Hi Aaron Siego,

I'm the one who submitted the Slashdot story so I think I should reply.
Note that I am *not* a Trinity developer and I'm not associated with the
Trinity project other than having contributed a few patches to revive
the old xparts and kmozilla.

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> but i'm not going to whitewash things either: there are those who use Trinity 
> who really dislike 4.x and those in the KDE community who see Trinity as a 
> safe haven for people who have (or continue to) behave poorly. this is beyond 
> unfortunate since Trinity and the KDE Platform and Workspaces 4.x both provide 
> good things to the same group of people: those who use KDE software. so i'd 
> like to see the remaining negativity put behind us so all of us working on KDE 
> code can co-exist in good spirit, happy in the knowledge that everyone is 
> getting what they want and doing so in the spirit of true freedom. i hope you 
> feel similarly.
> 
> this was the spirit in which we encouraged people to work on the 3.x code if 
> they wanted to and, unlike some other communities who have in recent times 
> openly berated and made fun of people who wanted to do similar things for 
> their software, have been supporters and agreed with the goals you have.
> 
> so when i see the announcements on sites starting with quotes like this:
> 
> "Disappointed with KDE 4's performance and other shortcomings, Timothy Pearson 
> continued KDE 3.5 development under the name Trinity."
> 
> i cringe a little inside because that does nothing but stir up hornets' nests.

My apologies for this. This was my wording and it had a different
intention than just bringing up stir.
I have talked with multiple people in person and I had seen multiple
articles and comments online which stated things like "I used to use
KDE, but after I tried KDE 4 I switched to Gnome...". The submission I
wrote was mainly meant to reach out to those people.

This is the first time there was a lot of PR around Trinity. Previously
the new releases had been more silent and because the Trinity project
has a lack of manpower, it seemed like a good idea to make the new
release some headline news. This was not done in an ideal way, also due
to lack of experience and manpower.

I'm not a PR person, my wording was not the best. I am happy to receive
feedback about this such as what Timothy already wrote in his reply. My
apologies again, especially towards you as a KDE developer, whose work
we're enjoying so much.


> when i read this in the announcement to the mailing list:
> 
> "Why upgrade from KDE3.5.10, the latest release available from KDE e.V.?
> Simply put, Trinity is faster, more secure, and far more feature rich than
> 3.5.10 ever was!" (http://trinity-devel.pearsoncomputing.net/?0::3271)
> 
> i feel sad because Trinity should really not be trying to stand out as a 
> _competitor_ to 3.5.10 but as the continuation of that code base. (btw, KDE 
> e.V. never puts out KDE releases; the community of participants and 
> contirbutors does that.)

For this, I guess the same thing is true. The project has a lack of
manpower and probably not a huge amount of time and consideration was
put into writing the release notes.

In neither case the intention was to present Trinity as competition. If
this was interpreted as such, I hope that we can find ways to prevent
this in the future. I'm aware that you are considered to be a very good
spokesperson and I really appreciate your feedback on this. If you could
also help with wording on things like release notes and news items, I'm
sure this would be very much appreciated also by the Trinity project.


> by positioning Trinity as a competitor when no such competition exists only 
> serves to strengthen us/them lines that simply do not exist in reality.
> 
> personally, i'm tired of the needless divisions in F/OSS that arise because 
> people can not simply live and let live, because we for some reason feel the 
> need to constantly tear each other down in an attempt to make our own efforts 
> seem more presentable and respectable. what rubbish. Trinity, as the 
> continuation of the 3.5 codebase, stands on its own feet alongside Plasma 
> Desktop and the rest of the 4.x products. we should therefore also stand as 
> allies and friends. we should also stand for what we are, not for what (or 
> who) we are not.
> 
> as the developers, and therefore leaders of the Trinity project, please 
> consider this when working on and then publicizing your next release.

I'm not sure what would be the best way to prevent this issue in the
future. As said, what happened was more due to manpower and abilities
than due to intention.
To me it appeared that KDE e.V. was relatively distant towards the
Trinity project other than providing a Subversion branch. Maybe doing
such announcements through the KDE site or using the expertise from your
side in another way would help closing the gap that seems to exist.
The least that could be done maybe is asking you or other people from
KDE to read things like release notes or news items before they are
published. Do you have any suggestions in this area?

Although technically a bit separated (for now), I really see both the
innovative KDE software collection and the traditional Trinity Desktop
as two projects for KDE users and having both around will bring more KDE
users than ever before. I hope we can get this view across somehow.

Thank you very much both for all your work and for your attention!

Julius Schwartzenberg