Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
To summarise and expand upon my thoughts on this given the feedback from a couple of you: Essentially I feel we should be concentrating on the promoting the versatility of KDE ecosphere, and what that means to you as the user. That's really what I was driving at when I was asking the question 'What do you need KDE to be for you?' A lot of other desktop environments strangle your workflow tighter than a Steve Jobs turtleneck, they demand that you work around them and their vision, whereas I see KDE working for you and with you, no matter where your end point may be, and what you are doing at that endpoint. Let’s not forget starting points either, it should be able to grow with you, from one app to many, from apps to desktop, from desktop to phone and so on. Which is why projects like KDE for windows are so important, as it provides that first hook to reel users in with, especially business users, where change to a mid-fifties, conservative, company director happens one app at a time, over a long period of time. Now clearly I am no expert on plasma5, qml kf5, but I have been given the impression that it is very flexible (if that's not true then please tell me and I will go back into the cupboard!); however I appreciate there will be limits to what it can and can't do, so perhaps the use of 'it could be anything' was quite rash. I thought that maybe by understanding users needs we could either provide solutions, or provide a signpost to where those solutions may lie. Each users needs are different, so I thought that by splitting between commercial and consumer needs we could consider what they are doing right now, what they would like to see in the future, and how KDE technologies can help with all that. By commercial needs I am taking about businesses in offices (or wherever), and consumers being general peeps. Sorry, this is my workplace terminology creeping in where it probably shouldn't! The reason for this is that I've found that the way businesses use equipment such as tablets and TVs can be very different to general consumers. The KDE terminology issue I’m still not really understanding I’m afraid. I understand the reasons for the splitting out of KDE (the community), KF5, Plasma 5 and applications. The problem I have is that distros are still going to be shipping a KDE variant, apps included. In the absence of KDE supplying a name for the compilation of its software being used together, then I feel the distros are going to simply use KDE or KDE 5, like they would with Gnome, or XFCE, which is wrong, or KF5/Plasma5/Apps which is crap. What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’, which again I can understand why, as when Windows ships Windows 8, it comes with a picture viewer, file browser etc. But it’s still Windows 8. The only people who have come close to giving this new amalgamation of software a name is Kubuntu, with Project Neon. Maybe something like the ‘KDE Experience’ would be fitting? I don’t agree that everything should be completely separate however, there should still be links to one another, otherwise KDE becomes nothing more than a glorified Github. Hope that makes more sense. Kind Regards, David. On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Andrew Lake jamboar...@gmail.com wrote: Hello again, I was going to reply to each response individually but I thought it might be simpler to do one reply. First off, thanks for being so so gracious in reviewing the thoughts I shared. As I mentioned these were personal thoughts prompted by my experience at Akademy this year. There's always a risk sharing such thoughts with a community that barely knows me, so I'm grateful for your kindness. At the risk of appearing to be defensive about the ideas expressed, permit me to provide some clarifications: * The ideas were not intended to communicate a stand our ground or a don't adventure beyond the desktop vision. Rather they was intended to say that the desktop doesn't have to be viewed as a now relatively stagnant participant in the ecosystem. I'm not sure anyone in the community thinks that is the case, but to the extent that there is concurrence, it seemed an element of value worth capturing and communicating about ourselves and what we provide. * Regarding integration, the ideas were really intended to regard applications, the desktop, devices and the cloud for their unique capabilities and how they can enhance each other. That can include the make-a-tablet/phone/cloud-version-of-[x] approach, but the hope is that it could include other approaches as well. As noted, there are already many efforts in the community that reflect such approaches, so it seemed an element of value worth communicating as well. * I'm no personal fan of exclusivity-driven integration. I'm rather a fan of open approaches to technological integration that enables people not hinder them. I've never sensed that as an
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
Hi David, My comments below are slightly tangential to the 'vision' discussion (which is bigger and something I haven't properly thought through for myself, yet). However, here are some thoughts on one of your points, which is also important in the discussion of a vision (you wouldn't have mentioned it, if it was not) and is all about what KDE, the Frameworks, Plasma and the apps are and how they interact. On 2014-09-23 12:26, David Wright wrote: The KDE terminology issue I’m still not really understanding I’m afraid. I understand the reasons for the splitting out of KDE (the community), KF5, Plasma 5 and applications. The problem I have is that distros are still going to be shipping a KDE variant, apps included. One problem here is that you still think of a 'KDE variant' as something that is all bundled together, something we've been trying to get away from, as you acknowledge. More below... In the absence of KDE supplying a name for the compilation of its software being used together We tried this with the 'software compilation' which reflected that we did still have a bundle of stuff in reality. It didn't work that well, as there was a pre-existing name for that, KDE, which was somewhat catchier. , then I feel the distros are going to simply use KDE or KDE 5, like they would with Gnome, or XFCE, which is wrong, or KF5/Plasma5/Apps which is crap. I don't think your prediction is necessarily wrong, but I think the idea is not catching up with reality of most modern systems. I don't use only KDE apps. Most KDE people I've observed in person are not using only KDE apps. Distros should reflect this (and many do) and also/instead install the likes of Firefox, Libre Office instead of/in addition to the KDE equivalents. We're not (yet) leaders in all software fields for all use cases (personally, I actually prefer Konqueror for many tasks and use it as much as I can, but I think I might be in a minority there). So, distros that do flavours or spins should have a Plasma spin. That will likely include a majority of basic apps that are produced by KDE, e.g. Dolphin, KWrite... Also the basic functionality that is really part of the desktop experience (knetworkmanager, the KDE volume control..., which maybe should get Plasma branding too as they're unlikely to be used outside a Plasma session). For other apps, such as browser, office suite, probably media players, photo organisers I would prefer to see distros selecting the best of breed solution (which may be Firefox/Chromium, Libre Office, Amarok or VLC, Digikam) KF5 - parts of (and basic GNOME lib, among many others) will also have to be installed, as dependencies and only as required for the installed applications - modularity is one of the beauties in KF5. The non-developer user should not need to care about that, any more than they need to care which SSL library their distro packages. If you want to make some software, you look around for the best tools. If you want to use some software, you don't care what tools made it, only how the end software performs. The idea of the KDE distribution, where you get only KDE-produced apps, seems very outdated to me - we used to do that, even Krita has its roots in an attempt to make a KDEish competitor to the GIMP. But why do that? The GIMP is great. The modern Krita has instead filled gap that was lacking and become the best free software answer to that need - and you can see how that has led to success. In short, I want to choose my desktop - that's important. Beyond that, I want the distro to make some sensible choices on the default apps for common tasks (and sensible choices != always choosing the KDE app). I'll tweak the application selection to my tastes after installation. What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’ I'd be very concerned about this, for any but the most basic components deeply entwined in the desktop shell (e..g things like knetworkmanager etc). The 'by KDE' tagline used for Plasma surely works much better for anything else. [snip] I don’t agree that everything should be completely separate however, there should still be links to one another, otherwise KDE becomes nothing more than a glorified Github. For me, the unifying factors are (in no order): 1 the Frameworks 2 the consistent look, feel and behaviour (if you know one KDE app, you should easily feel at home and be comfortable with another) 3 the community (and the associated commitments to free software ideals, technical excellence) Maybe I'm edging towards a 'vision' here - perhaps I'll come back with some wider comments on that in a bit. Cheers, Stu ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Tuesday 23 September 2014 16:06:36 Stuart Jarvis wrote: What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’ I'd be very concerned about this, for any but the most basic components deeply entwined in the desktop shell (e..g things like knetworkmanager etc). The 'by KDE' tagline used for Plasma surely works much better for anything else. Just to clear things up: Made for Plasma was just one idea of many for the name of this, which, because we're all aware of the implications, is unlikely to be chosen in the end. We still have not found a good name yet (the problem with by KDE is that it would naturally apply to all KDE applications, but what we're looking for is a name we'd only give to applications that fulfill certain criteria on top of being made by KDE). See the forum thread [1] for background and the current discussion. Input is still very much appreciated, as we're still kind of at a loss for a good name. Best, Thomas [1] https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285t=122926 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
Thanks for clarifying Thomas. I am too busy to reply in full now and I've realised now that I what I said could be misinterpreted. Hope I didn't upset anyone! Kind regards, David On 23 Sep 2014 17:44, Thomas Pfeiffer thomas.pfeif...@kde.org wrote: On Tuesday 23 September 2014 16:06:36 Stuart Jarvis wrote: What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’ I'd be very concerned about this, for any but the most basic components deeply entwined in the desktop shell (e..g things like knetworkmanager etc). The 'by KDE' tagline used for Plasma surely works much better for anything else. Just to clear things up: Made for Plasma was just one idea of many for the name of this, which, because we're all aware of the implications, is unlikely to be chosen in the end. We still have not found a good name yet (the problem with by KDE is that it would naturally apply to all KDE applications, but what we're looking for is a name we'd only give to applications that fulfill certain criteria on top of being made by KDE). See the forum thread [1] for background and the current discussion. Input is still very much appreciated, as we're still kind of at a loss for a good name. Best, Thomas [1] https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285t=122926 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Tuesday 23 September 2014 18:44:07 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: On Tuesday 23 September 2014 16:06:36 Stuart Jarvis wrote: What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’ I'd be very concerned about this, for any but the most basic components deeply entwined in the desktop shell (e..g things like knetworkmanager etc). The 'by KDE' tagline used for Plasma surely works much better for anything else. Just to clear things up: Made for Plasma was just one idea of many for the name of this, which, because we're all aware of the implications, is unlikely to be chosen in the end. We still have not found a good name yet (the problem with by KDE is that it would naturally apply to all KDE applications, but what we're looking for is a name we'd only give to applications that fulfill certain criteria on top of being made by KDE). See the forum thread [1] for background and the current discussion. Input is still very much appreciated, as we're still kind of at a loss for a good name. Great, thanks for the clarification and the link. I'll give it some thought too. Cheers, Stu [1] https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285t=122926 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On 2014-09-20 23:05, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Saturday, September 20, 2014 22.44:45 David Wright wrote: *By KDE here im referring to the software, as I'm not sure what the term is for the amalgamation of plasma 5 / kf5 applications There is no such amalgamation, and that's probably why there is no term. KDE software could be a useful term here - it covers, clearly, all software created by KDE (that's us) and so is a good term for the software ;-) Other than that, as Aaron says, there is no term, any more than there's a term for everything Apple does, everything MS does, everything the Apache foundation does... Cheers, Stu ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
Thanks for this Andrew! KDE offers the Great Technology and a brand indeed. Below in my looong 2c for the vision topic, written with the widest possible user base in mind, some devil's advocate approach, assuming that we are developing for users, for self-development, and for fun, in no universal order. Before anyone proposes Built for Plasma or even Built for KDE it can remind Built for Windows, Built for iOS. This makes sense for a player that maintains a two-digit slice of the cake, not for us. Linux desktop accounts for 1.5% or so. In the best case KDE has 1%. In this light, skipping the 99% of users (out of them 0.5% are potential active FOSS contributors) looks like lost opportunity, a gift made to the competition. 99%+ of global desktop user base is waiting to even learn about our apps. Knowledge of what KDE is comes later. I imagine most of the support from the 99%+ crowd would be financial. I am convinced most of them so often want to jut get the work done and move along. If they would be sufficiently interested in technology or digital freedom, and/or have time, they wouldn't use a non-FOSS OS. The numbers for the successful Krita fund-raising confirm that. My old numbers for Kexi (before 2008) confirm that too. Isn't this what we're looking for? The thing is people support what they use. Most of the supporters are not early adopters. As soon as we let them to use apps the way they (think they) need, you'd have chance to see the difference. Ordinary people see themselves and act in smaller communities, not in all-or noting. People that care about dogs, perhaps some species, but not so much about all mammals. Some of the supporters will learn about the big picture (KDE), fewer would particularly care about that. Yet you can get support from them, just for the app. Isn't this natural? Getting good figures for brand affection is hard if the meaning is blurry. How about letting apps have, build, their brands if they want? The great contribution of the is the real enabler, a template or a lighthouse. For KDE it's a new beginning. On the other hand, most of you already get the money for developing from a closed-oriented source: you work for a closed vendors/services/whatever to be able to spend some savings for your hobby. The above 99%+ manifesto is a more a variant of the same deal, without indirections, and with bigger risk. It maybe just works only for apps that offer value people are going to pay for. Plasma can be one of the apps I am sure. Add to this the large mobile market. With the app-is-the-center approach, apps by KDE are able to enter the market, and compete with the apps on equal terms i.e. without depending on success of some (free?) tablet/mobile OS. Of course that's a choice to be made by contributors individually. In exact the same time when you're drawing the integration diagrams, Canonical develops redundant integration, which (unfortunate!) despite of using the same pillar (Qt), is a separate distinct effort. All this happens, again, within the 1.5% of the desktop market, not counting the mobile one. Another: why even to declare the personal technology ecosystem? What if some software is primarily aimed at organizations (companies, universities)? For me, too much of declaration and formalisms is a recipe for ignored message, by otherwise interested potential supporters. Similarly, at least half of the FOSS desktop app developers could consider developing for KDE apps if they feel they're still developing something that works OK on their beloved desktops, whatever these are. Does it look like a solution for addressing the said downward trend issue? For me, yes, even if I do not see a reason to compare the numbers from the SVN- and git- workflow eras. So apps for everyone in the center. Would Frameworks be the center for engineers? Yes. We're good at offering that. Not the KDE Frameworks, just Frameworks _by_ KDE. It happens that KDE uses them, but advertising frameworks in a KDE uses then so they must be rocking it is not proved to be an advantage when we market Frameworks to non-KDE developers. Plasma at the center? Putting emotions aside, for me that's definitely NOT a reasonable strategy, it sets us for competition with even the remaining ~50% of FOSS camp. We are smart with LXQt, Razor, and this trend can be continued. Do you know Enlightenment folks love Qt Creator? Windows folks? If you want this story to repeat with your app, try to first find, then develop unique value. It's ideal if it's hard to reproduce. Looking around is hardest part of the effort. Note: I am Plasma user but this should not interfere with the reality-check or analisys. 'Plasma at the center' reminds the 2005 era indeed, however wonderful. I'd rather spread this user-oriented perception: *Plasma is an app*. Dear user, install it if you want this shell. You shouldn't feel worse within the KDE community if you don't. Plasma is so flexible (and apps from KDE are too) so they allow this
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
Hello again, I was going to reply to each response individually but I thought it might be simpler to do one reply. First off, thanks for being so so gracious in reviewing the thoughts I shared. As I mentioned these were personal thoughts prompted by my experience at Akademy this year. There's always a risk sharing such thoughts with a community that barely knows me, so I'm grateful for your kindness. At the risk of appearing to be defensive about the ideas expressed, permit me to provide some clarifications: * The ideas were not intended to communicate a stand our ground or a don't adventure beyond the desktop vision. Rather they was intended to say that the desktop doesn't have to be viewed as a now relatively stagnant participant in the ecosystem. I'm not sure anyone in the community thinks that is the case, but to the extent that there is concurrence, it seemed an element of value worth capturing and communicating about ourselves and what we provide. * Regarding integration, the ideas were really intended to regard applications, the desktop, devices and the cloud for their unique capabilities and how they can enhance each other. That can include the make-a-tablet/phone/cloud-version-of-[x] approach, but the hope is that it could include other approaches as well. As noted, there are already many efforts in the community that reflect such approaches, so it seemed an element of value worth communicating as well. * I'm no personal fan of exclusivity-driven integration. I'm rather a fan of open approaches to technological integration that enables people not hinder them. I've never sensed that as an attribute of KDE and I certainly won't advocate for it now. :-) There are details of the thoughts originally shared that are questionable and have been fairly questioned. For all the words and pictures in the original post that were intended to provide clarity but simply raised more questions, the bullets above hopefully contain the meat of the specific idea originally offered. Is it perhaps too limited? Maybe there should be more of a focus on KDE community. Valorie's quote from the manifesto seems quite good to me. (It was really great to meet you too Valorie!) Is it so broad that it loses focus or spreads us thin? I'm not entirely sure what a vision appropriate to our market position should look like, but I totally understand your concerns about lofty but unachievable goals Jaroslaw. Perhaps it might make sense if there are separate visions for our community and for each of the community's products (Frameworks, Plasma, the different apps). Then the folks doing the work can share their vision and better gauge the loftiness of any vision they signing up for. (What I originally offered seems more Frameworks and Plasma related.) How might that approach impact cohesiveness? I'm completely and utterly satisfied if whatever is identified as a vision, whether for the community as a whole or for specific products of the community, differs a great deal or entirely from the thoughts I originally shared. Maybe everything is fine and I just need to educate myself more about the road maps already laid out. I confess as a long-term user, an application developer and more recently as a designer contributor, I do occasionally find it challenging to see what the road ahead is. That may be a personal failing. I suspect though that it's not just me. The worst I could be is wrong. :) Much respect, Andrew ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Friday 19 September 2014 19:04:53 Valorie Zimmerman wrote: On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Andrew Lake jamboar...@gmail.com wrote: Image: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png I would say Plasma and Frameworks at the center. I think it's right to put the KDE desktop in the center in addition to the KDE frameworks. It's Plasma and the application which are our base and where we are coming from. It's this whole set which gives us the integration points we can use to expand to cloud, to devices, to other services. The desktop is a great starting point. +1 ;) Looks quiet nice. Greetings Christoph -- - Dr.-Ing. Christoph Cullmann - AbsInt Angewandte Informatik GmbH Email: cullm...@absint.com Science Park 1 Tel: +49-681-38360-22 66123 Saarbrücken Fax: +49-681-38360-20 GERMANYWWW: http://www.AbsInt.com Geschäftsführung: Dr.-Ing. Christian Ferdinand Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Saarbrücken, HRB 11234 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Friday 19 September 2014 19:04:53 Valorie Zimmerman wrote: On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Andrew Lake jamboar...@gmail.com wrote: Image: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png I would say Plasma and Frameworks at the center. I think it's right to put the KDE desktop in the center in addition to the KDE frameworks. It's Plasma and the application which are our base and where we are coming from. It's this whole set which gives us the integration points we can use to expand to cloud, to devices, to other services. The desktop is a great starting point. -- Cornelius Schumacher schumac...@kde.org ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Saturday, September 20, 2014 10.15:56 Cornelius Schumacher wrote: On Friday 19 September 2014 19:04:53 Valorie Zimmerman wrote: On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Andrew Lake jamboar...@gmail.com wrote: Image: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png I would say Plasma and Frameworks at the center. I think it's right to put the KDE desktop in the center in addition to the KDE frameworks. It's Plasma and the application which are our base and where we are coming from. It's this whole set which gives us the integration points we can use to expand to cloud, to devices, to other services. The desktop is a great starting point. Plasma was intended as a way to move beyond the desktop while retaining the desktop as a first class citizen, so that paragraph contains some irony. I use desktop in quotation marks because the end-user computing tasks performed on laptops and desktop computers have been moving to non-desktop form factors for some years now while the desktop type hardware has been slowly adopting some hardware characteristics of non-desktop devices. Fixating on the desktop is to bury one's head in the sand about that reality. Finally, the desktop has always been the primary focus. It has never not been the starting point. (Despite Plasma's goals.) This vision sounds like it comes from KDE circa 2005. Perhaps that's the goal, since as Andrew wrote, These thoughts are not intended to suggest an entirely new direction. However, this leaves me slightly stumped as to what the goal is here. Is it to remind KDE what it is, because that's been forgotten? Is it to reaffirm what KDE is as a means to pull back into its own center? -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
I wonder whether going forward we would be better served by asking the question of our users, 'What do you need KDE* to be for you?' Because essentially we are saying that with plasma 5 and kf5 it could be anything you want it to be. Maybe we should start by splitting this into commercial and consumer needs and take it from there. I know from my company that KDE would suit us as KDE for Windows would allow us to slowly shift over desktop apps first, before swapping out the o/s from underneath. We can't be the only company in a similar boat. *By KDE here im referring to the software, as I'm not sure what the term is for the amalgamation of plasma 5 / kf5 applications Ps. Typing this on my phone in a tent in Wales, UK, so sorry if it reads a bit disjointed. On 20 Sep 2014 22:00, Aaron J. Seigo ase...@kde.org wrote: On Saturday, September 20, 2014 10.15:56 Cornelius Schumacher wrote: On Friday 19 September 2014 19:04:53 Valorie Zimmerman wrote: On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Andrew Lake jamboar...@gmail.com wrote: Image: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png I would say Plasma and Frameworks at the center. I think it's right to put the KDE desktop in the center in addition to the KDE frameworks. It's Plasma and the application which are our base and where we are coming from. It's this whole set which gives us the integration points we can use to expand to cloud, to devices, to other services. The desktop is a great starting point. Plasma was intended as a way to move beyond the desktop while retaining the desktop as a first class citizen, so that paragraph contains some irony. I use desktop in quotation marks because the end-user computing tasks performed on laptops and desktop computers have been moving to non-desktop form factors for some years now while the desktop type hardware has been slowly adopting some hardware characteristics of non-desktop devices. Fixating on the desktop is to bury one's head in the sand about that reality. Finally, the desktop has always been the primary focus. It has never not been the starting point. (Despite Plasma's goals.) This vision sounds like it comes from KDE circa 2005. Perhaps that's the goal, since as Andrew wrote, These thoughts are not intended to suggest an entirely new direction. However, this leaves me slightly stumped as to what the goal is here. Is it to remind KDE what it is, because that's been forgotten? Is it to reaffirm what KDE is as a means to pull back into its own center? -- Aaron J. Seigo ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Friday, September 19, 2014 09.56:39 Andrew Lake wrote: * Be free * Maintain our purpose * Have fun If I am understanding your proposal (and perhaps I'm not .. if so, please offer clarification), the vision statement consisting of the above three elements is a stand our ground vision in which nothing actually changes. That's based a fairly literal interpretation of the second point, while recognizing the the first and third points as long-standing principles in KDE. There's also a couple of we're already doing this statements in the email which seems to suggest that's sort of the intention. Which confuses me a bit. If what KDE is already doing what it needs to be doing, what is the problem? Maybe it's because of this: How do we regain some of the focus Paul Adams suggests we may have lost? What leads you to believe there has been a loss in technical focus? The hope though is for a clear, unambiguous focus that acknowledges our strengths as well as the reality of the trends in our technological ecosystem. I've read it over a few times now and I'm struggling to answer these questions: *As a developer, what principles from this vision should my KDE projects take on? * As a user, what benefits will this vision result in for me that would cause me to maintain or even deepen my commitment to KDE? * As a promoter, what points can I take from this vision to convince people to get excited about KDE? I'm struggling because there are over a dozen targets here: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png such as social networking and smart home without definition of functional target or intended user benefit. It's a little like an alphabet soup of things that are currently part of the computing landscape that still needs to be arranged into sentences and paragraphs. Or perhaps that is the suggested vision: Do All The Technologies? http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png Why is desktop and frameworks mixed together? Why are applications peripheral? Why should applications have equal affinity for both frameworks and desktop? Should applications also demonstrate high capability for cloud and devices? -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
On Saturday, September 20, 2014 22.44:45 David Wright wrote: I wonder whether going forward we would be better served by asking the question of our users, 'What do you need KDE* to be for you?' The users KDE has now? The users KDE wants? The users KDE has contact with? Because essentially we are saying that with plasma 5 and kf5 it could be anything you want it to be. Is that really what people perceive is the message? That would be moderately shocking to me, though it would explain a few things I suppose. Maybe we should start by splitting this into commercial and consumer needs and take it from there. I'm not 100% clear on what you mean by commercial and consumer needs. By commercial and consumer do you roughly mean things needed to get work tasks done and things needed to consume content from the internet? Or do you mean something a bit more literal like people in offices and people at home? I know from my company that KDE would suit us as KDE for Windows would allow us to slowly shift over desktop apps first, before swapping out the o/s from underneath. We can't be the only company in a similar boat. In your opinion, what (general) vision does that translate into for KDE? *By KDE here im referring to the software, as I'm not sure what the term is for the amalgamation of plasma 5 / kf5 applications There is no such amalgamation, and that's probably why there is no term. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
[kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision
Hi, I wanted to share a few thoughts in case it might be helpful right now. I apologize now for the length. Not that he necessary endorses any of this, but Thomas Pfeiffer was gracious enough to provide many of the examples of what we're already doing. A pdf that's a bit more readable is here: http://goo.gl/kDxkzI Give People Access to Great Technology - quote from Akademy 2014 Cornelius Schumacher's keynote A possible vision - As a full time KDE user since 2001 and a more recent contributor, Akademy 2014 was tremendously inspiring and also quite sobering. How do we respond to the downward trend in the global PC industry that Cornelius Schumacher highlighted? How do we regain some of the focus Paul Adams suggests we may have lost? From the design side, it is certainly helpful for us to have a common focus that informs our design activities, and the recent discussions on this mailing list about a shared vision show that other community members agree. So what is a possible wider, shared vision that might make designs and their implementations more successful, focused and relevant? What follows are a collection of personal thoughts on how all these questions might perhaps be considered. What makes up our personal technology ecosystem? * Workstation * Laptop * Phone * Tablet * Camera * Bluetooth headset/speakers * Smart watches * Smart home (TV, Nest, Chromecast) * Cloud services (storage, contacts, email, calendar, music, photographs, video, social networking, text/video chat, collaboration) * Local services or applications (music, imagery, video, documents, development) * Vehicle In this ecosystem, what does “give people access to great technology” mean? Perhaps it could mean: Enable people to be even more awesome by taking much greater advantage of every aspect of their technology ecosystem. ___ In this ecosystem, what does KDE currently provide or participate in? * Plasma desktop (Workstation, Laptop) * Plasma Active (tablet) * Plasma Mediacenter (smart TV) * KDE Connect (Phone) * Dolphin (Local services) * KIO (cloud services - storage) * Digikam, Gwenview (Local services - photographs, Camera, cloud services - photographs via KIPI) * Amarok, Juk (Local services - music, cloud services - music in the case of Amarok) * Dragon Player, Jungle (Local services - video, Cloud services - video) * Kate, Calligra (Local services - documents, cloud services - collaboration via KTE Collaborative) * KDevelop (Local services- development) * Akonadi, Baloo (Local services) * Akonadi, ownCloud, Kolab (Cloud services) * Telepathy (Cloud services - social networking) * Much more... * Frameworks to enable it all. The precise categorizations above might be debatable, but not immediately important. More important perhaps is how we might identify some opportunities. * Desktop applications * Already quite good. * How can applications take advantage of improved design and better integration of desktop capabilities to become better applications? * How can the desktop take greater advantage of application capabilities to become a better desktop? * Devices (phones, tablets, smart watches, etc.) * How can the desktop take advantage of device capabilities to become a better desktop? * How can devices take advantage of desktop capabilities to become better devices? * Cloud services - our own or others. * How can the desktop take advantage of cloud capabilities to become a better desktop? * How can cloud services become better because of the desktop? * “Cloud” here includes both centralized and decentralized services. To be crystal clear, we're already doing a lot of this stuff (and many of them we’re already talking about) so I think it’s fine to conclude “Hey, we’re already doing most of that!”. These thoughts are not intended to suggest an entirely new direction. Rather, the aim is for a common understanding of shared goals that might be helpful in our communications within the community and beyond. So, what might this look like? Image: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/09/19/A_possible_vision.png * Desktop at the center. * Frameworks as enabler. * Continue creating highly capable applications and even better integration. * Simple by default, powerful when needed applications [ http://goo.gl/uNlpq3]. Make applications look and work great with excellent, high-quality functionality and consistent, effective, beautiful design. Be ambitious. Do not be shy about being best-in-class; see Krita! * Extend application capabilities by exposing desktop and other applications’ functions. * Expose application capabilities to make the desktop more powerful . * Examples: * Sessions and Activities * Saving and sharing desktop and application configurations. * Searchable application datastores. * Secure sharing of data between applications. * Sensible laptop touch screen support in applications. * Unified theming * Common design
