31 Mar
2012
31 Mar
'12
1:17 a.m.
The funny thing is that the HAL dependency bug is
among the
oldest open bug reports on the tracker, dating back almost to the fork
of KDE3.5. It is also one of the first things other desktops environments
throw at us to claim that TDE is obsolete. This is high priority for
me to fix, it has been over 3 years and in all that time no one has had the
requisite expertise to repair it.
I would love to fix the bugs myself, however there is the
issue of money and time on my end. Simply put I can't dedicate weeks
of unpaid time to TDE each month; bills have to be paid and other tasks need
to be finished. Then there is the issue of varying platforms and
distributions; I use Debian and Ubuntu and see no build problems
whatsoever. Linux can be somewhat infuriating for software developers for this
reason; what works perfectly on one distribution fails on another. I
don't have the time or resources to install and learn every distribution that TDE
runs on, so I rely on others to handle the repair of bugs that only show
up on their distribution or setup.
HAL is slowly breaking down as the kernel changes, and there
will eventually come a time when it just doesn't work any more,
making the initial development of an alternative imperative.
The R14.0 release can be pushed back if needed, especially
since Slavek Banko has been fixing critical bugs in the Debian/Ubuntu
packages for 3.5.13.
I know it is frustrating, but please remember that we are
all volunteers working on this project because in many cases the
alternatives are even worse than a buggy release of TDE. Just to be clear, I
am not receiving payment for my work on TDE either; the money collected via
the Donations page barely covers annual operating expenses, and many times
falls short. If those involved in LiMux or any other major TDE deployment
would provide coders willing to help squash bugs, or even sponsor the
project, then we could make faster progress. I have yet to see this
happen.
For now I continue to fix bugs that are most irritating to
me, as I have time, in the finest FOSS tradition. :-) As others here
do the same the bug list will slowly be whittled down, even if it takes
longer than we would like.
Yeah, some days I'm a grumpy old man. Probably forgot my vitamins this morning. :)
I am aware of the importance of removing hal dependency. That needs to be fixed sooner or
later.
Yes, we're all volunteers. I am too. None of us get paid in the conventional sense,
but we all get paid in the reward of using the software. None of us receives any less than
we bargained and some of us get a tad more now and then.
My plea to anybody subscribed to this list:
Please look through the bug tracker. Look at what fits your skills. You don't have to
open a bug tracker account. Just send me the patch. Or send me the snippet of code you
think should be changed and I'll make a patch. I'll do the testing.
Build related bugs need help most (if we can't build the full package we can't
test and resolve usability bugs). Some bugs are automake problems, some cmake, some
linking, some not finding tqt headers, etc.
Just a couple of bug reports a week and the back log dwindles. Trinity improves with each
resolved bug report. Please consider joining a great little project. And you get to use
the software too. :)
Let's make R14 shine!
Darrell