Al,

Thanks, Al. I vastly appreciate your concern. I had 
already searched GNATS about KDE and KDE2 without gaining 
any heads-up before putting time and effort into the 
installation. Which time and effort are now gone to 
waste.

Another individual took great offense at my considering 
it a personal obligation to forewarn others lest they too 
waste their own time and effort. Please know that it was 
not a threat directed at persons responsible for NetBSD. 
I merely consider the sharing of such experience to be 
the duty of all responsible consumers.

I mentioned two other links, of prior such posts that I 
had made. I was entirely factual in the writing of them. 
They were utterly free of personal vindicive. Elsewise 
AAA Insurance or Brundage Roofing would have had cause 
for suit. They did not sue. These two elected to pay. 
They paid, but still I did not take the pages down. The 
one about AAA has now been up for two years, a full year 
after they paid off in full on my claim.

My posting of those pages was not a tool to extort 
something back from them. I posted those pages as a 
service to all other consumers. I posted those pages 
because I had desparately wished that other folks might 
have done the same for me. So...it was not a threat, not 
a prod, not a whip.

I myself am never moved by any such goad. So I do not 
expect it of others. I merely give notice as to what to 
expect. Just as I had wished to be given notice of what 
to expect before I invested time and effort trying to 
work with KDE.

One person, I don't recall who, made the briefest mention 
of the fact that some things are broken in KDE on NetBSD. 
They didn't say what.

The package system itself ought to give notice as to what 
is broken. The GNATS pages are totally useless to a 
newbie. I have six computers at home. I have five 
computers I use at work. Yet on NetBSD I am such a newbie 
that the GNATS reports are total gibberish to me. That is 
ignorance on my part, I know.

But, it is presumed that NetBSD does not shun newbies, 
yes? In fact, I had thought that NetBSD sought to recruit 
newbies. 

I don't ask that everything work. But I do want to know 
beforehand what works and what doesn't. I would gladly 
avoid what is known to not work. I would glady use 
instead something which works. But it is by no means 
unreasonable to want to know if it works or not.

Here are the links to the prior pages which I mentioned. 
A sample of my sense of duty as a responsible consumer. 
Would that others should make an equal effort.

http://home.att.net/~oinkfreebiker/Overspray.html
http://home.att.net/~kstarling

Thanks again Al, for your offer. If my next big effort at 
NetBSD is not thwarted in some undocumented fashion, I 
will hang in a bit longer. That is what I said I would 
do. That I would abandon NetBSD when next I put in much 
time and effort only to encounter that it was totally 
wasted. I indicated I would give it one more chance. One 
more chance to not totally thwart me. But I simply do not 
have the time to be thwarted at every turn.

In closing let me suggest that it is not truly an open 
system unless it is supported by an open society. Each OS 
has its trolls, folks who wave its banner wildly shouting 
slogans of support. Those folks are always certain to 
take personal offense at the slightest criticsm. I shall 
never be one of these. Nor, I am glad to say, have I met 
many on the mailing lists for NetBSD. Only one so far...

Thanks Al,

Gan


--

Mysterious Starling -- Rarest Extinct Bird
     _         
   <(+)__        Gan Uesli Starling 
     ((__/)=-    Kalamazoo, MI, USA
      `||`      
       ++        http://starling.ws