The KDE Hiatus
Well folks, time has caught up with me and told me something needs to go: my thesis, faculty presidency, hockey, work, or KDE.

After briefly considering dropping out of my program to work on KDE full-time, I've decided that my KDE commitments have to go. Of course, I can't go without making a few parting remarks (and a shot or two) :)

First, some apologies:

I apologize that my last blog entry caused quite a stir, a cascade of comments, blogs on both sides of the subject, coverage on CNET, and more. I want to stress that KDE likes users. We have an awful lot of them (anyone aware yet of the story about Russia's planned migration of their schools to KDE yet? I think there'll be a dot story about it soon.) Its just that certain users (and I stress, their numbers are really likely less than a dozen people) really need to leave us for other pastures as their presence is harming the project.

As a result of this debate, KDE is drafting a Code of Conduct which will be used as a ruler in future dealings with users (and even contributors) when problems arise. This will be publicly announced when it's done, shortly. Additionally, with a software update to the dot, and a moderation system, these dozen (or so) users can silently disappear into the background. Now we just need a similar system for kde's mailing lists, irc, and bugs.kde.org and the developers can peacefully work on making KDE 4.x rock the FOSS world.

Next: I want to apologize for being in marketing. I'm a better shit disturber than marketeer. I wrote articles about the KDE 4 branch before KDE 4.0 was released since it'd been 16 months since the 4.0 branch had been started, and no one knew anything about it. I made sure, that in my articles, I only covered those features that had code already in SVN, and were not simply on the drawing board, that way we could not be accused of vapourware. These articles hit digg, osnews, etc. and were read by thousands of KDE 3.5 fans, where hype was built in the comment threads. In a way, I'm afraid that I'm personally responsible for the hype, even though if you read my articles, you will see that I tried so hard not to.

So my apology is both to the users and the developers. To the users, I'm sorry I (we) couldn't control the hype better. I tried. To the developers, I'm sorry that people developed such high expectations about 4.0, an early release of 4.x which was clearly not meant for mass adoption yet. I'm sorry that the whiplash from this is hurting the community now.

I will not apologize for the KDE 4.0 Release Event though, as it was a great event (thanks again to Google for hosting it) that brought a lot of KDE people together to celebrate 30 months of hard work, and to mark the beginning of 4.x. This event will have helped to feed the hype, but it was more important than simply marketing - this event planted the seed for an annual KDE Americas conference, with Camp KDE beginning this January in Jamaica.

Oh, I apologize that SJVN has to call for a fork of KDE in order to drive up hits to his website. I know he's better intentioned than that.

I apologize to Tom Albers, with whom I've often disagreed. Last week we finally agreed on something, and now I'm going dormant. Poor timing on my part :)

And lastly, I'd like to apologize to Maksim and the rest of the KHTML developers for supporting a rift within the community many months ago. Maksim, you're brilliant. If/When the time is right for a merge, you will be the one to make that call, not someone like me from the peanut gallery.

Now for some thank-yous

First, to Sebas, Wade, and Aaron, who were the first to really pull me into the community as closely as I was. For almost 10 years I've been involved in KDE in one form or another (sometimes merely helping users in #kde), but these three made me feel like my contributions were important and appreciated, even though it was seldom code.

Next, to my many other friends within KDE (too numerous to mention) who have kept me active and positive for so long. You are too numerous to list, so I just say thanks. Many times, the people within KDE kept me contributing simply because they are so friendly and supportive.

To those users that support KDE, both publicly and silently, I thank you. You have no idea how much the thank-you emails mean to me, or mean to the other developers. If you want to make a developer's day, try sending a thank-you email. And not just to the public developers, but to those listed in the commit digest when they fix your favourite bug, or those that hang out on irc to solve problems. There are public people in KDE that are far outnumbered by those that are quietly contributing artwork, documentation, code, bugs, user support, translations, and more. These people are amazing and every once in a while, they need to be told that.

I'll be back

I'll contribute again in the future, when my time is no longer in such demand (will that ever happen?) In the meantime, I'll be on irc to support the developers as a happy user.

Cheers folks, and thanks.