Re: Is Kupfer dead?

[David Schneider <dnschneid gmail com>]

> Hello guys, is the project dead? I subscribed to the list just to stimulate
> the developers.

Nope, not dead.  It's always hard to tell with projects with tiny teams, as
progress is generally slow.  Fortunately, it's open source, so you can always
check how things are going by looking at the git logs [1].
We have about two active developers on the core, one being Ulrik, the father
of Kupfer, the other being Karol, who's been patching bugs left and right
(go Karol!), and a sprinkling of plugin developers who keep their territories
tidy.  I believe Ulrik was investigating moving to gtk3 using
gobject-introspection, but it's a large undertaking to essentially rewrite
the Kupfer core, particularly for solo developers with real-life
responsibilities.

> This is a very important time for kupfer, I think. Lots of
> users are migrating from gnome to xfce and the point and click + keyboard
> shortcuts never were so important for the userbase. There is a lot of space
> for kupfer if we think about those who left gnome. My system runs on a
> Debian testing with xfce and kupfer and it is a LOT more productive than
> the touch paradigm of gnome3 (wich I tested for an year or so)!

Agreed.  Unfortunately for both Xfce and Kupfer, Xfce will not
support/recommend a project that isn't written in C (Kupfer is written in
Python), so I don't see Kupfer winning many users from the mass Gnome
exodus.  This is simply because doing the distro equivalent of "apt-get
install xfce4 xfce4-goodies" will never bring in Kupfer, so it will be yet
another third-party software that people have to discover and install
manually, and people who are used to gnome-do can continue using it even in
the Xfce DE.  One possible way to catch users would be to convince the
Xubuntu team to include Kupfer in their default desktop configuration, as
they tend to be a little bit more lax in their requirements, but it'd be a
tough sell.

> If you
> don't believe the inportance of kupfer (and similar programs) right now,
> make public a way for donating to the developers so they can give a little
> more love to the project.

I assure you the importance of Kupfer is not lost on anyone here.  If
development is slow, it just means that Kupfer already does a vast majority
of the tasks that the developers personally want it to do, so adding features
is not a high priority and will routinely fall second to anything else
important going on in their lives.  Donations will not fix this (correct me
if I'm wrong, Ulrik); instead, we need people like you to contribute! Kupfer
is written in Python, so it is extremely easy to hack on.  Even if you don't
know Python, try writing a Kupfer plugin; it's a great way to get your feet
wet without having to grok a huge codebase, and you'll be amazed at how
little code is needed to add that feature you've always wanted.  If you're
more experienced with Python, try fixing a bug, or adding a feature to the
core. If you have no interest in programming, learning Python, or just don't
have the time, then help us get the word out about how awesome Kupfer is, and
encourage your Pythonic friends to contribute.

> Regards,
> Luís

Thanks for making your voice heard!  It's always encouraging to hear from
users who love the program (and aren't necessarily reporting bugs).

-David

[1] http://git.gnome.org/browse/kupfer/log/
Note that due to the way Git is structured, if people are working on large
features, you won't see anything from them for a while, as people don't push
to the master branch until a feature is complete, or at least doesn't break
anything else.