Debian Qt KDE Packagers

Date: 18th December 2005

Adeodato Simó Age: 23 Located in: Alicante, Spain Occupation: Systems Administrator Nickname on IRC: dato Blog: http://chistera.yi.org/~adeodato/blog/
Isaac Clerencia Age: 25 Located in: Zaragoza, Spain Occupation: Systems Administrator, Developer Nickname on IRC: isaac Blog: http://people.warp.es/~isaac/blog/
Pierre Habouzit Age: 24 Located in: Paris, France Occupation: R&D, Developer Nickname on IRC: MadCoder Homepage: http://www.madism.org/ Blog: http://blog.madism.org/
Josh Metzler Age: 29 Located in: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Occupation: Research Scientist, Developer Nickname on IRC: jdmetz Homepage: http://www.logicgamesonline.com/jdmetz/ Blog: http://www.logicgamesonline.com/jdmetz/blog/
Luk Claes Age: 25 Located in: Sint-Niklaas, Belgium Occupation: Systems Administrator, Developer Nickname on IRC: luk Blog: http://people.warp.es/~isaac/blog/
Achim Bohnet Age: 43 Located in: Munich and Friedrichsruhe, Germany Occupation: Systems Administrator Nickname on IRC: allee Homepage: http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~ach/
Christopher Martin Age: 25 Located in: Toronto, Canada Occupation: Just graduated, to be decided Nickname on IRC: Thucydides

The Interview

In what ways do you make a contribution to KDE?

Adeodato Simó: Indirectly, via providing packages for the Debian distribution. Christopher Martin and myself started revitalising the state of KDE packaging in Debian some months ago, moving it to a true team maintenance: more people then became involved, which has meant higher quality packages, which in the end results in a direct benefit for both Debian and KDE.

Christopher Martin: I'm an active member of the Debian Qt/KDE packaging group. Our packages are not only for Debian users, but serve as the foundation for packages created by derived distributions. As for a direct contribution to KDE, packaging work results in small patches all over the place. I also occasionally work on Kaffeine, my preferred media player.

Isaac Clerencia: I'm one of the less active members in the Debian Qt/KDE team :) Lately I've been working in KOffice packaging and I've already promised KOffice 1.5 alpha Sarge packages to help Kurt Pfeifle build nice klik packages for it. I've also been running KDE from SVN for months and have sent some patches to random KDE programs. In addition, I changed KWallet's interface some months ago (released with 3.5) based on a design by my workmate Jorge Arcas.

Pierre Habouzit: I'm a unevenly active member of the Debian Qt/KDE packaging group. My most recent activity was to try to sort out some very old bug entries from Debian's bug tracking system, many have been irrelevant for ages.

Josh Metzler: My first contribution to KDE was the Spider game in KPatience. Lately I have become part of the Debian Qt/KDE team, where I spend a lot of time responding to Debian bug reports and helping people out in #debian-kde on freenode. With the release of 3.5 rc1, I have also started helping with the Debian packaging.

Luk Claes: I'm an active uploader, I like to help out for transitions (changing packaging dependencies).

Achim Bohnet: Mostly in packaging KDE applications and helping others to package. My one line fixes in SVN are not worth mentioning ;) Sometimes I help on IRC, then on mailing lists, whatever time permits.

When did you first hear of KDE?

Adeodato Simó: Quite similarly to Christopher, I first met KDE 2.x with Mandrake 8.0, then quickly moved onto Debian and another desktop until KDE 3.0 came out. I installed Ralf Nolden's backport for Woody, and have been using it since.

Christopher Martin: While investigating this new Linux fad years ago, I read a comparison of GNOME and KDE on some random website I can't recall. KDE's description appealed to me, and I filed the acronym away in memory. When Mandrake 8.0 came out, I saw that it shipped with the brand-new KDE 2.1.1, and decided to order the CDs. I wasn't impressed by much of anything, and wound up switching to Debian, and using Window Maker with very few KDE apps. But KDE 3.1 tipped the scales back, and I've been a happy KDE user ever since.

Isaac Clerencia: I can't remember. I started using GNU/Linux (RedHat) in 1998. I used lightweight window managers (fvwm2, blackbox) for years, so I was aware of KDE and Gnome existence but didn't use them. Then I bought SuSE 7.1, and IIRC I used KDE for the first time. The SuSE experience wasn't completely pleasant, so I tried something else, Debian. I started using blackbox again, then switched to Gnome and finally to KDE two years ago.

Pierre Habouzit: When I had my first computer, in 2000 Windows didn't work on my bleeding edge machine, I tried Linux, and KDE. I've never really left it since. It was already KDE 2.2.2 if I recall correctly.

Josh Metzler: I first installed a Linux system four years ago. After doing some research, I chose Debian Woody, and installed Gnome. But, when I couldn't figure out how to shutdown the system, I used the reset button and installed KDE instead. I was hooked right away.

Luk Claes: When I first installed Debian, I read the package descriptions of a lot of packages :-)

Achim Bohnet: Day Zero aka Matthias Ettrich's announcement.

How and when did you get involved in KDE?

Adeodato Simó: I first started with maintaining amaroK in Debian; from that time I contributed patches. Then the opportunity to get involved in KDE packaging in Debian came, and I popped in.

Christopher Martin: Just over a year ago I became involved in Debian/KDE packaging, as I was frustrated by a number of packaging glitches that weren't getting fixed. I was not alone, as it turns out, and the Debian Qt/KDE packaging team was born at around that time.

Isaac Clerencia: I got involved in the Debian Qt/KDE team sometime around Q1 2005. Although I had not much time, I could help the team sponsoring uploads for them. After some months I got involved in KDE development itself.

Josh Metzler: I first contributed code when my wife and I were spending all the time playing Spider solitaire whenever we were at my parents' house. I downloaded the kdegames source and wrote a Spider module to it, which I got accepted without too much trouble.

Luk Claes: When I wanted to configure my router via the webinterface it only worked with Konqueror. As this was in the middle of a transition some KDE packages weren't installable next to the transitioned packages...

Achim Bohnet: I met tackat (KDE artist Torsten Rahn) in Nov 2000 at an exhibition and discussed with him the problem that KDE's icons consume all available colour on 8bit pseudocolour displays. Next day I had a CVS account and detailed instructions how to convert icons to 40 Web colours. After two weeks I gave up, because I was sure that our hardware will be sooner replaced with 24 bit truecolour displays than I'm able to finish the convertion of only the kdelibs icons. I really admire the KDE artists for their work.

Are you being paid to work on KDE?

Adeodato Simó: No.

Christopher Martin: No.

Isaac Clerencia: No.

Josh Metzler: No.

Luk Claes: No.

Achim Bohnet: No.

How much time do you usually spend on KDE?

Achim Bohnet: Ranges from several hours per night to nothing.

Which section of KDE is underrated and could get more publicity?

Achim Bohnet: KIO. It's still amazing how many people don't know that they can use sftp, ftp, etc in most of the KDE apps.

What do you think is still badly missing in KDE?

Christopher Martin: More work needs to go into a definitive set of new and improved hardware configuration tools. Work is being done, fortunately, so I'm optimistic.

Achim Bohnet: Printing of images is still way to slow and a good standard dialogue/wizard to scale and position one and more images is still missing. In general: an actively developed library section in each of the extragear modules. Too much duplicate work in my humble opinion and none does everything one needs.

Do you have any plans for KDE 4?

Christopher Martin: The way Debian chops up modules like kdebase into numerous and often seemingly arbitrary sub-packages is in need of revision. KDE 4 will present a good opportunity to restructure things so as to be less complex and more foolproof.

More generally, I'd like to see reforms to KDE's system of shipping software in big monolithic modules. When so many of the best KDE apps are not in any official module, and so much that is in the official modules is rotting, the rationale for the old system now seems weak. While kdelibs, kdebase, kdepim, and a few others are natural or necessary units, I see no reason to shackle Kopete to ktald, or KMix to mpeglib.

What motivates/keeps you motivated to work on KDE?

Adeodato Simó: I started to do KDE packaging work because I was a KDE user, and clearly saw that the KDE packages in Debian where in severe need of love. Now they're in far better shape, and other areas in Debian are in severe need of love as well...

Christopher Martin: Above all else, it's fun. I also feel good about helping to make available a Free desktop for general use.

Isaac Clerencia: Again, KDE rocks, so it's great to help KDE development.

Pierre Habouzit: I personally like to optimise my time when I use my computer. The tasks I accomplish the most often need quick and efficient tools (that's why I prefer Vim/irssi/Konqueror to Kate/Konversation/Firefox). And for the other, I like to use apps that are easy to use, and good looking. I'm also a very big fan of KMail and Kopete which I really find superior to their competitors (but all is a matter of taste). I'm motivated to help KDE because I use it.

Josh Metzler: Like Pierre, I'm motivated to work on KDE because I use it.

Achim Bohnet: KDE is just great.

What chances do you see in your country for KDE as a desktop platform?

Adeodato Simó: I believe most regional distros (you know, paid by local governments and stuff) are GNOME-based. There are a couple KDE-based, though.

Achim Bohnet: Not that bad. Opensource is considered seriously or already used in government agencies here in Germany (due to many KDE developers and SuSE this implies almost always KDE). Nevertheless import/export of MS Office formats still needs to be enhanced. For the private usage, Linux and KDE tools for laptops and multimedia devices need to get much simpler. But I'm optimistic, I know that lot of people work in this field already. I hope the gap will not take too long to fix.

What is your favourite widget style?

Adeodato Simó: Lipstik, and SuSE's windeco for KWin, debian package.

Christopher Martin: Plastik. It's simple, looks good, but doesn't get in the way or distract me.

Isaac Clerencia: Plastik, but I'm trying dato's above suggestion now.

Pierre Habouzit: Plastik. I just hate fancy or flashy styles. I like it functional.

Josh Metzler: I usually try whatever the default is when it changes. But I switched to Plastik before it became the default and have stuck with it ever since.

Achim Bohnet: Whatever KDE uses by default. My users were always irritated when my desktop looked totally different than theirs and I have had to think twice how something is done without my customisations.

Which text editor do you use?

Adeodato Simó: Surprise surprise, vim. As Pierre says, I fell on vim's side when I started my studies, and been a happy user since then. The kind of user that uses d3aw or cF' regularly, for example.

Christopher Martin: Vim. I made a point of learning it (well, vi) when I first came to UNIX, and don't feel the need for more.

Isaac Clerencia: I started using vanilla "vi" in an HP-UX at University, after using that (only an undo, no macros, no highlight), vim was lovely. I've been using it for 7 years already.

Pierre Habouzit: Like already said : Vim. I'm even in the debian VIM Packaging group. When I had to choose an editor to learn, I needed a console based editor, I had the choice between vim and emacs at that time, I fell in the vim side. Now, I just can't quit it. I'm really eager to see projects like yzis emerge, since it would mean the ergonomics of my favourite editor everywhere I still miss it (like in kmail ...).

Josh Metzler: I also use vim just because it happens to be what I started with and got familiar with.

Luk Claes: Vim. Because on every UNIX like system you have some version of vi installed and it's only an editor (unlike emacs).

Achim Bohnet: vim. Deleting jjjjjjjjjjjs and kkkkkkkkkkkks is no fun. Emacs never had a real chance. I'm slowly getting used to Kate because last time I didn't change KDE's default to gvim.

Which distribution do you use? Why?

Adeodato Simó: I've been a happy Debian user since December 2002, and I'm thrilled to be part of its development community.

Pierre Habouzit: Well, just try to guess ...

Isaac Clerencia: I've been using Debian since October 2001.

Josh Metzler: I've been using Debian since March of 2002.

Achim Bohnet: Debian on all servers and PCs. Kubuntu on the Laptops. After working with several commercial UNIX's, SuSE, Redhat and Mandrake, Debian's package management, clean and consistent file hierarchy and the absence of 'intelligent tools' that override what I changed was just the thing I was always looking for.

What is KDE's killer app? Why?

Adeodato Simó: I'm much of a console guy (vim for editor, mutt for mail, irssi for IRC, etc.). The two KDE apps that I use the most, and make me extremely happy, are Konqueror and amaroK. Kopete and digiKam are important for me as well.

Christopher Martin: KDE's configurability has always been its main 'feature' for me; I don't mind spending time tweaking, and am very picky about how I like to work, so the ability to bend my desktop to my peculiar will is crucial. More specifically, I'd have to say that Konsole is fantastic, as is KMail, K3b, etc. It all works together so well.

Isaac Clerencia: As Pierre has said, it's not an app but the whole. I really love KDE for things like "drag and drop"'ing URLs from Konqueror into a Konsole, URL shortcuts (gg,dbug,dict,...), Klipper actions, DCOP, KIOslaves, ... I always have 4 konsoles (with several tabs each), Kontact and Konqueror running. I use lots of other KDE apps less frequently (amaroK, Digikam, Kooka, KRDC, KArm, KAlarm, KPDF, ...) and find all of them to be really great :)

Pierre Habouzit: there is not one KDE killer app, there is a lot of excellent ones. I'd still give special mentions to Kopete, KMail and Amarok (even if it's not in the official modules) that are just excellent : at the same time really good looking (I just love the Amarok widgets) and still very functional.

Achim Bohnet: Nothing new: it's not a single application but KDE's integration and consistency that important and rocking. I think it's much more disappointing when an KDE application uses for no good reason a different menu layout or short cuts, ignores/replaces features that kdelibs provides instead of enhancing them.

What makes you develop for KDE instead of the competition?

Luk Claes: There is no 'instead of the competition', I would work on all Debian packages if time would permit ;-)

Achim Bohnet: At first there was no competitor, then the license discussion annoyed me. Later I tried GNOME several times but it never convinced me. So I stick with what is best for me: KDE.

What does your desktop look like?

Adeodato Simó: I have a screenshot from 2004, and another from 2005. As you can see, once I make a choice, I stick to it. :)

Isaac Clerencia: I don't spend too much time configuring my desktop. And that little time is usually spent in behaviour-configuration (like window behaviour, khotkeys, ...), so my desktop is quite boring, but pretty functional.

Josh Metzler: My desktop is pretty standard, even plainer at times (i.e. a single blue colour for the background).

Achim Bohnet: Pretty standard. Nothing special. I like it plain and don't like all those fancy skins. Maybe that is the heritage from pre KDE days where all apps look and were organised differently.

What type is your laptop/desktop? What is it named?

Adeodato Simó: I usually name my computers with some Spanish word that I like. My desktop is always chistera ("top hat"), and my sister's computer, plastilina'' ("play-doh"). I don't own a laptop.

Isaac Clerencia: Thinkpad T42. I always have problems to name my laptops, last time it was named aaaabbbb for some months. My current laptop is 'tyler', both because of the Wonderfalls series main character surname and because of the Fight Club movie. My current desktop (at University) is named 'everwood', because of Everwood series again. I should stop watching that many series :P At my work all the computers are named after The Simpsons characters, we already have Moe, Lisa, Stacy, Blinky, Jimbo, Apu, Maude, ...

Pierre Habouzit: I have many computers. The one at work is named after me (mad) the one at home is named hades (my LAN at home is the Olympus -- the name of the router/nfs server - and the stations are named after greek gods). Both are SN-25P AMD64 shuttles. I've had a Powerbook, and I'd really like to buy one.

Luk Claes: Acer Aspire. It was the first laptop that cost below 1000 EUR in this region. It's called lap as I had no inspiration for a real name and I just wanted it to be three characters...

Achim Bohnet: Dell D600. The names of my computers are usually a word from a thought or a feeling that happened in the last minutes.

If you were shipwrecked and had to share an island with a KDE contributor who would it be?

Achim Bohnet: Currently Aaron Seigo. I like the spirit he spreads.

What is your most embarrassing KDE moment?

Achim Bohnet: After bigger KDE updates when people come to my office to complain that some or many of their previous settings are now ignored.

Did you go to Akademy?

Adeodato Simó: Yes; same deal as Isaac, I ended up helping with video broadcasting, so I wasn't able to participate in much other stuff. I got to finally met Christopher which was like, superb.

Christopher Martin: Yes! I had a great time in Spain. Malaga is quite a nice city. I met quite a few interesting Debian and KDE developers. I also attended a number of informative sessions concerning KDE's future direction, gave an impromptu Debian packaging tutorial or two, and fixed some packaging problems in my spare time.

Isaac Clerencia: Yes, it was quite cool :) I got tricked into helping with video broadcasting and recording stuff, so I missed some talks. Anyway it was great to meet some other Debian/KDE team members and KDE developers.

Achim Bohnet: No. I was unfortunately busy. Hopefully next time.

Personal Questions

First things first. Married, partner or up for adoption?

Adeodato Simó: single

Christopher Martin: Married. She's a happy Debian/KDE user, though it might help that I'm the sysadmin.

Isaac Clerencia: Partner, living with her for a month. :)

Josh Metzler: Married with two kids.

Luk Claes: Single.

Achim Bohnet: Somehow we forgot to marry. Nevertheless we are the happy parents of 3 kids.

If you have a partner or children, how do they cope with a KDE addict?

Christopher Martin: Well, I may be addicted, but I can stop for short periods, just often and long enough to be a reasonable companion. I hope.

Isaac Clerencia: Well, she uses Debian/KDE in her desktop, so she is quite happy about me working in KDE. Damn, she even is happy to see me working in Battle for Wesnoth, although she doesn't play.

Pierre Habouzit: Married (since 2002), and she's a windowmaker addict. I've introduced her to Kopete though ;)

Josh Metzler: Well, they put up with it. My wife rolls her eyes at me sometimes. I've learnt not to do experimental testing on our family desktop, so that helps. :)

Achim Bohnet: From Monday to Thursday evening I'm not with my family, so I can be addicted as I like. Weekend is different, best to wait until everyone sleeps.

Do you have any pets?

Pierre Habouzit: a cat, named Circé, that sleep on my knees while I code.

Luk Claes: a cat, named Snor

Achim Bohnet: No. But if I would soften in the daily fights, my daughters would populate the garden and garage with as many horses as possible.

Which book is on your bedside table?

Adeodato Simó: The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, untouched for some time now.

Christopher Martin: "The Hundred Days", book 19 of the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian.

Isaac Clerencia: Well, last night I had Linux Journal, although I guess it doesn't qualify. I usually read books on my Palm, which contains plenty of them just now.

Pierre Habouzit: Wheel of time (R. Jordan). But I just can't find the time to read it ...

Achim Bohnet: Just started with George R.R. Martin: A game of thrones.

Who or what in your life would you say influenced you most?

Josh Metzler: Becoming a Christian my freshman year of college has had the most impact on what my life looks like today.

Achim Bohnet: Meeting people from all around the world during my studies.

Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds?

Adeodato Simó: To be honest, both are faraway figures for me. Some fellow Debian Developers, OTOH, are really inspirational for me.

Christopher Martin: Hmm, tough choice. As someone interested in advancing Free Software on the desktop, I suppose that Linus's emphasis on practicality is a more immediate inspiration, even if he is not working on the desktop directly.

Isaac Clerencia: I would have said Richard Stallman, but I've just read this certain e-mail and Linus is rocking there :P

Pierre Habouzit: Linus. Idealism is great, real solutions are better.

Achim Bohnet: I'm glad that both exists;) RMS fight is very necessary, but in real life I tend much more to Linus way.

How would you describe yourself?

Achim Bohnet: Gentle, sometimes chaotic.

What do you get passionate about?

Achim Bohnet: When people claim in one sentence that this is the solution for a social or political problem. I dislike generalisations and to simply put the finger on a hole group just because of one extrem case. Ahh, and I can't resist to object when people advise to set DPI to 75 in the case the fonts are too small ;)

You're stuck on a train for 6 hours and are bored out of your skull. What do you do to amuse yourself?

Adeodato Simó: If I'm alone, I would sure sleep (honest, ask around). If not, I can always enjoy conversation.

Christopher Martin: Either read or stare out the window, lost in thought. I'm only ever bored if I'm forced to pay full attention to something that is of no interest.

Isaac Clerencia: I usually keep enough gadgets with me to have their batteries sum up to 6+ hours. When I travel in train for that time I usually spend 1.5 hours with my laptop and the rest of the time usually reading a book in my PDA.

Josh Metzler: Sudoku :)

Achim Bohnet: Either I would try to sleep or search for a group people have a good chat discussion.

What is your favourite t-shirt?

Adeodato Simó: Isaac knows.

Isaac Clerencia: Heh. I've several ThinkGeek t-shirts including Pierre's one, but I prefer "There is no place like 127.0.0.1".

Pierre Habouzit: "No, I won't fix your computer"

Achim Bohnet: Usually a fresh one. None of my t-shirts has a special slogan on them. My office door is used for this purpose.

What is your favourite place in the world?

Adeodato Simó: The places I go with my friends.

Isaac Clerencia: I'm still making up a decision.

Pierre Habouzit: My comfortable chair, in front of my keyboard. Though my bed is nice too ;)

Josh Metzler: Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. My wife and I lived with a host family in Santiago Atitlan for a month, and it was a beautiful place to live.

Achim Bohnet: Everywhere I met friends or can chat with interesting people. I can enjoy it even a bit more when it's warm and the location is a Biergarten.