The problem seems to be the desktop software...
I did get a kick out of seeing my old Celeron Windows 95 machine now running a modern OS, browser and chat client.
By "Desktop" - though, I mean users who are planning on downloading/installing various productivity utilities, applications, etc... to do their job. Creating Reports, Slide Decks, PDFs, Spreadsheets, charts, diagrams, IM apps, Skype - whatever random app they want to use to do their Job.
I've never seen an OpenBSD user in 20+ years of supporting Desktops in Engineering and Corporate environments - Windows obviously, but lots of Macintosh OS, A nice run of NextOS, Lots of FreeBSD, umpteen distros of Linux (for a while, that's all people seemed to be running), many versions of Solaris, tons of Irix, a handful of HPUX users, and even a couple AIX users.
But, in that same time - I've seen OpenBSD squirreled away in all sorts of Appliance/Network/Firewall duties.
I think the average user could be satisfied with what's available on OpenBSD. The only bummer is flash.
``Creating Reports, Slide Decks, PDFs, Spreadsheets, charts, diagrams[...]''
LibreOffice is available on OpenBSD.
``IM apps''
Pidgin and a ton of other clients are available.
``Skype''
It used to work a few releases ago, I don't know if it still does now.
`` - whatever random app they want to use to do their Job.''
Yes, if you compare it to Windows in that regard then it's at a loss. But if you compare it to Liunx I'd say it's up to par.
The problem is that it's getting harder to keep up to date, which is what Marc is trying to explain in his email to tech@.
'Hacker' News, indeed.
A couple of years later I heard from an OpenBSD dev who noted the issue and recommended a workaround, which I implemented and hopefully means KDE works in OpenBSD now.
But other than that one dev I'm not aware of any OpenBSD users or devs noticing or complaining about that bug (which would have been quite noticeable from the terminal output at least).
Drawn whatever conclusions you will from that. ;)
We now have one, so there is quite some movement on this front in the recent months.
That's correct. Although I'm one of the few who actually seems to care about portability as a good practice I don't have the time to run 5 different OS'es to verify each of my volunteered contributions works on every feasible POSIX platform.
In the end someone who is interested in each of those platforms needs to help take on the task of ensuring that the software they use works on the platform they use (that is, if they wish for the software to work). This can be as simple as reporting bugs, helping with integration into platform-specific libraries (which KDE is usually very good about using through adapter libraries to ensure portability), reporting platform-specific bugs that need worked around, etc.
Some projects are already taking a WONTFIX attitude to portability bugs. I will push where I can to make sure that KDE isn't one of them, but I can't change the number of hours in a day... non-Linux developers need to contribute too if they want a great KDE on that platform.
Which is convenient, as then I feel less guilty about the issues I don't have time to triage, less alone fix. You don't think I personally care if you use KDE or not I hope... I contribute where I can, as time becomes available. If people find that useful, that's wonderful. If people don't find that useful, that's fine too.
I've heard from many people who have found useful those things I've found time to implement, so I'll keep plugging along for now.
As it turns out though, there actually is a build farm/continuous integration infrastructure that our wonderful sysadmins have setup for KDE by now: http://build.kde.org/
But CI isn't useful unless it results in actionable information, and it still requires developer action to make the fixes. We're accepting patches...
If you're saying OpenBSD users are in general pickier about what software they install based on what practices are used to develop that software I'd certainly believe it. I've certainly done no studies myself to figure out why there are so few bug reports so I can't say any one reason is better than another.
And NetBSD users, and minix users, etc, etc. That's exactly what I was saying.
It can be done, but with quite a bit of tweaking, battling strange inconsistencies, and in the end, missing some functionality compared to the same thing on linux. Possible, but not by any stretch a core value proposition or a major component direction of the projects (whatever they officially say). Or at least, not the successful projects.
Sucks to see a lot of things becoming linux-specific, but in a ton of these cases, the impact on the BSDs will be minimal.
I don't know anyone who uses it, nor do I really hear about it apart from the people developing it. Sometimes, people mention it, in a "Maybe you should try PC-BSD, I've heard it's good" kind of way, but that's as far as it goes.