Thanks for putting this together! Some (late and) minor thoughts on wording:
I like that we state we want to "integrate well with other Free products to complete the experience". I would explicitly mention "other Free *software* and products", to make clear that we don't want to be a closed ecosystem where KDE software only integrates with other KDE software. I also think that the statement "maintains a diverse and inclusive community" is fundamental in a truly open online community nowadays. I would go further and say "a diverse, inclusive *and safe* community". Apart from that, I agree with every point in the strategy and I'm happy we have decided to write it down and make it public. Albert On May 30, 2017 11:55 AM, "Sebastian Kügler" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Agustin, > > On Tuesday, May 30, 2017 4:07:37 PM CEST Agustin Benito (toscalix) wrote: > > thanks for driving this discussion. It is a needed one. Here are my > > early comments: > > > > * "builds on open standards to prevent "lock-in" - I think that > > prevent lock-in is not a reason but a consequence of building KDE > > software on open standards. open stardars are aabout transparency, > > agreement, provenance... > > That makes it too vague in my opinion. Preventing lock-in is a tangible > benefit for our users, it is in fact why many instituional users choose > Free > software over proprietary offerings. We should call it by its name to make > clear why we do this, and why users want and need it. > > > * "provides usable security and privacy features to protect against > > surveillance and data theft" there is legal surveillance that we do > > not want to prevent. In any case, privacy is a right challenged in our > > digital era like was not challenged before, in the analogic era. Is > > the right to privacy the central point, not the prevention against > > data theft. You can prevent your data from being stolen through > > proprietary software too, among other options. > > Legal says exactly nothing, since it's bound to a jurisdiction, a concept > which doesn't exactly work in the internet era. Something can be legal in a > given location, yet morally wrong. Also, we're not judging (a Free software > principle), we're allowing privacy, full stop. > > > * "have consistent, easy to use human interfaces" and "provide a > > seamless user experience" seems to me close enough to justify that we > > condense them in a single statement. > > One is about the interface quality itself, the other is about a > cross-device > experience, I think they warrant separate mentioning to make the mission > less > fluffy and more concrete. > > > * I would be carefull with the words "integration" and > > "interoperates". In order to work well, both concepts requires two > > parties. We cannot guarantee any of them by ourselves. > > We can strive for it, however. Nothing wrong with that. > > > * Linked with the above, this statement is a set up for failure: > > "interoperates well with proprietary software, formats and services" . > > In simple words, it is not in our hands to provide a satisfactory > > experience when dealing with proprietary software/formats/services. I > > would re-formulate this in a way that reflects that we will do our > > best. > > Again, I think it's absolutely sound to state that we want our software to > work well with proprietary offerings. It provides real value to users and > again makes it clearer why we do what we do. > > > * "empowers users independent of their abilities" I find this > > statement vague. How are we going to empower them? what for? why it is > > so important for us to empower software users? I would try to develop > > it a little. > > How? :) > > > * I have a fundamental issue with the whole "user story". We are > > upstream. We only reach 0.1% of our currrent users directly. We live > > in an industry that has "downstream", that is, integrators and > > distributors. I truly believe that one of our limiting factors is our > > belief that we can reach users "by ourselves", through direct > > interaction. This idea, which is popular in our community, has its > > reflection in this Mission statement. No mention to any collaboration > > with dowsntream in this section, to reach users. > > While we are upstream, we're responsible for the largest part of the user > experience, we develop the software, we create the UI, we fix the bugs that > annoy people. > > > I have been fighting this widespread belief since I joined in 2005. > > Our situation is worse today than ever was, in my opinion. I would > > really like to see ourselves turning the situation upside down, which > > can start by discussing and ultimately reflecting in this Mission > > statement how important it is for us the ecosystem that allow us to > > bring our software to user's hands. > > Please elaborate what you want to do, and how. Your statement is really > vague > and I fail to make sense of it, possibly others have the same problem. > > Cheers, > -- > sebas > > http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org >
