KDE Magazine Organizational Meeting Summary

[Troy Unrau]

KDE Magazine Organizational Meeting Summary:

The Premise: take existing KDE content from quality sources such as
the Dot, commit-digest, people behind kde, and more and edit/format
for a monthly style print-quality pdf magazine release.  Any new
content (if any) produced through the production of this magazine
should also be made available through websites like the dot,
spreadkde, developernew, etc. where appropriate.  We are aware of the
former kdezine, publishing circa 2001.

Agenda:
1) Getting permission from existing authors to edit/reuse content:

-Consent was received from Myself (Troy Unrau), Danny Allen, ljubomir
(of Amarok Weekly News), and Joe Gaffney (of KDE Radio), so any
content included for these sources are now fair game to be included in
the Magazine.  The KDE Promo team and SpreadKDE materials will also
likely be included where appropriate.  Other content is discussed
later.

2) Who will do the layout for an inaugural 'prototype' issue:

-Based on those present, we decided that Kurt would be our official
layout kingpin, and he's planning to use HTMLDOC for the first issue.
He will work in collaboration with the Oxygen team for templates, a
cover page, icons and more as required.  We decided to go with HTMLDOC
to produce the pdf version for now, but are aware that we may need to
move to scribus as the magazine gets more polished and complex
layouts.

2b) Who will edit an review for the magazine:

-Danny will be our official content editor, and will be the person who
submits the final content to Kurt for formatting and layout.  We've
also decided that if the load is too high, it's a very good idea for
Danny to get help with proofreading, as he's already quite busy with
dot.kde.org content.  Lastly, articles should be submitted to him
using HTML formatting to submissions at dannya.org -- please remember to
attach any images or other files required...

2c) Who will be responsible for finding new content:

-I (Troy) got this designation.  Basically, this position means that I
will go out and actively solicit writers, topics, and content to be
included in the Magazine.  For those who are budding writers, come and
talk to me to see if there's any way you can contribute.

3) Name:

-The name KDE Magazine was chosen as an operating name.  This name was
used in a short lived news mag for KDE in 2001, but it's still the
best name.  We won't be shortening it to kdezine like our predecessor
however.
-Taglines were discussed, but we decided it was not really necessary
to have one, even though there was at least one excellent suggestion.

4) Artwork:

-Since Kurt has been designated as the layout kingpin, the artwork
requests will mostly flow through him.  Several members of the oxygen
team were present and Kurt received the contact information for the
team.  His basic needs are: (a) a title page  (b) a background image
(tiled or fullpage)  (c) icons for page headers/footers  (d) icons for
sections.
-Kurt will be gone for the next 10 days on vacation, which is fine
since we won't have content for him yet.

5) Launch target date:

-Since the first issue will require a bit more work, we're scheduling
for an April 1st launch date, being well aware that it's April Fool's
Day.  The target is to release on the first of every month thereafter,
assuming we can get our content done every month.  We have refainted
from officially sanctioning the magazine as a monthly magazine just in
case it ends up being delayed.

6) Content:

-Joe has offered to restart the Application of the Month series (KDE
3) for the mag, which would be published in the Mag first, and then
the dot after a one week delay, as well as
-I'll write Power User Tips and Tricks (KDE3), A HowTo series (KDE 3/4)
-Existing content is coming from the editorial section of the
commit-digest, Road to KDE 4, KDE Radio (transcripts), Amarok Weekly
News, and of course press releases.
-Pier-Olivier Thibault has suggested he can write a short 'trivia' section...
-It has been suggested that we contact Aaron Siego for a 'ask asiego'
section, where he does his best strongbad impersonation and answers
some emails... without capitalization whatsoever... :)
-Some filler material has been suggested, like quote of the month,
interesting stats (from ebn or the commit-digest perhaps).

7) Unanswered questions:

-How will translations work?
-Do we need any content guidelines created; rules such as always
showing KDE using the default theme in screenshots, for example.
-License

-- 
Troy Unrau