Re: Future of Knowit

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Hi Miha=C5=82!

On Wednesday 28 February 2007, Michal Rudolf wrote:
> I wanted to state my thoughts about Knowit future. Basically I have to
> decide if I should continue my work on Knowit (or, really, if I should st=
op
> not to work on Knowit).
>
> Pro:
> 1. Knowit was my first KDE application and thanks to it I was able to
> participate in KDE development, two aKademys etc.
> 2. I know it was useful for some people including me.
> 3. A lot of new features can be added.
> 4. Working on new Knowit will be fun.
>
> Con:
> 1. You cannot make your living developing free applications and I am
> already involved in another free Open Source project and in translating K=
DE
> into Polish.

Right, many of experience that - having not the time for our pet projects=20
anymore when having a fulltime day job. On the other hand, there isn't much=
=20
to be done to keep KnowIt useful - for me it "just works". I didn't=20
experience any crashes, data loss or really annoying bugs (so annoying that=
 I=20
either stopped using KnowIt or was bothered enough to fix them ;-) ) in=20
_years_. Of course one could think of thousands of features that would=20
improve knowit and make it shine. But even if without such improvements it=
=20
stays useful for me. I see no reason to stop using it ever unless something=
=20
comes along that can replace KnowIt fully for me and has additional feature=
s=20
that I need or think I need. I don't see such an app - so I continue using=
=20
KnowIt.

> 2. There are other, more advanced, more actively developed applications
> that can replace Knowit - kdissert, TreeLine, probably more.
> 3. A lot of missing features cannot be implemented using current design -=
 I
> will have to rewrite almost from scratch.

kdissert is totally different to me and not suited for managing text pages =
of=20
notes - it helped me to structure my thesis though. Importing my knowit fil=
e=20
just ended in a mess. The treeline homepage is down so I can't try that one=
=2E=20
The UI looks too bloated for my needs - I don't want forms or stuff like=20
that. Just give me plain text, some markup and links.

> 4. KDE 4 is getting near, but I guess it will get at least half a year to
> make the first release. Therefore, I will have to either rewrite for KDE 3
> and then spend serious time porting or wait half a year. Probably it is
> possible to develop for KDE 4 right now, but it is a bit too much work for
> me.

I personally would wait until KDE4 is out the door or at least ready so I u=
se=20
it as my desktop. Then it can be ported directly to KDE4 or be rewritten fr=
om=20
scratch if anyone has the motivation to do so.=20
If nobody else ports it to KDE4, I will do it anyway, just to be able to=20
continue using it with nice KDE4 desktop integration. I also don't think=20
porting it will take long (it is just a few files after all, IIRC).

> So, looks like each Pro is countered by Con. Or, maybe, it is a tie.
>
> What are your thoughts?

I think the most important goal is to keep KnowIt maintained, prevent it fr=
om=20
bitrot and make sure that it will be ported to KDE4. This kind of maintenan=
ce=20
shouldn't be too much work (c, and any of us can do. If you don't want to d=
o=20
that, I would volunteer.

Then, there are people like Max who might want to improve KnowIt by small=20
corrections or even new features. That could improve KnowIt gradually, even=
=20
if slowly. Having sentimental feelings for KnowIt as it was my first KDE=20
project I contributed code to ever, I also see small apps like KnowIt a goo=
d=20
way to get started with KDE development.=20

Third, there is the "big rewrite" and redesigning from scratch that we thin=
k=20
of once a year or so but probably never will do :P
Chances being small that it will happen, making the latest source available=
=20
easily and encouraging others to work on it won't hurt. And if it only=20
increases the chance of a glorious knowit future from 0.1 to 0.2%.

So make sure that 1) KnowIt survives in its hibernation state it is in now =
for=20
some time. 2) make it easy for other developers to access the source and=20
create patches (for lazy bums like me, that would be an SVN checkout).

=46rank



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