The KDE team's one big mistake was that they thought that, because they aren't a for-profit company writing proprietary software, they can use whatever numbering scheme they want and call a preview release a "point-oh." .... The KDE team needs to realize that they are not immune [to] the same market forces that drive for-profit companies, and that end users are "customers" even if the software is free.
Therein lies your misunderstanding. The KDE team is NOT any part of a "market force" because they are NOT driven by the profit motive, and therefore market forces are immaterial. NO ONE is forced to use KDE4 and those that do are NOT "customers", they are users. No money has changed hands.
My point is, there would probably be no talk of a fork if the KDE team didn't keep taking a yellow highlighter to their attitude problems by doing dumb things like releasing KDE 3.99 with the name "4.0", kill-the-icons-end-users-be-damned, emotional
knee-jerk defensive forum posts when criticized, etc.
And there is your second misunderstanding. The KDE4 team is doing what FOSS development teams have been doing since Linux appeared on the scene: Release early, release often. There is no importance to the numbering scheme except to give the users a means of identifying a particular release. The "Release early, release often" paradigm allows FOSS developers to utilize the experiences of a large number of users who, while not being able to code or document, can contribute to the development process by reporting bugs or other problems to bug tracking websites, along with their wishes and wish lists.
It has only been with the recent influx of a large number of Windows users, fleeing from VISTA, who are unaware of the FOSS RERO tradition and whine in the blogs, encouraged by flame bait articles posted by SJVN and others seeking page hits for ad revenues. There is nothing in the RERO tradition that encourages personal attacks against developers. When such attacks do occur they have every right to defend themselves and their project from unwarranted or unsubstantiated accusations. Imagine how much intelligence it takes to insult a developer and complain about KDE4's menu structure when all the whiner has to do is right click on the menu and choose the classic menu from the popup option dialog. Amazing stupidity.
I think 4.1 will be a fantastic desktop and expect to dump Gnome in its favor. --Not because of the KDE team, but in spite of them.
As one who developed software at work using QT4 and understands its power and flexibility, I think KDE4 is a crowning achievement that takes the desktop to new and higher levels of beauty and power. And, since software doesn't write itself, that beauty and power is BECAUSE of Aaron and the dev team, NOT despite them.
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GreyGeek
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