We all (not just KDE) learned that users don't read those. Worse, distro maintainers either don't read them or in their "we are on the latest" push will ignore them. KDE was pushed out to a lot of people who shouldn't have got it.

It is safe to say that many other projects have not done beta .0 releases like that because they don't want the same to happen to them - even though they really need beta testers. Of course few projects will admit that they learned the lesson from KDE.

> Worse, distro maintainers either don't read them or in their "we are on the latest" push will ignore them

Oh, this is so true. Ubuntu adopted Pulse Audio long before anyone (including Poettering) considered it stable. IIRC the readme even said something like "The sound system that breaks your audio"

I probably shouldn't complain though, since as a non-Ubuntu user, I get the benefits of all the Ubuntu users beta testing software for me.

> KDE was pushed out to a lot of people who shouldn't have got it.

Yeah, I remember that turmoil, and was really sad for all KDE devs.

> It is safe to say that many other projects have not done beta .0 releases...

This was a brave move by KDE back then, and still a brave move, but with proper communication, it can be done, I guess...

KDE developers and volunteers embody a great trove of wisdom about software development. I learnt how to make proper bug reporting from AmaroK project, and still use the same methodology, even with projects which do not enforce any style. It makes things much easier. ...and everyone needs beta testers. That's true.