

Canonical will no longer fund Kubuntu - hotice
http://blogs.kde.org/node/4531

======
andrewcooke
"[...] a regularly released community-friendly distro with a strong KDE focus.
There is no other major distro out there that matches that description [...]"

Then WTF is OpenSuse? <http://www.opensuse.org/en/>

This makes me really mad. OpenSuse is a major distro and has supported KDE for
years. It's not so popular in the USA, but is pretty big in Europe (I have
used it for years and it rocks; so does KDE). I don't see how the quote above
is excusable. Before reading that you had my sympathy, but if you're going to
trash-talk the rest of the community then good riddance.

[I just noticed some people are actively downvoting this comment. Just how far
does mindless Ubuntu fanboyism and intolerance of alternatives go?]

~~~
pgroves
Kubuntu is not Ubuntu. It is a complete distro with KDE as the default
desktop. In the future, KDE support will still be in Ubuntu, as much as it is
in Opensuse. Opensuse allows you to pick which desktop to use [1]. OpenSuse is
not a "KDE distro."

[1]<http://en.opensuse.org/Product_highlights>

~~~
cookiecaper
Puh-leese. Kubuntu and Ubuntu are the _same_ distribution. They just replace
your boot screens when you install kubuntu-desktop instead of just installing
another DE.

I've always been annoyed at Canonical's packaging of different DEs as if they
were entirely different distros.

~~~
tbrownaw
_I've always been annoyed at Canonical's packaging of different DEs as if they
were entirely different distros._

You mean they aren't? Really, how often do you have to go mess around under
/etc ? A different DE is probably the biggest user-facing change you'll get.

~~~
cookiecaper
Of course they aren't. One of the coolest things about desktop Linux is that
you can easily use whatever DE suits your fancy without having to do a bunch
of footwork.

Packaging these as different distributions sends your users red flags about
compatibility and ease of use. It makes people think they have to change their
computer completely if they want to try something new. It makes them think
they can't have concurrent DE installs if one user prefers XFCE and another
prefers KDE and another prefers Gnome. It makes them look for "Kubuntu
packages" instead of "Ubuntu packages" even though the distributions are
binary compatible.

There are a lot of implications of pretending like you're a whole different OS
when you're just a different default DE.

And I "mess around under /etc" frequently, probably multiple times per week.

~~~
spwmoni
Ubuntu's target market has a very different interpretation of "a bunch of
footwork" than yours.

~~~
jcitme
sudo aptitude install kde-full shouldn't be "a bunch of footwork" by any
standard by someone who passed high school.

~~~
redthrowaway
I'd hazard a guess that there's a not-insignificant number of Ubuntu users for
whom opening the terminal is "a bunch of footwork".

I used to live with a 40-something woman who was fairly technologically
impaired, the kind of person you would expect to get a MacBook Air and call it
a day. She ran Mint. Now, granted, it was installed by our room mate who was
(still is, I suppose) a CS grad student, but she got by just fine with Mint,
LibreOffice, and Chrome. Never used anything else, and never had a need to go
plunking around on the command line.

I suspect Susan is not alone among Linux users who just wanted a cheap
computer that worked and had some nerd install a user-friendly distro for
them.

------
tzury
Following the Unix philosophy _Write programs that do one thing and do it
well_ \-- perhaps we can assume that Canonical is willing to maintain one OS,
and do it well.

~~~
nailer
I've been wanting to hear this for a long time. Not that I like one more than
the other, I just think that Canonicals effort should be towards developing,
fixing and improving one UI, not four.

~~~
levesque
I'm not sure Canonical supports XFCE in any way, and now they also no longer
support KDE (financially, that is). There were hiring _one_ guy to work on
Kubuntu, that's not much if you ask me. So we're down to two (Gnome-shell and
Unity), and the support of gnome-shell is almost mandatory. Unity itself is
based on gnome3, so they need to help maintain and improve it.

There is no harm in letting community driven efforts take place. Having a
variety of desktop environments available to pick from has its advantages. For
example, Xubuntu is really useful for people who need to cut down memory/CPU
requirements.

~~~
Jach
Xubuntu is also really useful if you want a superior desktop UI. I'm not sure
if it's gotten harder or easier to make a default Ubuntu install use Xfce4 on
the very newest version, it'd be nice if that was an install-time option
instead of the separate distro mess. (It used to be just sudo apt-get install
xubuntu-desktop, but I've been out of the Ubuntu world for long enough I have
no idea if they changed that and it wouldn't surprise me.)

I'll be on Gnome2 until it dies, after that I'll have a full switch to Xfce4
since it's the only one that can compete with Gnome2 at the moment. I'll
probably seriously experiment with various tiling managers around that time
too. I'm more excited about the future developments of Wayland which I'm glad
Canonical is supporting but not so much gnome3 and unity.

~~~
levesque
So far, I'm not a big fan of gnome3 (and Unity), but I'm going to give the
gnome developers some credit and trust the direction they took. They spent
countless hours thinking about what to do - I didn't.

They refactored most of gtk, simplifying many things, and in the long run,
when people are done migrating everything, I believe it will turn out for the
best.

------
ChuckMcM
This comment stood out for me in that article:

 _If it does then we need people to step up and take the initiative in doing
the tasks that are often poorly supported by the community process. ISO
testing, for example, is a long, slow, thankless task, and it is hard to get
volunteers for it. We can look at ways of reducing effort from what we do such
as scrapping the alternate CD or automating KDE SC packaging._

This is the biggest single challenge that free software has to over come if it
every hopes to challenge proprietary versions. Testing, and verifying bug
fixes, and bugs, and documenting. Its not the 'fun' work of building a distro,
its not the 'glorious' work of building a distro, its not something that makes
people want to sit at your table during a 'con.

But the reality is the for most software products the number of people who are
'users' and the number of people who are 'developers' are generally very
different, with successful products having many more users than developers.
Users have no option when they hit a problem or an incompatibility but to stop
using, that is their only choice. They aren't going to learn C, they aren't
going to try to fetch and build a newer version of a kernel module, all they
really can do is try something else.

Everything else pales in comparison to that problem.

------
markokocic
I don't understand what is the problem. I installed Ubuntu multiple times just
to uninstall Gnome and install KDE as a first step after install. Never
bothered to actually try KUbuntu.

Is this method of installing KDE still supported, or they are dropping support
for KDE completely.

~~~
adimitrov
They will probably not drop the KDE packages (that'd be idiotic, tons of
people use, say Amarok or Kopete or whatnot) — but it won't be the streamlined
experience that Unity is or Gnome was, Ubuntu icons everywhere and whatnot.

It'll just be closer, or even identical to upstream KDE (or rather, Debian's
version of upstream KDE) with few modifications on Canonical's side.

~~~
Karunamon
Canonical is not a stranger to idiotic business decisions.(See also Unity and
their subsequent losing of ground to Mint)

That, combined with their utter inability to take community feedback into
account, really makes me wonder whenever they do something like this. It's
like traditional logic doesn't apply.

~~~
davidw
> Canonical is not a stranger to idiotic business decisions.

Do they even make money? They provide a bunch of free stuff, so I'm not sure
how the recoup it.

~~~
Scaevolus
They sell support contracts.

~~~
davidw
My _impression_ , with no basis in actual facts, is that they spend more than
they take in. How many zillions of users do they have, and how many of those
actually need support from Canonical, especially when they can get varying
degrees of support from anyone with Linux knowledge.

~~~
cookiecaper
Ubuntu Server is becoming more and more popular. While the Red Hat "wait five
years between releases" model works for some applications, it is actually not
very good for people developing new web-based programs. There is a lot of
appreciation for a server-style OS that updates more frequently (semi-annually
in Ubuntu's case), and Ubuntu offers contracts (supposedly) comparable to what
you would get with RHEL so you can still keep the CYA business guys happy (and
get support, I guess, if you need it).

------
lawnchair_larry
That's a shame. I never liked KDE since I first tried it about 15 years ago.
Unity and Gnome 3 are so bad that on my latest ubuntu install, I decided to
see if KDE was fixed yet. It's now my primary desktop environment. There are a
few issues with it, but I felt like it was far better than the alternatives.

------
puzzler314
I've recently switched Linux Mint as a result of Canonical's new focus on eye
candy rather than functionality (I couldn't take the new interface in Ubuntu).
Have others gone the same way or is there another distribution I should look
at?

~~~
davidw
The idea that you should reinstall every time, with Mint, makes it sound like
a bit of a toy, in my eyes.

~~~
dhimes
It's a philosophy, not a requirement. Mint thinks you should upgrade Ubuntu
that way as well.

I just keep separate partitions and do a full install on the ones I need. No
sweat.

On the other hand, I did a "ubuntu" style upgrade to 10.04 LTS, and that
worked fine, too (I run that on a netbook for their netbook interface). It
took longer than a full install on Mint (perhaps being a slower machine had
something to do with it), but it worked out ok.

~~~
davidw
Ok, but if they eventually strike out 'on their own', it's not something
they're going to test, potentially leaving you in the lurch.

~~~
dhimes
I imagine we'll at least be warned.

------
brainsqueezer
I liked that mix o Debian base + latest KDE + some Ubuntu graphical extras
(printer, package update, etc). KDE needs it's own distro focused on a great
KDE user experience. Sorry for Mandriva and others but for me I need something
based on Debian. My real opinion is that KDE should make itself a distro to
get a good vertical integration.

------
jebblue
Canonical should consider dropping Unity and getting the Gnome people to drop
Gnome 3 and then get them to come out with Gnome 4 based on Gnome 2 with some
very small Ubuntu twists. Oh right, that would be all Ubuntu versions up to 11
which were successful.

------
amirf
It's always sad to see a project failing. There are other alternatives, both
to a KDE linux distro (i.e: openSUSE) and gnome/ubuntu (mint being my
favorite).

It's a business decision I understand, they want to shift focus completely to
ubuntu, especially since they are losing a huge user-base over their last
gnome3 releases.

~~~
bratsche
It doesn't mean the project is failing. Kubuntu had only a single developer
from Canonical, and numerous other developers. This just means that Canonical
doesn't feel like funding a KDE desktop anymore with that one developer. It
doesn't mean the project is ending or anything.

~~~
amirf
You're right, but it means the project will (probably) become less stable. One
less full time individual probably means less testing and might require you to
use older packages or build them yourself.

------
zerathul
really, what's the problem with installing kde on ubuntu/ubuntu server?

~~~
TylerE
kubuntu are the ones who maintain the packages. If they go away, you're either
HOPING someone volunteers to package KDE in an independent repo (a pretty
daunting task), or you're building it from source.

~~~
kijin
All those packages come from Debian anyway. As long as Debian keeps KDE in its
repos, I don't see any reason for KDE packages to disappear from Ubuntu repos.
Worst case, KDE on Ubuntu will become less stable due to less testing, but
that could be partially mitigated by using slightly older packages.

------
arguesalot
The reason i prefer xubuntu is the fact that Kubuntu is going the way of
ubuntu by investing heavily on eyecandy, touch-like interfaces and excessive
UI bloat. KDE seems to be the best overall platform for development, but the
interface is trying too much to be everything. I think they should reconsider
falling back to a simple clean default desktop, because they are doing a
disservice to the developers of thousands of great KDE apps.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I'm on Ubuntu 11.04 atm. I plan to upgrade to 12.04 in July (after its had a
few months to bed in), but I'm weary of what to expect from their next UI
update, given their recent history. Unless I hear good things, I'll be moving
over to Xubuntu.

~~~
johnmmurray
Alternatively, you could go with XMonad! I made the jump after experiencing
Canonical's Unity and proceeding to search for alternatives. Once you make the
switch, you won't want to use anything else. :-)

~~~
VMG
Or maybe he will switch back. Like I did.

