Plans for the future and coordination

[Alexander Stippich]

Hello,

sorry, almost forgot about this email.

On Dienstag, 9. Januar 2018 21:25:08 CET you wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Sorry for the late answer, your mail got hidden by other emails.
> 
> On vendredi 5 janvier 2018 19:17:16 CET Alexander Stippich wrote:
> > Hello,
> 
> [...]
> 
> > > My goals are those:
> > > * Ensure elisa works really good with Baloo ;
> > > * Ensure elisa reasonably works on Linux desktops, Windows and Android ;
> > > * Ensure elisa support for UPnP/DLNA is a first class citizen.
> > 
> > My personal use case right now is linux desktop only, so the first two
> > points are also important for me. I actually have a client/server setup,
> > but never really used UPnP. My personal opinion is to focus on Linux
> > desktop first and to achieve somewhat feature parity with the VDG mockups,
> > since KDE imho lacks a nice and simple music player there, and then expand
> > to others. But I know that you have other interests, which I'm fine with
> > of
> > course.
> 
> I spent some time reading again the forum thread where Andrew Lake and other
> people from VDG had discussions about the mockups. I agree with the point
> that good mockups are nothing if you do not have a long term vision for
> your product. I would like to build one.
> 
> Given your goals and mine, we could say something like that:
> 
> Elisa is a music player by the KDE community that strive to be simple and
> nice to use. We also recognized that we need a flexible product to accustom
> for the different workflows of our users.
> We focus on a very good integration with the Plasma desktop from KDE without
> compromising the support for other platforms (other Linux desktop
> environments, Windows and Android).
> We would like to build a reliable and enjoyable to use product.
> We aim for a music player for your local music first and will later add
> support for online services.
> 
> What do you think ?

This is a good summary of what we try to achieve. I have nothing to add with 
regard to content. Some corrections for the language (but I'm not a native 
speaker): 

"Elisa is a music player developed by the KDE community that strives to be 
simple and nice to use. We also recognize that we need a flexible product to 
account for the different workflows and use-cases of our users. We focus on a 
very good integration with the Plasma desktop of KDE without compromising the 
support for other platforms (other Linux desktop environments, Windows and 
Android). We would like to build a reliable and enjoyable to use product.  We 
aim for a music player for your local music first.  Support for online services 
will be added later.

> 
> I acknowledge our need to focus on small good steps toward a more complete
> product instead of spending our energy on a lot of things but without having
> solid features.
> 
> Given the feedback in the lwn.net thread, I am convinced we need to have a
> concept of "saved searches" or something like that. They may be added to the
> left list and would enable users to build their own way to browse their
> music. This is currently not my priority.

I just read the lwn.net thread, haven't done so before. There is useful 
feedback in there besides the usual rants. 
> 
> We need to pay attention that a lot of people have moved to online only
> music. I would like not to ignore this.

I agree.

Best regards,
Alex

> 
> > > I also have some orthogonal important value:
> > > * being inclusive (welcome new developers, try to support as much as
> > > possible the diversity of possible users) ;
> > > * being as much as possible bug free ;
> > > * being geared toward satisfying user goals ;
> > > * being perfectly usable without network access and leverage network
> > > services when possible.
> > 
> > I agree on all points. But with all those we have to be careful that we do
> > not get distracted too early. I would rather make Elisa perfect with what
> > it is currently capable of (e.g. bug free, perfect usability
> > on the desktop etc.) before adding new big features or platforms.
> > 
> > Since I somewhat recently went through becoming a developer myself, I was
> > about to enhance the documentation on the community web page a bit anyways
> > and maybe also cleanup the repo, because some things confused me. That may
> > help new developers a little.
> 
> Thanks, this is very useful.
> 
> > > We have to ensure our goals align with the goals of the overall KDE
> > > community.
> > > 
> > > The next step will be to produce a kind of vision statement and derive a
> > > kind of plan to help guide the development.
> > > See for example plasma vision statement
> > > (https://vizzzion.org/blog/2017/07/
> > > plasmas-vision/).
> > 
> > I'm wondering if we actually need our own vision statement or if it is
> > sufficient to be in line with the KDE goals (in the longterm). But that is
> > up to you.
> 
> I have read the one from Plasma and somewhat feel that it may partly apply
> to us. I am still convinced that one for us would enable to easily answer
> the need to better explain our work to the KDE community and to a larger
> audience.
> > Btw, thanks for the credits :)
> 
> You are doing a very good job and you already added a lot of nice things in
> this project. You deserve it.
> 
> > > Best regards
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Matthieu Gallien
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > Alex
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Elisa at kde.org
> > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/elisa