Fedora KDE Desktop Spin Promoted To Same Tier As GNOME-Based Fedora Workstation

[fitzie]

Here's another example of how brain dead gnome devs are, this is just something I discovered during a system upgrade. I wanted my desktop powerbutton to shutdown and not suspend/hibernate. Well since some users accidently hit power button on their laptops, gnome removed the ability to shutdown. Of course, hibernate was and is the default, but they are worried about users who changed the defaults, and too dumb to know to change it back.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755953

Gnome is still the best stacking desktop compositor in terms of polish, but man alive, they really hate power users with a passion.

[deck]

I think this is a bad call.

Fedora doesn't have enough KDE contributors to push it as the same as gnome. Remember, one of the reasons X11 support is not on the KDE install by default is the argument that they had too few resources to offer both.

The Workstation product has quite substantial engineering effort behind it, including developers and designers who identify larger areas of work that may take multiple years to complete and then working on them in a way that has "drained the swamp" to fix major issues that no one even remembers any more because they were fixed properly instead of hacked around.

With KDE they are able to do some engineering, like they pushed for Wayland to be made the primary session upstream, but they will mostly be consumers of what upstream produces.

I don't understand this comment. I have been using KDE on Fedora as my primary operating system on my laptop, and across 4 or 5 different PCs for over 10 years. Apart from a bug with Plasma not remembering my monitors (which wasn't an issue specific to Fedora) I have had zero problems and couldn't be happier.

How does promoting KDE with equal footing as Gnome in any way change the engineering effort required if everything is working well already today?

[Modu]

Oh noes! Krash Desktop Environment got elevated rank in Fedora!

[Damnshock]

Which part is false?

The part were you are pointing intent. There was absolutely _zero_ consideration about cash in our requests.

According to Red Hat:

https://www.redhat.com/en/open-source/articles/fedora-project-open-source-evolved

According to Fedora:

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/fedora-and-red-hat-enterprise-linux/

According to this Fedora gets about 300 grand a year:

https://fedorarepository.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AR-2023-Fedora18-1.pdf

It follows that if the Fedora SIGs that are responsible for various spins do not get any of this cash then the official version must be getting the cash.

It also follows that if there are now two official versions then the cash must be getting split.

Where am I wrong?

- Fedora Edition != Official Version (in the way that you seem to be understanding "official" because all Fedora versions, Editions and Spins are official)
- Budgets are not done in that way. As in: we have 300k and 4 versions so each one gets 75k. That is not how it works

[gregzeng]

A few months ago I started testing distros again to try and determine what would be a good Linux distro for a novice user, and I settled on the KDE edition of Fedora. It seemed like the best balance for up-to-date software in a stable system that's not too complicated. And I liked that the installer lets you configure Btrfs subvolumes. Just add the btrfs-assistant app and it easily handles snapshots and rollbacks as well.

Fedora is there official testing arm for RHEL. RHEL is the main competitor to the other major version of Linux, the official Ubuntu, with its very popular Ubuntu-base of the downstream derivatives.

Fedora, similar to Ubuntu, has several downstream derivatives. These are not many, and not as experimental as those from both Ubuntu and Debian.

Similarly KDE is more popular than Gnome. KDE Plasma can be as heavy weight as Gnome. It can also be as lightweight as XFCE, if we avoid adding the optional features. Gnome chose to leave the WIMP desktop environment created by Xerox, then popularized by Apple, Microsoft and Atari.

BTRFS and Wayland are the newer creations of Linux, trying to replace EXT4 partitions and X display system. The major Linux champion for these two innovations is officially RHEL with its official Fedora testing agency. Both Debian and Ubuntu are relying of the downstream derivatives of these bases, instead of directly officially releasing official versions of these two Linux prototypes.

Unfortunately both BTRFS and Wayland are still neglected children, with many frailties and performance limits. Far behind Microsoft Windows with its copyright protected NTFS, but more advanced choices of commercial display managers and display environments (DE).

When Linux develops better BTRFS and Wayland, readily incorporated into that official Linux kernel, as created by The Linux Foundation, will Linux grow as a competitor to Microsoft and Apple. Meantime Linux is fourth time "winner", at only 4% at most. Far behind Microsoft, Apple and Android. Android is FOSS, rather than FLOSS. Unfortunately it seems impossible for Android to contribute to either BTRFS and Wayland developments.

[sophisticles]

The part were you are pointing intent. There was absolutely _zero_ consideration about cash in our requests.

Then why push to supplant Gnome as the default DE?

- Fedora Edition != Official Version (in the way that you seem to be understanding "official" because all Fedora versions, Editions and Spins are official)

Maybe my wording could have been more accurate, but Gnome is the default DE and the KDE SIG wanted to change it so that KDE was the default DE.

That means that the "official" Fedora version features Gnome and every version that uses a different DE is considered a "spin".

- Budgets are not done in that way. As in: we have 300k and 4 versions so each one gets 75k. That is not how it works

Then please explain how they are done, because at present, by your own admission, the KDE SIG doesn't get a penny and I am guessing the rest of the spins do not get anything either.

Which means that all the funding must be going to the the Gnome edition.

Since the KDE spin will now be a KDE edition, complete with it's own page and marketing support, I'm guessing you guys will now be getting some of the dough.

Let's make this easy, after this change will you now be getting paid for the work you do on the KDE version?

Will anyone?

[Damnshock]

Then why push to supplant Gnome as the default DE?

Because we believe it's better

Because we believe it will be better for the community

Because we believe KDE in Fedora deserves some sort of recognition

Because (as opposed what you seem to believe) some people have altruistic intentions :-)

etc...

For the record, we didn't want to replace Gnome, we wanted to be an edition since day one but "rules" backed us into a corner and we had to go the hardcore way of attempting to replace Gnome in Fedora Workstation.

And that attempt is long gone, we are now a Fedora Edition :-)

Maybe my wording could have been more accurate, but Gnome is the default DE and the KDE SIG wanted to change it so that KDE was the default DE.

That means that the "official" Fedora version features Gnome and every version that uses a different DE is considered a "spin".



Then please explain how they are done, because at present, by your own admission, the KDE SIG doesn't get a penny and I am guessing the rest of the spins do not get anything either.

Which means that all the funding must be going to the the Gnome edition.

Since the KDE spin will now be a KDE edition, complete with it's own page and marketing support, I'm guessing you guys will now be getting some of the dough.

You really don't seem to understand how things work, at least in Fedora. We are not a company and the fact that we have sponsors doesn't mean that we are for-profit.

We will get indeed "marketing support" as you call it but that doesn't mean it comes from people being paid to do so.

The Fedora budget is mostly (if not all, I dunno all the details) for infrastructure, running costs and help with events, promotions and help some contributors attend conferences.

Let's make this easy, after this change will you now be getting paid for the work you do on the KDE version?

No

Will anyone?

No

[_r00t-]

Best decision ever made!!!! I like both desktop environments, but I prefer Plasma Desktop.

[pracedru]

It is great news that KDE Plasma has its status restored as one of the main desktop environments for Fedora.
To be honest, it has been through rough tides of poor quality, but now its improved a lot. Keep up the great work KDE team!!

[mrg666]

The part were you are pointing intent. There was absolutely _zero_ consideration about cash in our requests.



- Fedora Edition != Official Version (in the way that you seem to be understanding "official" because all Fedora versions, Editions and Spins are official)
- Budgets are not done in that way. As in: we have 300k and 4 versions so each one gets 75k. That is not how it works

Well, thank you and all in the KDE-SIG who made this possible. I hope the new position of Plasma in Fedora project also means more code contributions to KDE project from Fedora/Red-Hat.