I seriously don't get it. I really don't. I have worked on finally upgrading my kubuntu from Hardy to Jaunty, and finally embracing KDE4, for better or for worse.

You see, I can understand that KDE4 is not perfect, I can understand bugs, I can understand unfinished migrations from 3.5 to 4.x. This all I can understand. What I can't understand (and it's not only here, but it happens a lot in Open Source Software), is regression.

The Network manager on KDE 3.5 was nothing fantastic, but for a mini-geek like me, it worked well enough. And most important, i could in 3 clicks get my network configured the way i wanted it, ie. get a static local IP for my desktop so I can synchronize with my laptop easily. Well, with the supposedly-improved network manager in KDE 4, I just couldn't get it working. Cryptic names for things where everything was crystal clear in KDE 3.5, text fields that are half truncated so that you can't even see what you're typing. Simply horrid (some people agree with me). And frankly, I am already spending enough time resetting my whole machine, I really don't have time to lose with this shit.

So I downloaded WICD. In two seconds, all my settings were taken into account. I already use WICD on my laptop, and it simply rocks.

This trend is something that I observe quite a bit in Open Source. Evolution actually brings on regression. It might make sense to some extent. Let's take KDE4 for example. It didn't work so well when the first version was put out, and that could have been seen as a "regression", but all in all, the whole rethinking of how a desktop should work was a real evolution, even a revolution.

What I really don't get, is that in its evolution, some piece of software loses its basic abilities and usability. Seriously, what are you going to do with a network manager, except 'manage networks'? So why couldn't the knetworkmanager retain at least its simplicity? Because it is on the way to "getting much better"? Well, tell you what. I'll stick with WICD for a while, give me a ping when knetworkmanager actually becomes usable again :).