[Appeal] Draft for a "vision" document (based on Aaron's initial one).

[Kurt Pfeifle]

On Monday 04 April 2005 14:04, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday 04 April 2005 07:22, Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> > If we limit ourselves to what you call "the deliverables", forget
> > "the vision".
>
> not at all... already we have taken aim at working on konqueror (well, a
> content browser), kicker, kdesktop, the icon and widget theme, contextual
> linkage / search, kdepim .. this touches quite a bit in kde already. if
> these efforts reflect "the vision"

They probably do. But they reflect a vision that currently has no
documented description, and that still is mainly in the minds of
the Berlin participants (with a different scopes and degrees of
vagueness in each of these minds, too).

So (of course without giving up on the "deliverables", developing
a statement that describes the "vision" is still needed.

> it will in itself have a major impact on 
> things

Agreed.

> and they can serve as leadership efforts that others can follow if 
> inspired to.

Of course.

> i don't see it being possible (nor particularly desirable) to turn KDE into
> a globally top-down managed project. 

I agree. And this certainly isn't what I have in mind.

> which means we can decide how to do 
> what we do and try to influence others through the fruits of those efforts.

An inspiring vision for the Appeal Project could draw into its orbit many 
more people, not just the overwhelming majority of KDE contributors, but 
draw attention and support from far broader layers. 

> > > we don't need to list or detail every thing each of us doing. and more
> > > importantly, we shouldn't try and create a "KDE vision".
> >
> > In a way, this still is what I have in mind.
>
> well, it will be rejected by the broader community because this would
> represent a "taking over" of the project in the eyes of many people.

This is what we need to avoid, of course. Maybe my using of "KDE vision" 
was a bad choice. Instead "Appeal vision (that could inspiree all of 
KDE)" would probably better have met the intention.

> this 
> is not necessary. we can create a vision for our own work here, though, and
> i have no doubt that phrased as such most people in KDE will eventually
> adopt those principles if they are compelling and show good results.

OK.

> > And with Matthias on board now, it should not be to difficult, to
> > reference to his original vision document (the mail on newsnet that
>
> no offense to Matthias, but KDE has moved on from being "Matthias' idea". i
> don't see how having Matthias around will help "canonicalize" a KDE vision.
> at aKademy Matthias was looking for a democratized board of developers to
> stabilize and directly oversee kdelibs/base development; he also suggested
> to more or less drop khtml. neither of those things happened or were even
> taken very seriously by the majority of people. in fact, on the khtml front
> the exactly _opposite_ happened and developement revved up over that.
>
> this is because KDE has grown very large, and that growth has been towards
> a decentralized structure. this is a very powerful form of structure in
> that it's very hard to move simply by pushing on it.

I hope Matthias will comment on this... And that he, in general, chooses
to take an active participation in the Appeal Project.

> if Appeal is to be accepted by the community it must not directly take a
> position "against" it by trying to define what KDE is. we can, however,
> change things from the inside out via our demonstrated efforts and we can
> provide a leadership position.

Yes.

(Just dont give up working for a "vision statement" in favor of purely
working on the "deliverables".)

Cheers,
Kurt