KDE Amarok Music Player Receives Revived Port To Qt5 / KF5

[starshipeleven]

Unfortunately the Linux desktop is a developers nightmare with constant API/ABI breakage. And being "mostly" compatible is not good enough. If it was that simple all the QT4 application should have been running on QT5 when they got released.

FYI, it would still run fine if it was bundling its own KDE4/Qt4 libraries.

Guess what 99% of Windows applications do? They bring the kitchen sink with them for the sake of not depending on things that might be changed and break them later.

[polarathene]

20 years, yes. On Linux, there's applications that don't run on it from 5 years ago.

Although this is understandable. People forget that Microsoft has so much money, it's not even funny. They can support their old APIs almost indefinitely. Gtk and Qt are not developed by multi-billion mega corps. You can't expect them to have the resources to support old Gtk and Qt versions to this day.

Depends what you call an application I guess. I mean there is nano, not quite 20 years old but close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_nano

I'm sure there are plenty like that which are old enough and still work perfectly fine? As mentioned, static linked builds should be fine shouldn't? Not all applications require Qt or GTK for their UI either.

There is also applications on Windows that don't work on prior versions iirc? Like XP to Vista transition, had a bunch of apps that did not play well I think?

[starshipeleven]

There is also applications on Windows that don't work on prior versions iirc? Like XP to Vista transition, had a bunch of apps that did not play well I think?

Even between Windows 7 and Windows 10 there are plenty of applications that either don't work or require some tinkering.

[Vistaus]

You're not very informed, Kde's policy has changed and now K has been banned!

Besides, it's not like this sort of things didn't happen with other DE's.

GNOME: Gnote, gThumb, GDM, etc.
Enlightenment: Elive, Entrance, ePhoto, etc.
LXDE: LXAppearance, LXDM, etc.

Just to name a few examples.

[Vistaus]

20 years, yes. On Linux, there's applications that don't run on it from 5 years ago.

Although this is understandable. People forget that Microsoft has so much money, it's not even funny. They can support their old APIs almost indefinitely. Gtk and Qt are not developed by multi-billion mega corps. You can't expect them to have the resources to support old Gtk and Qt versions to this day.

Qt 3 is still supported by the Trinity team. Qt 3 was first released in 2001, so that's more than 20 years old and still supported (although by external developers from the Trinity team rather than the Qt team, but it's still better than unsupported).

[Vistaus]

This is the correct answer. On Windows old applications run because they bundle their dependencies, on Linux old applications don't run because they don't, and are relying upon a unified set of libraries managed by a package manager. However this is the problem that flatpak (and its alternatives) sets out to solve.

Actually, it depends on how you look at it. If your app is a GTK app (or maybe Qt app), then yes, it solves the problem. But there are more toolkits out there. If your app was written in FOX or (for the diehards) Motif, then your app still runs. In fact, I'm currently running the newest version of Xfe File Manager against an old FOX toolkit version (I'm several released behind) and it still works fine despite my distro being a rolling release (Solus).

[Nth_man]

Besides, it's not like this sort of things didn't happen with other DE's.

GNOME: Gnote, gThumb, GDM, etc.
Enlightenment: Elive, Entrance, ePhoto, etc.
LXDE: LXAppearance, LXDM, etc.

Just to name a few examples.

Yes, it followed the older tradition of X programs having an x in front of their name, like xterm, xcalc, xbiff, xedit, xlogo, etc.

Apple started doing the same with the prefix “i”.

As it's probably remembered: It's not "Word", it's "MS Word" (or "Microsoft Word", if somebody wants to write more); it's not "Access", it's "MS Access"; it's not "Office", it's "MS Office"; etc.