Aaron Seigo Talks About KDE's Past and Future

Apr 21, 2009, 15:02 (1 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Bruce Byfield)

[ Thanks to James Maguire for this link. ]

"Having seen KDE 4.0 survive its premature birth and live to thrive, Seigo suggests that the recent history of the project has lessons for the greater free software community.

""The biggest thing we can do in the free software world right now," he says, "is realize that we have this great culture of excellent and enjoyment. If we nurture this community, it is very powerful and positive. We need to maintain that.

""At the same time, we need to be competitive with proprietary offerings. Because we've shown that, when we don't, people are pragmatic, and they will leave freedom and go back to proprietary platforms."

""And, in the long run, that will leave us with nothing to show except for a strange group of people that work on something irrelevant. You have to be willing and able to move forward with innovative, cutting edge, push-the-boundaries technology. We need to really go, 'Hey, we're competing with these other two companies that are producing proprietary stuff, and are not about to just go away.' At the same time, we can't do that at the expense of what makes us healthy and vibrant and enjoyable. We have to do both at the same time, and I think we can."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Are Quirky Developers Brilliant or Dangerous?(Mar 17, 2009)
• Don't Blame Windows and KDE for Your Own Aversion to Change(Jan 28, 2009)
• Torvalds, KDE 4, and the Media Circus(Jan 27, 2009)
• Choices and Punishment(Jan 26, 2009)
• Harvest Comes After the Seed is Planted(Dec 02, 2008)
• KDE4 apps: Gwenview(Oct 28, 2008)
• Beyond the Desktop With KDE4(Jul 23, 2008)
• KDE 4.1 Release Candidate Now Available(Jul 19, 2008)
• What went wrong with the KDE 4 release?(Jul 16, 2008)