Hi Darrell,
I'm not going to address the technical content of your email, much of which I disagree with from a purely factual perspective, because I do not believe it is possible to make progress on technical topics when there is a wall of denial and negativity in the way. So I will instead focus on one specific thing you wrote which really tells the whole tale as to why it is currently infeasible to make progress on these matters:
On Saturday, February 11, 2012 19:57:44 Darrell Anderson wrote:
The KDE4 developers do what they want.
We do what we understand to be best given our resources, the requirements of today's applications and users and based on feedback from those who use KDE software. We come to these conclusions after a lot of research and testing. Ultimately, yes, we choose what to do and we don't always get the best answer on the first try, but the processes we engage in is a very different thing from simply doing "what we want".
So let me now quote slightly out of order:
if they would be as honest and admit they develop the software for themselves and not others.
What you are asking for is for me, and the rest of the team, to *lie* so as to fit *your* desired worldview. What nonesense. The reality doesn't fit your expectations (you think we're selfishly "doing it for ourselves", we maintain and demonstrate that we aren't) and so instead of modifying your worldview you want the world to stand on its head and match your flawed perspective. Perhaps you should simlpy adjust your conclusion and accept that we are writing software for others, but that the results of that process (for whatever set of reasons) are not what you wanted. Would that be so hard?
We don't bother anybody.
You need to go back and read the last set of release announcements for TDE or any of the numerous comments written on public blogs and web forums by TDE users, who quite obviously draw conviction and encouragement to do such things by the leadership and core group around TDE who express the exact combination of negativity and ignorance we see expressed time and again. Examining the reality shows that your statement is utterly untrue.
Perhaps you don't percieve TDE as "bothering anybody", and I accept that as a real possibility: it seems more likely than you being delusional or intentionally lieing. Maybe it will be an eye-opener to step back and consider just how you and the other TDE people come across in public. To say TDE, both its development team as well as its user base, has "bothered" people is akin to saying that Mount Everest is slightly high.
Why do they believe they have standing to bother and attack us?
Ignoring the hypocracy in your question, I'll give you a straight answer:
a) TDE has taken code many of us worked on for years and is taking it in the direction TDE sees fit. Not normally a problem, but in this case TDE often does a less than spectacular job of it. Diminishing someone else's work and doing the long-term users of it a disservice is not great, is it? Yeah, it annoys me when people use my software, which they still refer to as "kicker", with someone else's changes to it which actually make it less stable rather than more, something I worked years on to achieve, and then have the balls to suggest that "TDE is improving things". Normally, this point on its own would be, while unfortunate, ignorable, however:
b) When a developer does come here and asks to unfork one component (kwin, e.g.) for everyone's benefit, the response is pathetic and juvenile, not the sort of thing I expect from mature software developers.
c) TDE and the people around it have repeatedly made public statements about the state of KDE software. Some of it has appeared in headlines on Slashdot as part of a TDE release announcement, to name one example. To expect no response to be made to such public assertions is to live in a fantasy world.
The way to get along with each other starts by those who brought the negativity in the first place to find peace within themselves and start behaving accordingly. The problems TDE reaps are the problems TDE sows.
Stop pretending to be a victim and start behaving like people who are trying to take control of your own positive destiny by developing technology you love.