First, I want thank you, Santa, for your hard work on KDE (my favorite DE) and with SolydK.
Now for my 2 cents on the subject:
I use my computer for everything. Normal internet stuff, development (I work from home for a web hosting company doing web and other development, LAMP server administration, etc.), and also I am learning to program in Python/Glade/GTK (I hope some day to learn qt as well). In addition, as seen in my user bar, I'm on the SolydXK Testing Team. So this all keeps me quite busy.
I have 3 installations on my computer: production (for everyday and development), SolydX testing and SolydK testing. Also I have SolydX and SolydK Virtual Machines I can clone and use for various projects and tests.
I remember the last time they pushed an upgrade to KDE to an UP. We didn't get time to test it. I was surprised and concerned due to lack of testing. I was hoping it would wait until next UP and we'd have time to really dig in and sniff out the bugs, but alas, it was not meant to be. I remember I was eager to have the latest KDE though so I wasn't really complaining. Just concerned about untested stuff going production.
Thinking about it all, I'm with Schoelje on not putting the latest and greatest out right away. I really think with something as important as a desktop environment, we need to have the time to thoroughly test it out and find what will need fixing before it goes production.
I do greatly respect your work, Santa. As I said, KDE is my favorite DE. I think it's great to have a choice so that those who want it can get the latest if they choose (I remember when I was running Mint I added the official KDE repo so I got updates to KDE directly from them). But these days, I am content with sticking to what is in our production and testing repos. I am quite busy these days so I don't want to put too many irons in the fire and compromise what I already have going due to lack of time. However, I do wish you all the best on going off on the side and maybe some here may help you with it.
I think SolydXK is a great distro and has a lot of great potential. It's main selling/marketing point is both rolling distribution and stability. I think I can understand from that standpoint why Schoelje made the decision. While some of us are power users, as such, there are going to (hopefully) be a lot of new users coming over from Windows or distro-hopping and they will need to have a great first impression. That means SolydXK has to maintain as much stablility in the software as posible.
While KDE is great and relatively stable (at least on my system), there have been some bugs which luckily I have found work-arounds for. These can sometimes frustrate new users. It would be great to have a SolydX and SolydK CE (Cutting Edge) but I don't think Schoelje and team have the time to maintain it. If they had more help, would people be interested in helping out? And what would that do to the marketability of Solyd to the general masses who are distro hopping or leaving Windows? Too many choices already confuse people. Having simply home and business editions is simpler and easier to market.
So while I know it's sudden (surprised me too, actually), and I can appreciate both sides of this situation, I personally am with Schoelje on this but also hope Santa continues his work with the community and maybe gets some folks to help out.
After all, that's what Linux is about - people going forward with their ideas. That's how SolydXK came about from what I understand (forked from Mint LMDE?)
Best wishes to you, Santa and thank you.
I was thinking the same, but wondering maybe Schoelje and team wouldn't have time to maintain another repo. Who could help them with that? And where would it be hosted? Bandwidth costs? etc. Just some things I know I'd be concerned about if I were running a distro (which thankfully I'm not since I think I'd go bananas - it's a lot of hard work!)
