Status enterprise4 in comparison to KDE4.3/Kubuntu

[ITSEF Admin]

Ah, Bernhard, I was kinda hoping you'd chime in... :-)

On Friday 12 February 2010 10:20:47 Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 10. Februar 2010 09:27:27 schrieb ITSEF Admin:
[...]
> > With the newer Kubuntu, I'm not so sure - if I take Kubuntu 9.10 as the
> > current example, KDE is on 4.3.2.
>
> if you want a rock solid Kolab Client, we still recommend e35, yes, even
> under KDE4 and especially for use with Ubuntu.

What makes you say "especially for use with Ubuntu"?

Also, what about library dependencies - I suppose e35 needs KDE 3.5 libraries? 
I haven't checked which of those are still available in newer Kubuntus... 
And, last but not least: How long will e35 see "tender loving care" from 
Kolab? proko2, for example, is all but dead right now, e4 is there and e5 
around the corner - so what are "your" plans?


> > If I look at the enterprise4 snapshots I
> > found on http://files.kolab.org/, they all claim to be KDE4.2.2. Hence,
> > I'm not so certain whether following the Kolab version will have the same
> > benefits as it has for KDE3.5 - is enterprise4 on par with/ahead of
> > KDE4.3?
>
> That is a question which is hard to answer.
> To give you some background: We have planned E4 to become ready end of
> 2008. And we did manage to get it up in beta on all three plattforms. Our
> changes fully went into KDE trunk and still get improved there.

So, anything that I see in the Kolab bugtracker referring to e4 will 
eventually also end up in the main KDE4 version?

[...]
> So in December 2009 we've published the last beta for e4. In the sense that 
> we do not plan to continue with the e4 line. 

Other than bugfixing, I presume? But still, good to know, thanks!


> E5 is in alpha and will stabilise soon. KDE will see this in 4.5 or 
> 4.6. So right now we are in a transition period: E5 will be the future for
> KDE4. Some people report Kontact from KDE4 works nicely for them, so this
> is not a bad version. I would expect e4 to be even a little better in
> regards of stability.  Both I would consider pre-production quality,
> because the years of experience are missing. And both lines are to be
> replaces with E5 in the next half year.

Ugh. That leaves me in an uncomfortable situation... Our goal  is to go for 
Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, as it's a long term support version. Which means we might 
be running it until 2013. So, from what you say my options seem to be:

1) Use the on-board KDE4 Kontact
  + least amount of work
  ? might be "good enough"
  - will presumably not profit a lot from the Kolab bugfixes

2) Use e4:
   + might get some more bugfixes from Kolab
   ? unclear how much suport Kolab will end up giving to it seeing the focus
      on e5
   - need to build my own packages like for e35

3) Keep using e35:
   + package building is necessary, but "known"
   ?  unknown how long support will last
   - packages need "old" library and need to be installed instead of "newer"
     KDE4 version => extra customisation during installation


> So go for e35 or help and wait for e5 to become ready.

Fro mwhat you've said, option 2) indeed seems the least desirable. Do you have 
any idea whether e5 will be able to run on e.g. KDE4.4 as will be present 
e.g. in Kubuntu 10.04 (you mention 4.5/4.6 above)? That would leave me as 
option 4) to use either "on-board" or e35, then swtich to e5 later when it 
becomes available. 

<scratches head> Decisions, decisions...


> > Is there anything else I need to take into account (bugfixes specific to
> > Kolab are of course important to us)?
>
> Merging has worked well in the last month, so your SVN diffs are as good as
> mine on that question. :)

That kind of answers my question above, right? I.e. "anything that I see in 
the Kolab bugtracker referring to e4 will eventually also end up in the main 
KDE4 version".


> > I've read https://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/KDE_Kolab_Client, but that
> > didn't quite help me on this (or I am missing something).
>
> I think I need to update it then. Thanks for the hint,

:-) My pleasure... e5 isn't even mentioned there, btw.

Cheerio & thanks for your input!

Thomas
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           Thomas Ribbrock, IT-Team brightsight