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The reason is that KDE is mostly developed by volunteers. Many of whom had branches that have been developed and ready for several years but not released. They were losing interest. KDE had to move the train to keep those volunteers around.

If you don't ship it and some point it's gonna die.

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So use the beta version to integrate everything and make sure it all works before shipping it to users. That's the point of having a beta. But shipping what should have been a beta release to end users as though it were finished has ramifications in how your project is viewed and whether people keep using it.

There were many alpha and beta releases. The point was about finalizing API changes of kdelibs.

You can stabilize APIs in a beta, though? What am I missing?

Nothing, it was a mistake that some are attempting to explain away as everyone elses fault for misunderstanding.

I did the same thing as the other poster, went to 4.x with KDE then promptly left as I fundamentally disagreed with so many of the things they were doing. I ended up at i3 and haven't looked back. KDE is a lot better than it was back in those days, but i3 is so perfect for me I'll never be a full time KDE user again. Not because I hate them, but because they're not i3.

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