> On Sunday 13 November 2011 01:47:25 Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
>
>> > I think all of us would appreciate it if you do not come on the list
>> with
>> > accusatory statements regarding articles you found on the Internet.
>>
>> Actually, in that initial e-mail, there were definitely no accusations
>> as far as I could see. There was only a polite question for a reply from
>> the Trinity side.
>
> And what I read from the replies by Robert and Pearson
> was that all bad things are related to KDE:KDE3 and the criticism does not
> affect Trinity. KDE:KDE3 is insecure, unmaintained and outdated
> while Trinity is new, secure, patched etc, let's spit and bite KDE:KDE3,
> and we will be in all white.

Here are my thoughts on KDE:KDE3:
1.) I am personally gad that it still exists, as we do not have
OpenSUSE-specific packages available
2.) It is not a "new upstream" for a KDE3 continuation project, as it is
heavily patched for OpenSUSE and does not have a central source
repository, or any of the infrastructure required for a FOSS project to
grow.  For example, one large problem is that there is no clear way to
inspect your patched source tree, including all changes made to it, to
look for potential issues or to understand what exactly your patches are
doing.
3.) Keeping 2) in mind, a clear upstream project such as TDE does make
KDE:KDE3 somewhat obsolete from a certain perspective.

I understand where you are coming from because I used to be there myself
many years ago, but quickly grew tired of KDE3.5.10's limitations and
having to hack around them with patches.  This is why I created the
infrastructure in use today by the TDE project: to encourage improvements
to the KDE3 source code.  Providing a central, up-to-date and easily
readable/modifiable source tree is crucial for creating a thriving
project.  No developer will seriously consider a project that keeps old
source files in tarballs, then applies hundreds of patches to them every
time something is built, as "alive" or as something he or she should like
to get involved with.  In a similar vein, I have even had people say that
they will not develop for TDE because we used SVN and not GIT, as SVN is
somewhat more limited for a lone wolf developer.

I am not trying to erase your repository or anything even close to it.  I
am simply asking that you acknowledge TDE as the upstream source for
future development, and possibly work towards getting TDE building on
OpenSUSE, instead of maintaining a fleet of patches for a product that was
released over 5 years ago.

In the end it is your choice; I hope you read the advice offered above in
the kindly spirit that it was given in.

Tim