this belongs to all of you, not just me.

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Subject: Kudos for KDE4 :-) Date: Saturday 05 July 2008 From: Andreas ******* <*******************> To: "Aaron J.Seigo" <ase...@kde.org>

Hi Aaron,

I read the whole "fork KDE" rubbish and felt that it was time to cheer you KDE developers a little bit up by telling you my point of view with KDE4.

I migrated from Windows to Linux about 3,5 years ago. Since I am an IT professional, I loved the endless possibilities, I was given with Linux. The decision for KDE as desktop was no real decision; I saw some collegues using it and I liked what I saw. Ever since, Gnome was no real choice for me because I know KDE inside out now and can tweak just everything the way I like.

When the first rumors arrived about the upcoming KDE4, I was pretty happy and looking forward to it: The plasma concept just seemed awesome for me. I wanted to help testing and installed what was usable of KDE4 as alternative desktop to make some early experiences.

To be honest, I was pretty concerned about the state of KDE4.0 in the early release candidates, way too many bugs and (compared to KDE3) way to few features. I could not even work for 10 minutes without a serious crash which screwed up the whole desktop. From there on, I had the bad feeling that the step KDE4 had taken was maybe a little bit too ambitious.

I turned away from KDE4 but I just could not let my fingers from it - it was just so damn SEXY. I liked the look'n'feel which brought my freqently back to KDE4. When openSUSE 11 was released with KDE 4.0.4, I completely switched from KDE3 to KDE4 and was using the factory packages from now on.

And I have not regret it: Several weeks later, the 4.1 beta 2 has matured in a breathtaking speed: I use it for 3 weeks now (starting from beta 1) and it's fast, pretty stable and has a great joy of use. The developers have done (and are still doing) an amazing job. Two thumbs up! :-) I am awestrucked what you developers achieved with the current releases. KDE4 is simply the most modern (not just in terms of availability but in terms of concepts) desktop nowadays. It is simple for my not-so-PC-focussed wife, it is powerful for me old geek. Additionally, it is the most beautiful desktop and has even gotten ahead of Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista. Boy, that's amazing!

Sure, this mail has no real point. But when I read all the destructive critics about KDE4, I felt you guys need some honest critics and some tribtue to what you have achieved. And I am pretty sure, there are plenty more users out there who think exactly the same as I do but just make the failure to not tell you :-)

Kudos, Aaaron, Kudos!

Greets, Andreas

-- Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771

http://www.andreas-demmer.de

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