Feedback to the Dot story

[Carl Symons]

On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 3:26 AM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> On Thursday, September 5, 2013 11:22:42 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
>> My suggestion:
>> "Plasma Active is a user interface from the KDE community intended for
>> tablets. It can be customized to work on smartphones, settop boxes,
>> smart TVs, and touch computing devices such as home automation and
>> in-vehicle infotainment."
>
> almost...
>
> Plasma Active is a user experience technology stack for consumer electronics.
> It currently *comes* with a slick user interface for tablets.
>
> Plasma Active is *not* the tablet UX, however.
>
> (it is quite likely, btw, that Plasma Active will be slightly re-jostled with
> the Qt5 version of plasma. the tablet UX will use the new unified Plasma shell
> and become “just” another Plasma Shell Package. what will likely live on as
> Plasma Active is the system integration and application focus ..)
>
>> That way we don't say "It cannot work on those devices", but nobody can
>> blame us if it doesn't work well as it is, because they'd have to
>
> agreed ...
>
>> Notice also that I intentionally did not include smart TVs and settop
>> boxes in "touch computing devices", because they are not, and probably
>
> who said it would be a touch interface?

In a strict reading of the story, I did.

>
> Plasma, in general,does not believe in exclusionary input method modalities.
> Plasma Active as a whole is focused on consumer electronics; we’ve only
> focused on the UX for tablets for a variety of practical reasons.

The section under discussion is changed to:
Plasma Active is a user experience technology stack for consumer
electronics. While the default user interface is for tablets, it can
be customized to work on smartphones, settop boxes, smart TVs, and
touch computing devices such as home automation and in-vehicle
infotainment.


>
>> > This release is intended to complete the evolution of Plasma Active
>> > to a polished product from its proof of concept first release.
>>
>> I would not call PA4 a "Polished product" yet. It's still for early
>> adopters only, ordinary consumers would still hate us for PA4.
>
> i suppose i should go take it away from the ordinary people using it then?
> or tell the reviewers that said it was the best tablet UX they’ve used that
> they were obviously mistaken?
>
> i have given up trying to get you to abandon such abstract perfectionism, but
> i’d appreciate it if you’d keep such proclamations out of discussions here.
>
> the software works quite nicely (better than some other options out there
> being foisted on “ordinary consumers”) and if we wait for some perfect moment
> of wonderment pouring out of baby angel’s eyes, we may as well just delete the
> repositories and stop the project right now.
>
> real products ship. real products are not perfect. yet somehow people use them
> and even fall in love with them.
>
> iOS came without multitasking or a clipboard or system notifications or a
> hundred other Really Important Features Every Ordinary Consumer Absolutely
> Requires but *somehow* managed to gain the hearts and minds of many.
>
> Apple did that by focusing on what iOS did well and provided opportunities for
> the people for whom those things were enough.
>
> please stop preventing Plasma Active from achieving its potential by telling
> people it isn’t ready for them. you are not then, and Plasma Active works.


The Dot story does not promote use by ordinary consumers. I wrote
(well copy&paste+rearrangement+edit...thanks everyone who contributed)
with the sense in my mind that PA4 is a polished version of what
started with PA1. Compared to that, PA4 is incredibly polished IMO.

I exhibited the first version at Linuxcon Vancouver in August 2011.
PA1 was released in October 2011. Already at Linuxcon, people wanted
my tablet. They wanted Plasma Active right now. This included Greg
Kroah-Hartman, top kernel developer, and the guy in the booth next
door from Texas Instruments, a sales person pushing Raspberry TI or
maybe it was a BeagleBoard.

In the big, rapidly growing world of tablet computing, we are offering
something similar to Linux for PCs in the early days. In fact, I
started using Linux late in the game, and I was still having to
contend for days with getting wireless to work. We have something that
will work quite well on selected devices and that needs work to be
installable on a range of devices and basic technologies. I think
that's what we are promoting.

This situation will not improve. The tablet devices available from the
market dominators are closed, one way or another, in varying degrees.
They are tightly controlled compared to the days of PC clones. Android
devices are the most accessible, yet each device version has its own
OS (IOW, Android 4.3 on a Samsung device != 4.3 on a Kindle). There is
simply no equivalent to "IBM PC compatible computer". The tablet/smart
phone oligopoly has zero interest in an alternative OS; it's likely
that they are antagonistic.

With respect for the latest message in this thread from Bogdan...
There is a difference between the reactions of people who know PA and
those who don't. Internally we can discuss versions and what the
numbers mean. Most people reading the article won't know or care about
this. As Martin Gräßlin asked, "Can you say what version of Firefox
are you running without looking?".

>
>> > client-side touch-optimized email application
>>
>> Kontact Touch has been part of PA for a long time and nothing has
>> changed about it since then. So it's definitely not new in PA4. Michael

removed.

>
> agreed; what I do wish was in the article was a list of things Plasma Active
> comes with (touch-friendly groupware including email and calendaring; file
> management; etc.) so people don’t forget or people new to it understand what
> is there.

I'm happy to add such information. The Dot story is based on what
various people put into the etherpad. I am going to put out another
email requesting such information.

Carl


>
> --
> Aaron J. Seigo