If the feature freeze for 4.11 is May 22 and there is no more feature releases for branch 4.x, where all those features from GSoC go? I don't think students should work on version 5 yet... On May 1, 2013 9:16 AM, "Aaron J. Seigo" <ase...@kde.org> wrote:
> ** > > Hello everyone, > > > > tl;dr -> 4.11 will be the last feature release of kde-workspace. Plasma > Workspaces will be feature frozen and we are committing to 2 years of > maintenance releases of 4.11. The next feature release of kde-workspace > will be Plasma Workspaces 2, based on Qt5. > > > > This does not impact kdelibs, kde-runtime or any KDE application > development. > > > > > > > > As you probably know, a number of the Plasma developers got together a > couple of weeks back for a developer sprint, Tokamak 6, that focused on a > Qt5 / Frameworks 5 version of Plasma Workspaces. > > > > We have already made significant progress in this effort: we have a > functioning libplasma2, QML2 versions of Plasma Components and an alpha > version of a new shell loader that will end up replacing the > plasma-desktop, plasma-netbook and plasma-device binaries. At the > development sprint we made further progress, some of which you can read > about here: > > > > > http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2013/04/tokamak-6-plasma-workspaces-2-milestone.html > > > > In planning a roadmap for Plasma Workspaces 2, we realized that we have > arrived at a point in development where, in order to move forward, we need > to start porting the contents of kde-workspace. In fact, some components in > kde-workspace already have been! > > > > KWin needs to complete the shift to Qt5, and this will not be possible to > do while maintaining a compatible Qt4 version. The changes necessary have > been made as minimal as possible thanks to work done in the last few 4.x > dev cycles, but the remaining changes will be significant. > > > > Due to the adoption of QML2 and the new unified shell binary significant > changes to the desktop code base will occur that will cause a similar > significant divergence. > > > > Other components will be retired outright, such as KDM. > > > > Finally, we don't want to make our users and 3rd party developers wait > overly long for Plasma Workspaces 2. We want to have as little disruption > to the release regularity as possible while still delivering a high quality > product on first release. This means we need to start sooner rather than > later. > > > > To achieve our goals, we have decided to put the 4.x version of Plasma > Workspaces into maintenance mode. After 4.11, all feature development will > happen in the Qt5-based codebase. We will continue to roll out bug fix, > translation and stabilization releases of 4.11 during this time in sync > with the KDE SC process for a minimum of 2 years. > > > > The 4.11.x versions of Plasma Workspaces should be especially appropriate > for use in long term maintenance/support releases of operating systems that > package Plasma. > > > > For Plasma Workspaces 2, our goal is to have a user ready release in Q2 > 2013. This release will not necessarily be tied to the release schedule of > Frameworks 5, nor does it impact in any way application development which > should continue developing again the 4.x kdelibs until such time as we have > a working release of Frameworks 5. > > > > This has been discussed within the broader Plasma community (inc focus > areas such as Solid) as well as on the release-team mailing list. > Additional feedback is welcome and we will do our best to address any > questions that you may have. > > > > Cheers, and happy hacking :) > > > > -- > > Aaron J. Seigo >
