What are the Political Issues Regarding Slackware and KDE 4.4?

cwizardone · 01-26-2010, 10:36 AM

Just what are the political issues surrounding Slackware and KDE 4.4?
Thanks.

GazL · 01-26-2010, 11:18 AM

What political issues are you referring to? I've not heard any rumblings.

samac · 01-26-2010, 11:18 AM

Political issues? Please elaborate. Perhaps KDE 4.4 will be standing for parliament and advocating that the death penalty be re-instated for users of other desktop environments.

samac

ponce · 01-26-2010, 11:27 AM

maybe he's referring to what alien bob has written on his blog (he talked about it also days ago).

but I think we have to wait for another post on his blog.

Lufbery · 01-26-2010, 11:33 AM

Here's the specific post that Ponce refers to above.

From what I can tell, this isn't really a political issue, it's a technical one involving PAM, Polkit (the latest iteration of Policy Kit), Shadow, and KDE.

Regards,

samac · 01-26-2010, 11:37 AM

Quote:

KDE 4.4 is surrounded by some “political” issues involving the influence of certain big distros, which keep it from being included into Slackware in the near future. Perhaps I should talk about that in more detail, but I will spend another blog post on that.

Perhaps this is the issue, but again there is no detail. However as Alien Bob also says

Quote:

slackware-current has moved to KDE 4.3.4 (stable and a joy to use)

, to which I concur. So will KDE 4.4 be a loss?

samac

Lufbery · 01-26-2010, 12:04 PM

Ah, okay, so it is a political issue...

brianL · 01-26-2010, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samac

Political issues? Please elaborate. Perhaps KDE 4.4 will be standing for parliament and advocating that the death penalty be re-instated for users of other desktop environments.

samac

That's a bit harsh, a public flogging should be enough.

smoooth103 · 01-26-2010, 06:04 PM

I was also wondering the same thing after reading Aliens Blog. What kinda of political resistence is there to KDE 4.4? I don't understand.

I can't imagine 4.4 being so much different from 4.3. He inferrred that it has something to do with the path larger distributions are taking?

Anyone have an insight?

gargamel · 01-26-2010, 06:42 PM

See today's comments on Alien Bob's blog. He is giving a very good explanation, there.

gargamel

Lufbery · 01-26-2010, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoooth103

Anyone have an insight?

See my post above and read the link therein.

It boils down to the other distributions using Polkit and PAM and then requiring KDE to be developed with those technologies.

Alien Bob says in his post:

Quote:

One of the motivators behind this idea is the fact that polkit seems to be a requirement to build future KDE versions and currently, polkit requires PAM. The choice would be, to add PAM or to remove KDE.

Regards,

hitest · 01-26-2010, 07:26 PM

From my perspective Slackware is quite apolitical. That is, decisions about the inclusion of software into Slackware appear to be driven by a clear pragmatism. That is, if we include a particular software set into Slackware will it enhance the OS or f*#@ it up? I don't really see a political agenda afoot. I very-much appreciate the fact that PV is conservative when he introduces new technology into Slackware.
Slackware's reputation for security and rock-steady stability is well deserved.

smoooth103 · 01-26-2010, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hitest

From my perspective Slackware is quite apolitical. That is, decisions about the inclusion of software into Slackware appear to be driven by a clear pragmatism. That is, if we include a particular software set into Slackware will it enhance the OS or f*#@ it up? I don't really see a political agenda afoot. I very-much appreciate the fact that PV is conservative when he introduces new technology into Slackware.
Slackware's reputation for security and rock-steady stability is well deserved.

Completely agree. I like to error on the side of caution and make a quality product. That is what drew me to Slackware.

I guess the KDE 4.4 issue is about adding PAM. Aliens blog raised my curiosity but I am very happy with 4.3 and could happily live with it for 5 more years.

damgar · 01-26-2010, 08:09 PM

Quote:

I guess the KDE 4.4 issue is about adding PAM. Aliens blog raised my curiosity but I am very happy with 4.3 and could happily live with it for 5 more years.

I think I might get very bored with the same thing for 2 years, let alone 5.

On a different note, I'm new to linux, just since september past, and then newer still maybe 2 months with Slackware. Do these types of things pop up in the OSS world frequently?

Laodiceans · 01-27-2010, 07:45 AM

I hope that will be solved and the future releases of Slackware still continue to support KDE.