ACS_Solver23 minutes ago
One of the most impressive and useful free software projects. My first experience was being totally confused by KDE 1 during my first attempts to use Linux, and I'm writing this from my KDE desktop.
Other than the really bad KDE 4 release, the project has consistently been great for me. I've submitted a few smaller patches over the years and that experience was also low friction for a project of this size. KDE is highly customizable, full of power user features but also really simple with its current defaults (looks pretty much like Windows) and generally robust.
Shoutout to some KDE applications like Okular (great document viewer), Kate (solid tech editor), Krusader (double pane file manager) and KolourPaint (a simple image editor even I can use).
tycoon6663 minutes ago
KDE beta2 was my first.
F3nd034 minutes ago
It's impressive for the project to have come so far. Between the oversimplified, hyper-opinionated GNOME, the rock-solid but dull and minimal XFCE, the nostalgic MATE, and whatever Enlightenment is doing these days, it’s nice to have a continually polished, modern, well-integrated yet customisable experience like KDE, even today. And save for Akonadi (which just never seems to work reliably, rendering software like KMail useless), it’s been a pretty stable one for me, too. Here’s to another 30 years!
pelagicAustralan hour ago
I will donate my entire pension if they make it so I can have a Windows 2000 theme that actually works and doesnt require me to hack a dozen files each time they push and update.
Gualdrapo43 minutes ago
I think you will be able to achieve that when Union is released. I hate SVG theming in Plasma so much that I root for Union to be successful
hparadiz2 minutes ago
Have an agent do it and have it write out what it did to an md file as guidance for each update. To be fair though if you configure things correctly it should never break. Mine hasn't been broken in years.
ChrisArchitect7 minutes ago
Talk from Grazer Linuxtage conf earlier this year:
KDE: 30 years of the Linux desktop
https://media.ccc.de/v/glt26-691-kde-30-years-of-the-linux-d...
Kyeop2 hours ago
The master of ceremonies is a proper creature: https://floss.social/@kde/116673618808097094
edit: I appreciate the quality of discussion below, so far.
retardsinossan hour ago
[flagged]
voidfunc38 minutes ago
Found the edge lord. You gotta step up your troll game, this is weak. Grok can do better.
doubletwoyou42 minutes ago
What are you talking about mate? It’s just a cute little mascot?
steve197733 minutes ago
I think Hacker News? Not sure though...
chekibrekian hour ago
[flagged]
sham130 minutes ago
The Free Software community has always been political. Where have you been?
Introducing a non-binary mascot for KDE is no more or less political than for example Richard Stallman demanding that printer drivers should be free, back in the 1980s. And same way the use and preference of the term "open source" over "free software" -- or vice versa -- is also very political because it depends on if one wants to go with the described values or not necessarily want to stand behind them.
The Free software community involves people, and with people come shared values and politics. That's kinda what "community" implies. And if we really want to go into it, given the circumstances of the invention of things like computers, the Internet, etc. it'd be very erroneous to asset that software in general has ever been value-free or non-political. Computing artillery trajectories is political just the same way as promotion of LGBTQ+ people, even if people get more upset about the latter rather than the more kinetic kinds of politics implied by howitzers et al.
chekibreki26 minutes ago
Your comparison is dishonest and wrong. printer drivers are a piece of software, sexual orientation is completely disconnected from software or technology.
sham121 minutes ago
This implies that the difference actually matters. In both cases there is a political goal behind the actions. Yes, printer driver software itself is very different from sexual and gender orientation, but wanting for the printer drivers to be free is a political statement and principle, and so is the uplift of LGBTQ+ people and celebrations of PRIDE month. Both are political despite being about distinct subject matters.
You can disagree with the politics in question, but to say that FLOSS has no room for politics is itself a political position, leading you to a paradox!
chekibreki9 minutes ago
Yes, it matters. You can try to distract and do as much mental gymnastics as you want but everyone rational can clearly see that one thing is doing politics for software (free drivers, open source, no DRM, …) and the other is about virtue signaling about subjects that are completely unrelated.
Btw, feel free to label me however you want (others did already), which shows that they have no arguments and resort to pidgeonholeing and name calling.
sham1a minute ago
> Yes, it matters.
Does it actually matter? And if so, why?
> You can try to distract and do as much mental gymnastics as you want but everyone rational can clearly see that one thing is doing politics for software (free drivers, open source, no DRM, …) and the other is about virtue signaling about subjects that are completely unrelated.
Okay, but you would still have to answer a really important question. Why does it matter?
Let's say that it's virtue signalling, for the sake of the argument (although people tend to not know what virtue signalling actually is, and just claim any public acknowledgement of one's values as such, which is incorrect).
So, why does one being virtue signalling and the other not being such actually matter? Does it actually change the messaging in any meaningful way? Does it make it less legitimate or whatever?
> Btw, feel free to label me however you want (others did already), which shows that they have no arguments and resort to pidgeonholeing and name calling.
I wasn't going to, but thank you for the invitation!
retardsinoss14 minutes ago
[flagged]
enragedcacti32 minutes ago
It's Pride Month and the organization is doing Pride things, its not that complicated.
> This will undoubtedly create tensions and will lead to fewer donations, thus having a negative impact on KDE.
"undoubtedly" is absurd here. Does KDE really have a stable of consistent transphobes donating? Do they outweigh additional donations from supporting the LGBTQ community?
Regardless, if the only point of KDE were to make money it wouldn't be a non-profit. Extremely passionate people are often passionate about a lot of things beyond just what you want from them. KDE is a community project and that community loves and accepts non-binary people.
retardsinoss14 minutes ago
[flagged]
mhurron32 minutes ago
> open source software projects instead of political platforms
OSS and FOSS movements themselves were political platforms, so this has never been true. Your problem is that you just have some issue with this one
steve197733 minutes ago
For many people open source is political.
graypeggan hour ago
With all due respect: it is just a picture of a cute lizard.
Thinking practically, having a male and female lizard is sort of inconvenient for a mascot, since leaving one out is a message in itself. Having a genderless mascot with art assets ready to go makes practical sense to me.
jl644 minutes ago
They could have hung a Star of David pendant around its neck and it would still have been “just” a cute lizard, and surely only an anti-Semite would object to such neutral, normalizing messaging?
adjfasn47573an hour ago
> since leaving one out is a message in itself
Side question: why would having a male or female mascot be "a message in itself"? Why do people want to see a message, and especially a $currentDayPolitics one, in every single thing? A mascot can be a cute mascot without having to represent anything more than exactly that.
Just as a random example: Let's say some OG founder of a project had a cute dog named Laila, and the project makes this dog its mascot. Why should that be a problem, AT ALL?
And what's even worse, if you think this "everything has a message and we have to be super careful what the message is" thing through, the conclusion is: No project ever again can have a solely male or female mascot. Which is of course absurd.
And this whole "we need to send the RIGHT message" thing falls apart with time anyway, because what the right message is, WILL change over time. You're not at the end of all human enlightenment.
graypegg32 minutes ago
I mean it's not a HUGE issue by any means, just sort of inconvenient.
Like, most mascots aren't in gendered pairs normally (like your dog example!), you just have 1 option to represent the thing. People see Laila the dog and think "oh yeah, LailaOS".
But given you have 2 mascots, with 1 being pretty ambiguous, but the other being dressed in a pink dress with bows, it does mean you probably want to use both when presenting KDE, just so you're not accidentally saying "this is the KDE event for men" or "this is the KDE event for women". If you made your mascot the AIGA bathroom symbols, you'd have the same issue.
My thinking about the "right" message is just that... I don't think that's what they want to tell people right now, in our current time. Everyone can use KDE. It's not a historical impact sort of thing.
Again, not a huge issue really. Just seems practical. Hopefully I'm getting that across. Sorry if I'm not.
retardsinoss43 minutes ago
[flagged]
F3nd0an hour ago
The presented mascot is not genderless, but non-binary. The situation you describe has hardly improved with their introduction.
mongolan hour ago
No it is not just a picture, it is also a descriptive text and specific emojis attached. I don't think anyone would have raised an eye if it was just for the picture.
basisword9 minutes ago
Since when was someone's gender or sexuality a "political opinion"?
YorickPeterse22 minutes ago
This is just concern trolling, so let's not pretend otherwise.
If a non-binary mascot "creates tensions" then by all accounts you should go outside and touch some grass.
F3nd015 minutes ago
I think it’s a little different to simply have the mascot than it is to make their introduction an officially endorsed celebration of ‘pride month’ and have them ‘presiding over KDE’s 30th anniversary celebrations’. If something has a greater chance to ‘create tensions’, it’s probably the latter, for better or worse.
stusmall40 minutes ago
Honestly, when was open source not political? Look at early GNU writing. The topics have change but it being political absolutely have not.
thewebguyd32 minutes ago
Minor nitpick but s/open source/free software
But yes, the free software movement is political, and the FSF is by all intents a political organization with a specific political goal and message.
Politics is multifaceted, it doesn't purely relate to government either. Politics is how humans decide who gets what, when and how. You can't run a community or organization without politics.
voidfunc39 minutes ago
I used to think this way but with the rise of fascism pretty much everywhere I think it's important to know what I am consuming and what they support now.
Is it perfect? No. Does it piss some people off? Probably, and I don't care.
Also it's a cute fucking lizard.
retardsinoss11 minutes ago
antifa, ironically being the most facist
iLoveOncall42 minutes ago
I feel quite repulsed by the fact that the first thing you see when opening the post is a huge donation card.
Kyeop22 minutes ago
I want to see KDE still improving and keeping up in another 30 years. To me it's no different from a telethon for PBS or a poster for Friends of the Library. Intrusive? From a certain point of view, but it pays the bills.