Does KDE want to murder Konqueror?

[blackbelt_jones]

Actually, here's where I found the answer, from a blogpost by KDE developer aaron seigo

What is the future of 3.5?


This year, as with most years since KDE3 emerged, there have been huge deployments of KDE 3 based software. These deployments will not shift for years to come, no matter what KDE4 is. This is because large institutional deployments (government, corporate, educational, etc) typically have 3-7 year cycles (sometimes even longer) between major changes. Patches and security fixes? Sure. Major revamps? No. This alone ensures that KDE3 will remain supported for years. Why? Because there are users. That is how the open source dev model works: where there are users, there are developers; as one declines so does the other. The developers tend to be a step ahead of the users for software that is progressive, but you'll also find that they have a foot in the here and now too (as well as the past, often).

KDE3 is still open in our svn so that bug fixes, security fixes, etc. can continue to be made. KDE 3.5.x is a rather solid desktop system and really doesn't need a huge amount of work given what it is today; the work to move it to the next level is what we refer to as KDE4, of course. This means that the efforts needed to put into it aren't huge to keep it viable. However, efforts that do go into it are welcome.

While the core KDE team will continue to concentrate our work on KDE4 since that is the long term direction of things, it is fully expected that our partners (which include some KDE core team members as employees/members) will continue supporting and even developing on KDE3 issues. The central project will also be around to lend a helping hand with advice and what not; I did that for a person the week before I left for holidays in December, actually, so it's not wild hypothesis but solid theory.

For those familiar with the open source method, the above probably sounds .. well .. obvious. That's because it is .. for those familiar with the open source method. We will find in this blog entry that many of the concerns people raise come from not acknowledging how Free(dom) software is created via the open source method.

There it is. If people want to keep using KDE3, they just have to... keep using KDE3. The more people use it, the better support it'll get. But it's definitely going to be there for a while. They really need to get the word out about this aspect of things. It would have saved me a lot of embarassment.

[Darkbolt]

Well, after installing and upgrading slackware 12.1->current on a spare 100gb partition I had lying around, Im finding my kde4 experience (all of 5-10 minutes now) to be much smoother than that of kubuntu...So either Pat's better at building packages, or it's the difference in the nvidia drivers (The latest ones fixed alot of issues, from what I understand).

Either way, konqueror has all the features I need, and if I really need that damned filter bar that you keep rambling about (:-P) then I can just open up dolphin

Although, I think in the next release konqueror may get a nice feature: From what I've read on /. (which should be taken with a few grains of salt) webkit's javascript performance has shot through the roof.

Anyway, I'm growing fond of kde4...So I think I'll stick with it for a bit, see how much it grows on me

[blackbelt_jones]

KDE3 is still my cup of chai, because to me Konqueror 3 is just about perfect. Dolphin is great, just not perfect. To be honest, the difference between perfect and great is mostly aesthetic. It means something, but it's not worth fighting to the death.

On my Pentium 3, KDE4 slows things down just enough that I can't get tolerable streaming video, but I can't deny that it shows a lot of promise. The last time I tried KDE4, I'd install it, and fool around with it occasionally, but sometimes KDE 3 and KDE4 just don't play well together.

The last time I tried KDE 4.1.1 was just a few days ago, in Sid. I tried rotating the widgets at different angles,and it really looked great. I wish I'd taken a screen shot.

Again, let me explain that I don't usually run KDE; I run KDE applications in Fluxbox. More than any other file manager, Konqueror can be integrated beautifully into an amazing desktop partnership with fluxbox. Dolphin comes closer than anything else I've ever tried.

So I dunno, if I had a slightly faster processor and I could figure out the keyboard shortcuts, I might switch to KDE4 cause the desktop looks so good. I'd use it occasionally for media stuff.