Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - second draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:01 PM, Jos Poortvliet  wrote:
> Note that our slogan is: "A safe home for all your data"
> "Access & share your files, calendars, contacts, mail & more from any device, 
> on your terms"

I wish we could come up with similarly specific vision for KDE
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 1:01 AM, Martin Graesslin  wrote:
> That's what we have been doing the last few years, so where are they? Where
> are the devs taking our application to mobile, etc. etc.

KF(5) has barely reached the point where it's usable on mobile
devices. Before it was too painful (I tried), and I know of several
examples where people went Qt-only to be able to produce a mobile app.
Same applies to cross-platform desktop apps.

I mean, there was a huge amount of work done within KDE to make this
possible. There's still a huge amount of work to make it easy. It's
about time to capitalize on that instead of trying every other cool
thing out there and spreading too thin.
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Re: [kde-community] Fwd: KDE Vision – towards “wholesame” solutions

[Alexander Dymo]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 2:50 AM, Martin Graesslin  wrote:
>> Maybe GUI -> UI would solve that. Or "primary focus is the UI".
> Would be much better. It at least doesn't exclude things like speech
> recognition.

+1 to the UI

> Using a simple example: today I created a GSoC project idea which is a docker
> container for KWin to be useable as a Plasma mobile emulator and also cloud.
> Is that UI? I don't know. It would render somwhere, but is that enough to
> consider it as a UI? Or is in that case KWin just a piece of server software
> without any UI (e.g. access through VNC/rdesktop/html5 with no direct
> interaction in KWin)?

It's rather simple. All these pieces (and also the Akonadi example
that Ingo brought) are the foundation/infrastructure to the "thing"
that the end user will see on their device and interact with.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 7:51 AM, A. Spehr  wrote:
> "World domination through free software."
>
> Maybe that's too flippant, or more the vision of Linux and not KDE, but that
> was my first thought as I glanced at this in the middle of the night, while
> half asleep. Who doesn't want to take over the world with cool toys?

I'm all for world domination :) But as the start, I'd be OK with KDE
dominating the software that people use on their personal computing
devices (both mobile and not). Aren't all these devices cool?
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Re: [kde-community] Vision, mission and manifesto - what is their definition and purpose?

[Alexander Dymo]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 7:51 AM, Cornelius Schumacher
 wrote:
> As it already was mentioned in the thread we should not focus on criteria who
> and what to keep out, but we should focus on what drives us forward.

That's exactly our "focused" group point. How the vague and
unreachable vision can drive us forward? We want something specific. A
goal that is reachable.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli  wrote:
> I honestly still find it strange that in this discussion we insist on
> drawing a circle defining "what is/can be KDE" (which, once more, is not
> what the vision would be supposed to mean) way smaller than what KDE already
> is.

If KDE were doing great as is, we wouldn't have had this discussion
today. I feel KDE lacks direction. But a broad vision proposal seems
to just document the fact that KDE lacks direction and brings no
value.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

> Honestly, after all these words, I don't think that this is a "focused"
> vision, but more of an "exclusive" one (from the verb "to exclude"). In my
> opinion this somehow invalidates the proposal itself, as it will be
> inapplicable to already existing, live and vibrant KDE projects.

Prioritization (focus) and exclusion are different things.

I did previously say that some of these projects that you care about
may be better off being independent. I can explain if you wish.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:04 AM, Martin Graesslin  wrote:
> Why should there be a line?

I've been managing software development organizations since 2008. I
attest to the importance of drawing a line. There's so much you can do
with software. Unless you learn to say "no", you will not make a good
product.

By the way, I learned this the hard way in open source world too. Let
me tell you a story.

When I was a KDevelop maintainer during 3.x cycle, I welcomed every
single KDevelop plugin into the core.

End result? We did not attract new developers this way, but instead
were forced to maintain a huge collection of barely useful software
with a small team.

During 4.x development we clearly defined the core of KDevelop. It was
to be a great C++ IDE. Any plugin that did not fit into the core was
separated into its own repository. What remained received as much
attention as possible.

End result? A much better product. New contributors. And guess what?
Some of the plugins that were separated not only survived, but saw
more development and usage.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

> So a vision which would ensure that also future technologies could be served,
> would not harm that? Let's just not close doors.

Sure. But let's also not spread thin. Do you think it makes sense to
find a middle ground between two proposals?
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 5:41 AM, Lydia Pintscher  wrote:
> The technology is something that does not belong into the vision.

Why? It would be strange for the tech organization/community like KDE,
IMHO of course.

PS: I reread the https://topnonprofits.com/examples/vision-statements/
list, and also looked at
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/20-sample-vision-statement-for-the-new-startup.html.
Most of them incorporate the core area of expertise of these
organizations into their vision.
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

Sorry, I think we simply cannot understand one another. We repeatedly
expressed the same idea several times.

We keep coming up with different words? That's natural. We're at the
"draft" stage, right?

On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 12:44 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraess...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Monday, February 8, 2016 5:09:35 PM CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> In that mail I omitted the "GUI" somewhere near the "free software".
>> We do agree with Alex N about that.
>
> Just follow the last three replies to that thread and try to understand why I
> think your answers are contradicting and there is no focus. You are jumping
> around. I have a hard time following that and a hard time to understand the
> aims of your vision. A vision which is difficult to understand, is not 
> helpful.
> Sorry to say so.
>
> Cheers
> Martin
>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 5:05 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli <ricca...@kde.org> wrote:
>> > On Monday, February 08, 2016 01:12:51 PM Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> >> We pointed many times that the focus is on free software
>> >> for mobile: hybrid laptop, tablet, phone, and any existing or future
>> >> personal computing device.
>> >
>> > So your vision wants KDE to target mobile computing?  What about desktops,
>> > web, and other platforms we're targetting right now? Alex says, for
>> > example
>> > something broader and different: local UIs.
>> >
>> > Bye,
>> > -Riccardo
>>
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Martin Graesslin  wrote:
> why you think KDE should not be a leader in future technologies.

What are these future technologies? Our group thinks that personal
computing devices are a big thing. Apps working on these devices are
going to be even more important than the devices themselves. It's
already the case with phones and tablets. Smartwatches are emerging.
More devices will arrive, each requiring a shell/launcher and the
apps. KDE can, and should be a leader there. Unlike cloud, services,
embedded programming, it is within our area of expertise.

I think you're just not convinced this is the future, right?

> How do you convince me to continue to develop the desktop when I don't see a
> future for KDE due to not willing to go to the next thing?

You've already listed several "things". Which ones from them do you
think are most important to work on?
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

In that mail I omitted the "GUI" somewhere near the "free software".
We do agree with Alex N about that.

On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 5:05 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli <ricca...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Monday, February 08, 2016 01:12:51 PM Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> We pointed many times that the focus is on free software
>> for mobile: hybrid laptop, tablet, phone, and any existing or future
>> personal computing device.
>
> So your vision wants KDE to target mobile computing?  What about desktops,
> web, and other platforms we're targetting right now? Alex says, for example
> something broader and different: local UIs.
>
> Bye,
> -Riccardo
>
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Re: [kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Alexander Dymo]

> We define the goal for KDE not in technical terms, but in terms of Freedom,
> user control and privacy.

I understand this part clearly. I just say that this goal is too
broadly defined, and, therefore hardly reachable by a single
organization like KDE. Most free software communities, including KDE,
already work towards that goal. Defining it in writing as the goal of
KDE adds neither value nor attractiveness to KDE as a project.

What we propose actually talks about the same things: freedom, user
control, privacy. But it limits the scope from "all aspects of digital
life" to "software that powers up your computing devices".
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

Ingo, you may be right here. If we extract the vision statement from
the proposal, it would be something like:

"An end user will have free software apps and shells/launchers on any
device they use".

Note, this is what I came up just now when writing this reply. This
needs more thought, but the main idea is there.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Ingo Klöcker  wrote:
> On Thursday 04 February 2016 21:16:41 Alexander Neundorf wrote:
>> the vision draft we present here is not a long term vision which changes the
>> future of computing.
>> It presents ambitious, but realistic goals for the next few years.
>> Currently KDE applications and the desktop are successful on desktop Linux
>> (and BSD etc.). But there is so much territory to conquer beyond that, while
>> (for now) staying focused on GUIs.
>> Let's make KDE applications as well known as Firefox or LibreOffice.
>>
>> (This also implies that a vision statement needs updating over the years as
>> circumstances change.)
>
> Please (re-)read
> https://topnonprofits.com/examples/vision-statements/
> and tell me which of those 30 vision statements you think need "updating over
> the years as circumstances change."
>
> As I wrote in my other message, I believe that what you propose is more a
> mission statement. And mission statements do indeed need to be updated from
> time to time.
>
>
> Regards,
> Ingo
>
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

As Lydia put it, it will be a clear frame of reference to make
choices in.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 4:13 AM, Riccardo Iaconelli <ricca...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 04, 2016 08:53:57 AM Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> Let's say it wants to join KDE. Under the
>> "inclusive" proposal such a project will be welcomed. Under "focused"
>> - no.
>
> The vision document will never be a metric to accept or refuse a project.
>
> The manifesto is the only document which lists metrics on how to accept new
> projects.
>
> -Riccardo
>
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

Answering the first part of your email:

Vision and mission would help us determine whether the project that
wants to join KDE shares the same goals and follows the same path. You
can satisfy all the requirements in the manifesto, but still be a bad
candidate for a KDE project. As the extreme example, one could fork
Plasma and want to join KDE. There are less extreme cases.




On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Riccardo Iaconelli <ricca...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Friday, February 05, 2016 08:01:49 AM Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> As Lydia put it, it will be a clear frame of reference to make
>> choices in.
>
> No way.
>
> Quoting Ben Cooksley:
>
> This criteria has already been laid out by the KDE Community, in a
> document called the Manifesto.
> It lays out fairly clearly what the project acceptance requirements are.
>
> The fact that someone might want to define the criteria for accepting
> new projects within a vision goes contrary to what most people would
> define as a vision (usually an overarching direction they want to go
> in rather than the details of how to go about it, which is what the
> criteria would be).
>
>
> Let me also add a couple more questions:
>
> * What would happen to existing KDE projects which are not compatible with
>  your vision?
>
> * What about projects which start within a KDE project but later fork off as
> separate? (e.g. an extension developed within WikiToLearn)
>
> * I'd also like to see what you expect sysadmin to do (as ultimately they'll
> end up doing this removal, should it end up being necessary).
>
>
> I think that your answers to this will crucial to understand the consequences
> of what we're doing.
>
>
> Bye,
> -Riccardo
>
>
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

Let's take one of your examples: some imaginary sensory tech that
follows your mind. It's going to be a competitive advantage to both
Plasma and applications, for sure. Can it be a KDE project? Yes,
because it clearly brings KDE closer to its goal. And actually, both
visions/missions would support inclusion of such a tech into KDE.

Let's consider another example. This time it will be the imaginary
free Github replacement. This time the tech is too far away from
user-end apps and shells. Let's say it wants to join KDE. Under the
"inclusive" proposal such a project will be welcomed. Under "focused"
- no.

PS: I did not say that _all_ new tech should be developed outside of
KDE. What I wanted to say that for the free software project to
succeed, it does not have to be included into any larger
project/community.


On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 8:15 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraess...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 4, 2016 7:52:34 AM CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> Focused does not mean exclusive. Every technology (and not only
>> technology) that gets us to the point where all users use KDE shells
>> and apps (because of their superiority) is welcome. IMHO, of course.
>
> sorry, but I cannot follow you. What you wrote here is inclusive again. So
> what you want now: focus on a technology or being inclusive to everything?
>
>>
>> Another point is that not everything needs to be built in house. When
>> I started free software development, it was harder for independent
>> small projects to survive. It was much better for them to join the big
>> groups, like GNU, GNOME, KDE, etc. Now this is not the case. So I'd
>> expect some of the technologies that KDE can use to be actually
>> developed elsewhere.
>
> And here you basically say any development on new technologies should happen
> outside of KDE. Which is pretty excluding and contradicting to what you write
> above.
>
> To me this is really confusing as I don't see how that can aid us in finding a
> direction.
>
> Further clarifications are appreciated. Right now I'm more confused than
> before.
>
> Cheers
> Martin
>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 12:53 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraess...@kde.org>
> wrote:
>> > On Wednesday, February 3, 2016 11:44:35 PM CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> >> I reread both drafts and realized that people who have not
>> >> participated in the development of these proposals might miss the
>> >> important difference between them.
>> >>
>> >> The Lydia & Co see KDE providing users free software to manage any
>> >> aspect of their digital life: GUI environments, applications (GUI and
>> >> not), knowledge management systems, etc.
>> >>
>> >> The AlexN. & Co see KDE providing users free GUI environments and
>> >> applications that work on any computing device: desktop, laptop,
>> >> tablet, smartphone, or any other device present and future.
>> >
>> > may I ask where the focused group sees the future in a world beyond GUI,
>> > I'm thinking of areas like:
>> > * speech recognition (e.g. KDE Lera)
>> > * IoT
>> > * Sensors (think of the old joke of "Focus Follows Mind", but we're almost
>> > there)
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> > Martin
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

Focused does not mean exclusive. Every technology (and not only
technology) that gets us to the point where all users use KDE shells
and apps (because of their superiority) is welcome. IMHO, of course.

Another point is that not everything needs to be built in house. When
I started free software development, it was harder for independent
small projects to survive. It was much better for them to join the big
groups, like GNU, GNOME, KDE, etc. Now this is not the case. So I'd
expect some of the technologies that KDE can use to be actually
developed elsewhere.


On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 12:53 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraess...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 3, 2016 11:44:35 PM CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> I reread both drafts and realized that people who have not
>> participated in the development of these proposals might miss the
>> important difference between them.
>>
>> The Lydia & Co see KDE providing users free software to manage any
>> aspect of their digital life: GUI environments, applications (GUI and
>> not), knowledge management systems, etc.
>>
>> The AlexN. & Co see KDE providing users free GUI environments and
>> applications that work on any computing device: desktop, laptop,
>> tablet, smartphone, or any other device present and future.
>>
>
> may I ask where the focused group sees the future in a world beyond GUI, I'm
> thinking of areas like:
> * speech recognition (e.g. KDE Lera)
> * IoT
> * Sensors (think of the old joke of "Focus Follows Mind", but we're almost
> there)
>
> Cheers
> Martin
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Re: [kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

And here is where I, perhaps surprisingly to you, agree with you.
Like, 100% agree.

I wrote "Plasma and applications", but should have written
"applications and Plasma". It's the KDE apps that shine these days.
Krita, Digikam, Kdenlive, K3B, Kate, Okular, and many and many others.

In my opinion KDE as a whole will also shine if it brings our amazing
software to as many platforms as we can. And many people in the
community already do this work.

The "focused" vision is about lifting the importance of this movement
towards other platforms and devices, and actually focusing on it. It
is, IMHO of course, not about going back to "let's just work on Linux
desktop". I wouldn't call that a "vision", that would be
"conservation".


On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraess...@kde.org> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 4, 2016 8:53:57 AM CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
>> Let's take one of your examples: some imaginary sensory tech that
>> follows your mind. It's going to be a competitive advantage to both
>> Plasma and applications, for sure. Can it be a KDE project? Yes,
>> because it clearly brings KDE closer to its goal. And actually, both
>> visions/missions would support inclusion of such a tech into KDE.
>
> Now that you make it more clear that the focus of a technology would be
> whether it helps for example Plasma I need to chime in.
>
> As a maintainer of Plasma and as the maintainer of the largest single piece of
> software inside Plasma I want to say that I'm against a focus on Plasma. I do
> not want to see KDE decide for projects whether they give a "competitive
> advantage" to Plasma. I thought we had left this years behind us. Although my
> work is focused on Linux I'm happy for the Windows and OSX and Android efforts
> and want KDE to be strong in these areas. I'm afraid that any focus on Plasma
> will harm KDE and thus also Plasma.
>
> Furthermore I must observe that the KDE community as large does not care about
> Plasma and a focus on Plasma. Please have a look on how many devs contribute
> to e.g. KWin and the Wayland effort. It's what will take the desktop to the
> next level, but hardly anybody works on it. So from my perspective: a focus on
> the desktop is in all way wrong for KDE. That's not KDE.
>
> Cheers
> Martin
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[kde-community] Differences between proposed vision drafts (or "inclusive" vs "focused")

[Alexander Dymo]

I reread both drafts and realized that people who have not
participated in the development of these proposals might miss the
important difference between them.

The Lydia & Co see KDE providing users free software to manage any
aspect of their digital life: GUI environments, applications (GUI and
not), knowledge management systems, etc.

The AlexN. & Co see KDE providing users free GUI environments and
applications that work on any computing device: desktop, laptop,
tablet, smartphone, or any other device present and future.

First proposal is internally called "inclusive", as it defines KDE as
an entity that can include any free software project that shares its
goals and wants to join the KDE community.

Second proposal is internally called "focused", as it limits the focus
of KDE to GUI software, but at the same time emphasizes that users
should be able to use KDE software on all their devices.

Both proposals aim at giving KDE a new direction. Inclusive proposal
is about going breadth-first, focused - depth-first.


PS: this summary is my opinion, and it is not endorsed by any of the
two vision groups.
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