[tde-users] Re: How dead is Trinity and is it worth contributing to?

On 7/3/24 12:31 PM, CHRIS M via tde-users wrote: I've been online for close to 40 years. Before that I managed long distance conversations with dead trees and pens. I worked a few decades as a technical writer. Conversing through the written word is challenging and requires patience. Add different backgrounds, cultures, languages, etc., and these conversations grow more challenging, requiring more patience. I think the TDE community is sufficiently active to keep TDE alive for a long time. The MATE, Xfce, Cinnamon, and Enlightenment communities are similar. Then there are all of the many window managers that have been around since the 1980s and 1990s. TDE is doing fine, but I agree that meaningful conversation is needed in any relationship. With a limited number of developers, the best that mortal users can do is ask questions and file feature requests. I think a big challenge is many TDE users are "traditional desktop" users and do not need or want many so-called modern features. For example, I do not use gmail, social media, online streaming services, company email, etc. I refuse to own a smart phone. What many people might consider missing features are mostly shoulder shrugs for me. Conversely, I'm a dinosaur and many young people today don't give a hoot what I don't need or want. Many such users seldom use an actual PC. For many people, smart phones are their soma and when they use PCs they expect a similar experience. So grumpy old men like me are irrelevant, but I think many TDE users want a traditional desktop experience and are not much motivated by the "latest and greatest." I use KDE 5 and TDE, but I spent much time configuring KDE and TDE to act like a traditional desktop with few bells and whistles. Lots of features disabled, removing unnecessary packages, etc. Many people would find my desktop configuration boring. I don't use window managers because of the additional effort required to create a comfortable look and feel. A basic DE avoids those efforts. My point is wanting new "modern" features is going to happen only if there are motivated developers. A low number of developers and users does not mean TDE is dead, just that TDE is kind of like that proverbial old pair of jeans that just fit and are comfortable.