself when we test their released applications and report problems we encounter on the bugzilla site in an informative way, with as much detail as we can collect. What isn't helpful, and in fact is discouraging to those FREELY contributing their time, hardware and skills to Open Source projects like Kubuntu and Linux, is to post frothing rants complaining about an application without giving any details at all. Even worse are the ad hominem attacks questioning the developers skills and motives. In the past I've noticed these kinds of attacks increased in intensity when KDE changed versions: 1 to 2, 3 to 3 and now 4 to 5. Some of these attacks are from Noobs who are not familiar with the Bazaar type of project development, having paid money for Cathedral applications and expecting perfection (which the Cathedral never delivers on, but that doesn't seem to matter). Some attacks were from "Technical Evangelists" (an attack team created by James Plamondon at Microsoft) and Windows devotees. The attacks against KDE developers were more intense during the introduction of Plasma 4 than Plasma 5, and Plasma 5 is turning out to be a real Diamond of a desktop.

Noobs: bugs come and go, and some come back again. Software is extremely complicated. From the firmware burned into the PROMs on the MOBO to Dolphin itself, the fact that the whole stack works as well as it does is a miracle in itself! If you want perfect software locate a perfect human being who happens to be a programmer and pay him or her to write your perfect bug-free code. Until then, you'll have to put up with mere mortals who make mistakes at 2:30AM trying to meet a submission freeze deadline while having to be at work tomorrow morning at 8AM to work on other software projects. In today's narcissistic money grubbing world the fact that you can find a team of skilled coders who work together for free on Kubuntu is, to me, another miracle. One I am thankful for.

Triggering this kind of reaction, I know I must have said something right.

[GreyGeek]

Triggering this kind of reaction, I know I must have said something right.

Only that you appear not to understand how FOSS and GPL software is developed. IF you are really so concerned about the three "bugs" you mentioned, where are the links to your bug reports?

You also apparently missed this part of clivejo's post:

The truth is that the future depends on the Kubuntu community, the likes of you and I who use Kubuntu and want to continue to use it. It is time to step up and give back to the community, see a problem, then do something about it! Many make excuses that they don't have technical know how, but the fact of the matter is that there are many ways to help out, testing new software, even submitting bug reports or writing/reading documentation.

You going to step up, or just set back and toss complaints?

[Erwin Smout]

Only that you appear not to understand how FOSS and GPL software is developed. IF you are really so concerned about the three "bugs" you mentioned, where are the links to your bug reports?

You also apparently missed this part of clivejo's post:

You going to step up, or just set back and toss complaints?[/COLOR]

Believe me dude, I've done my share of "stepping up". Not in the linux or the OS arena, but contrary to what you may or may not believe, those aren't the only arenas where there's stepping up to do. And believe me dude, there is *no one* in this pitiful group here who has *any* lecturing me to do about "working on a project for no gain at all". And believe me dude, when someone reported a bug to me I would be pissed at myself and do nothing else anymore until it was fixed, while you lot apparently enter defense mode and start pulling out the old "you do realize we're doing this for free" excuse. You see dude, *THAT* is how you can tell someone is *genuinely* "taking pride in his work". Or not.

Oh yes. You asked for a link. Here it is : https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...14-04-to-16-04 .

Oh yes. That's not the bugzilla page, that's right here. Well my trouble is, dude, *I don't know where the bugzilla page is*. (Maybe you can point me to the place where anything in the product has given me this information and I missed it.) You will notice that our friend mr Snowhog has shown a genuine intent in that thread to help me out and I have shown a genuine intent to try and give him the information he asked for. You will also notice there is *no reply at all* of the kind that actually suggests *anything* about what could be *done* to address the problem. Only questions for further information and then absolute radio silence. *NOT EVEN* an indication to the effect that "I cannot help you out myself but I have forwarded this problem to there-and-there". That is *NOT* a criticism that is an *OBSERVATION OF FACT*. An "inconvenient truth" if you will.

And no, that part of mr clivejo's reply has *not* been missed. But as I said, I believe I've done my share of "stepping up" and I also believe you have serious reasons for reconsidering your apparently very strong inclination for jumping to conclusions. Dude.

[oshunluvr]

Believe me dude, I've done my share of "stepping up". Not in the linux or the OS arena, but contrary to what you may or may not believe, those aren't the only arenas where there's stepping up to do.

I fail to understand what this has to do with Kubuntu or Linux or this forum.

And believe me dude, there is *no one* in this pitiful group here who has *any* lecturing me to do about "working on a project for no gain at all".

Since we're all so "pitiful, why are you posting here? No one is blocking the door. We generally don't entertain angry spiteful posters here. Passing out insults won't win you any support.

For the record, GGs response looks more like a retort than a lecture. Human nature dictates that most of us will reply in kind. Post a rant or a complaint with no information, no trouble-shooting results, no details of any kind - especially when jacking someone else's thread - and you'll likely get a retort. If you want answers, learn to post in a way that gets them. I suggest you start by clicking on the "ReadMe" link in my signature.

And believe me dude, when someone reported a bug to me I would be pissed at myself and do nothing else anymore until it was fixed, while you lot apparently enter defense mode and start pulling out the old "you do realize we're doing this for free" excuse. You see dude, *THAT* is how you can tell someone is *genuinely* "taking pride in his work". Or not. (Maybe you can point me to the place where anything in the product has given me this information and I missed it.)

(boldface above added) This might be the source of some of your confusion about bugs and how they are addressed. You see, Kubuntu is not a product:

prod·uct ˈprädəkt noun 1. an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale.

FOSS distros are projects:

proj·ect ˈpräjˌekt/ noun 1. an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned and designed to achieve a particular aim.

The term "product" implies you paid for it and have rights as a consumer. A project that you obtain freely does not imply such rights. So you see, the developers owe us nothing. They give us access to a project like Kubuntu and they rely on well constructed and documented bug reports so they can fix problems when they can.

Oh yes. You asked for a link. Here it is : https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...14-04-to-16-04 . Oh yes. That's not the bugzilla page, that's right here. Well my trouble is, dude, *I don't know where the bugzilla page is*.

I'm sure you can Google as well as any of us, but you can start here: https://bugs.kde.org

You will notice that our friend mr Snowhog has shown a genuine intent in that thread to help me out and I have shown a genuine intent to try and give him the information he asked for. You will also notice there is *no reply at all* of the kind that actually suggests *anything* about what could be *done* to address the problem. Only questions for further information and then absolute radio silence. *NOT EVEN* an indication to the effect that "I cannot help you out myself but I have forwarded this problem to there-and-there". That is *NOT* a criticism that is an *OBSERVATION OF FACT*. An "inconvenient truth" if you will.

The lack of replies to any giving post may be due to any number of reasons. The lack of detail or explanation of attempts to fix things yourself are one example why you might not get many replies. No one here is obligated to do your homework for you or drag needed info from you. Not everyone here uses every part of Kubuntu - I for one haven't used Kmail in years - so may not have any useful info. And most importantly, none of us are paid to be here.

Many of us - like me - donate to this service to keep it running (notice the Contributor badges under members usernames). For this reason, when we read a post riddled with demands, threats to "leave" Kubuntu, and filled with statements of entitlement like this post is: Well if all you got was a retort, you were lucky.

And no, that part of mr clivejo's reply has *not* been missed. But as I said, I believe I've done my share of "stepping up" and I also believe you have serious reasons for reconsidering your apparently very strong inclination for jumping to conclusions. Dude.

Nobody has accused you of anything except for complaining rather than helping the project. Whatever you keep alluding to as "stepping up" has nothing to do with anything here.

[Snowhog]

Frustration often expresses its self as anger, and I would ask; encourage; that everyone step back a pace or two and do some deep breathing.

None of us can, with any degree of assurance, claim to have walked in anyone else's shoes so as to have intimate understanding of what they are/have experienced or done. There is a HUGE problem with trying to communicate [Communicate (definition): Share or exchange information, news, or ideas. Information (definition): Facts provided or learned about something or someone. Facts (definition): Information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.] only in written form. Some are better at it, but it is a skill that has to be developed.

I don't want any member here to feel that they are not welcomed; that their input isn't valued. That said; and it is true; posts that do not contain useful (re: containing specifics/details) information concerning the stated issue(s); posts that fall more into the category of 'rants', and those that contain either direct or indirect digs at developers and/or other members of KFN; are not going to be seen and replied to in the most favorable of terms. That's human nature.

And yes, I do understand that this thread was started in Social/Casual Talk, however.

I hope that I have not offended anyone in this thread with my thoughts. That is never my intent (and I don't want to send anyone to their rooms!).

[GreyGeek]

Out of curiosity I ddg'd "erwin smout" and found several pages of interesting links, mostly related to database discussions. THAT Smout knows what he talks about and is an interesting fellow. In his many postings I didn't see a single reference to anyone using the term "Dude", which I haven't heard in decades. Probably not since college fifty years ago. Reminds me of Happy Days. IF you are that "dude" maybe you could show us more of your interesting side.

[Erwin Smout]

Frustration often expresses its self as anger, and I would ask; encourage; that everyone step back a pace or two and do some deep breathing.

None of us can, with any degree of assurance, claim to have walked in anyone else's shoes so as to have intimate understanding of what they are/have experienced or done. There is a HUGE problem with trying to communicate [Communicate (definition): Share or exchange information, news, or ideas. Information (definition): Facts provided or learned about something or someone. Facts (definition): Information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.] only in written form. Some are better at it, but it is a skill that has to be developed.

I don't want any member here to feel that they are not welcomed; that their input isn't valued. That said; and it is true; posts that do not contain useful (re: containing specifics/details) information concerning the stated issue(s); posts that fall more into the category of 'rants', and those that contain either direct or indirect digs at developers and/or other members of KFN; are not going to be seen and replied to in the most favorable of terms. That's human nature.

And yes, I do understand that this thread was started in Social/Casual Talk, however.

I hope that I have not offended anyone in this thread with my thoughts. That is never my intent (and I don't want to send anyone to their rooms!).

Thank you. I swallowed the reply I had coming (which was to that preceding msg) and replaced it with this :

I do think the OP has a very serious and legitimate point when he observes that Kubuntu is indeed degrading and I do think the point deserves to be made and deserves to be discussed. As an established and not even so terribly dissatisfied user, I'd prefer to avoid the pains of migrating from Kubuntu to whatever. But I also need the confidence that the pains of migrating from Kubuntu to Kubuntu won't be exactly the same.

[Snowhog]

Thank you. I swallowed the reply I had coming (which was to that preceding msg)

You're welcome, and thank you for 'breathing some' before replying.

and replaced it with this :

I do think the OP has a very serious and legitimate point when he observes that Kubuntu is indeed degrading and I do think the point deserves to be made and deserves to be discussed. As an established and not even so terribly dissatisfied user,

I'd prefer to avoid the pains of migrating from Kubuntu to whatever. But I also need the confidence that the pains of migrating from Kubuntu to Kubuntu [emphasis added by Snowhog] won't be exactly the same.

I think, unfortunately, there isn't/can't be any reasonable assurance that a migration will be 'trouble free', as there are just to many variables involved. However, I do think that specific answers to specific concerns 'are out there' and finding them isn't/won't be a tremendous undertaking. But patience and time are commodities that one will really need to have (or acquire) before one decides to do such a migration.

[Erwin Smout]

Out of curiosity I ddg'd "erwin smout" and found several pages of interesting links, mostly related to database discussions. THAT Smout knows what he talks about and is an interesting fellow. In his many postings I didn't see a single reference to anyone using the term "Dude", which I haven't heard in decades. Probably not since college fifty years ago. Reminds me of Happy Days. IF you are that "dude" maybe you could show us more of your interesting side.

Thank you. Yes I'm that database dude. And I'm wondering the state of mind I was in allowing that word 'pitiful' to pass review.