Thanks, it’s good to hear people agree with me so I haven’t gone off the deep end.

I imagine an Ubuntu-core, Ubuntu-desktop-common(X11, D-Bus, etc), Ubuntu-desktop-{DE name} groups/metapackages (like Ubuntu-desktop-GNOME or Ubuntu-desktop-KDE which would probably be an alias for Kubuntu-desktop) plus Ubuntu-server that would be Ubuntu-core plus the special stuff they’re whipping up like installers that pulled down LAMP (which was awesome for me when I repurposed an old desktop at work but would be mostly useless for most people on their netbooks).
It seems like an iteresting idea to me to stage this out. Ubuntu-core release at time-0, maybe alongside Ubuntu-server since it’s pretty lightweight in additional dependencies. Ubuntu-desktop-common releases time+2 months (or whatever), Ubuntu-desktop-{DE} releases happen time+3 or you could even expect them to cooperate before release but have a friendly competition when they’re ready and not be required to release together at all.
You’d know things were working right when the KDE desktop release and the GNOME release don’t necessarily come in a fixed order. One time KDE gets out first, the next GNOME and so on. If over time the releases were as likely to come before the one than after the other then no one team had an advantage over the other.

Because a true Desktop Stability Team would under this notice, no doubt delay inclusion. And it’s been my experience (observation-wise), similar attempts have been met with initial excitement, slowly degraded into annoyance and — guess what — more bickering, and finally abandoned over the fact they slowdown the release pace.

And this gets us to where I don’t agree with Jonathan. But probably where you folks don’t agree with me either:

Accept the simple fact Ubuntu is the flagship product and Kubuntu is a child project with its own timeline and make this clear both publicly and organizationally. As a KDE user I have no issues with this. Probably some KDE users will. But a clear stance is better than a foggy one. And I think the notion of sibling projects couldn’t be described in any other way than wishful thinking.

I apologize for the bluntness. Particularly testy considering the fact I don’t know the Canonical innards. But as a corporate software developer for >20 years, I have an hard time seeing Ubuntu and Kubuntu as equals in a development-wise sense. Canonical will always move at the pace of the slowest one.

Interesting point, and well said. Perhaps a “Desktop Stability Team” is in order, that straddles DEs and ensures all supported variants have equally robust testing of major changes.

Hmmm ….

General feeling/point of view/perseption is:
kubuntu is a second class derivaive.

And I never said you don’t have the right to complain. You most assuredly do. I simply said it’s bad form to complain publicly, use loaded words like “neglect,” and not even bother to subscribe to the bugs you are talking about so that you may be assured that your criticisms are justified.

Let’s be clear, 67% of the issues raised in the original post were fixed before the post was made (the NetworkManager and Firefox issues). And once the bluez issue was brought to the fore, it is being addressed, as well.

This is “neglect?”

I still fail where Jonathan lambasted the project publicly. Certainly not more than he was himself lambasted here… publicly. His words were cautious. So cautious that I as a reader felt he was eerie of discussing it. Probably already feeling this type of reaction.

Nowhere in his post, I — a reader — felt he was diminishing the work of those involved. He was complaining about something that affected his Kubuntu end-user experience. And was careful enough to address it in a respectful way to all involved. His opinions, if not shared (and was left unsaid on my previous comment I happen to not share them) should be addressed in that context only. Not as I witnessed here.

Meanwhile, no. I’m not obliged to fill bug reports before discussing anything related to said bug. Certainly not when someone else did it already. But I’m not also in any kind of obligation to join said bug report. My right to voice my opinion is encompassing of my right to say good or bad. If I don’t need to join a bug report to congratulate the speedy resolution that is an usual characteristic of the (x)Ubuntu distribution, I don’t need to join a bug report to criticize when its not. We definitely need to take another stance towards our users if we happen to meet more and newer smiles.

You do have the right to reply to his opinion, certainly. What I feel is that you were too harsh, which on my particular case left a long lasting impression you got defensive. And it’s left to my imagination why you did. Which results in the unfortunate consequence that your article here raised more questions than it answered…

And people have a right to reply. And if you don’t file any bug reports before lambasting the project publicly, it’s pretty bad form. It does not require programming experience to report bugs and subscribe to them on Launchpad.