200 control panels

"It does not matter what KDE is doing. What matters is what those companies who cater to average user are doing. ... Whereas KDE continues to become more bloated with, by one count, over 200 configuration panels inside KControl"- Timothy Butler

put the random number generator down and back away from it, Timothy.

seriously, this was an article on the unfortunate situation of someone deciding to fork GNOME. now, i'm not happy to read of such things, because forks are rarely advantageous. i don't personally perceive the fork as posing a threat to the GNOME project at all as it is a strong group with good backing. all the same, a fork usually is a sign of problems with the people forking the project, with the project itself, or both. i have no idea which it is in this case, but something somewhere isn't healthy. i hope for the GNOME project's sake that it's the forkers that have the problems.

but why in God[dess]'s name did Tim feel the need to drag KDE into it in his article? look, let me offer some Clue On The Free: some prefer GNOME; many like KDE better; still others choose to use other Free software entirely. fortunately we can all choose what we use in this world of Freedom and, increasingly, those choices work extremely well together. cooperation is growing, mutual respect is heightening. please don't drag other projects such as KDE into the middle of the political morass that is inevitable when a major project is forked (successfully or not). it's not needed and it's not desired. KDE has nothing to do with the fork; KDE is not relevant in those discussions. by bringing it up in that context, you rekindle struggles we are trying to put behind us. you place KDE alongside people forking GNOME in a community where forking is a greatly troubling act of last resort. i don't want KDE, or any other project, associated with those kinds of things in any way, shape or form. nobody should.

when we make our own community more divisive and stressed by creating political tensions where none need exist we only help our competition, namely those who are backing proprietary desktop solutions. if you think KDE is GNOME's competition, or vice versa, you're missing the point of the Open Source desktop. like members on the same country's Olympic team, we use each other to improve the state of our art but when we go for the medals we are competing against the other teams, not each other. we do not need to feed the engines of misinformation by offering new grist for Microsoft and Apple to mill; we do not need to provide ready made, quotable stupidity for the fans of those platforms that try and cast us in an undesireable light, both technologically and culturally. i'm all for constructive criticism, but innacurate flame bait thrown on a political bonfire is right out.

we need to reflect the true state of solidarity and unity that exists between those who are responsible for the creation of that which our community is based upon, even when our projects go through rought times. we do not need misreprenstations, especially when they come from the unwitting pens of those trying to cover our community under the guise of informed journalism. in short: if you just want to make things complicated and political, go away. we have no use for you.

i was recently the center of a stupid political situation that grew out of valid and constructive criticism but which was received with contempt. these situations happen in part because some people continue to foster divisions which become the antithesis of useful discourse across projects. this discourse will only grow in importance as we try and work closer together.

Timothy: i have great respect for you as a person through our conversations via email over the years. please do not doubt that fact. but i think you stepped in it, and i hope you can realize that. not only were the KDE "facts" in your article innacurate, but much more importantly completely out of place in the context of the subject of your article. i'd welcome open conversation on the topic with you, but i'd be even more overjoyed to see a unity building piece with your by-line attached to it.