[kde-community] Proposal to change to kde.org/download text

[Mario Fux]

Am Dienstag, 08. Juli 2014, 20.55:12 schrieb John Layt:
> Hi,

Morning John

> [Posting to community rather than www or promo as it covers all 3
> areas and this seems the best place for bike-shedding without spam
> cross-posting.]

;-). Thanks for taking care of this thing.

> I spent a couple of hours on the weekend trying to walk someone
> through installing KDE on Windows.  While there were several issues
> with the KDE Windows Installer, an initial problem came with just
> finding the installer.  We started at http://www.kde.org/ and clicked
> on the prominent "Get KDE Software" which led to
> http://www.kde.org/download/ which is where we hit a solid wall of
> text over more than one page.  Eventually we found the link at the
> bottom that took us to http://windows.kde.org/, and finally to
> http://windows.kde.org/download.php.  That's 4 clicks and a lot of
> text to get through when we already knew what we wanted.
> 
> The Download page seems to want to explain what KDE is before letting
> you download stuff, but most people going to that page will have
> decided they already want to try it and so we should just give them
> the info they need most.  We can explain KDE elsewhere.  We also need
> to use terminology that new users will understand, which means leaving
> out unnecesary and confusing details.
> 
> I'd like to propose the following text instead (links marked as <text>):
> 
> [Begins]
> 
> The KDE Community produces <Free Software> that can to be used on a
> number of operating systems.  This page details how to obtain KDE
> Software on each of those platforms, but for best results we recommend
> you run KDE Applications under KDE Plasma Workspace on Linux or BSD.
> To obtain support for using KDE Software please visit the <KDE
> UserBase>.
> 
> [h1] Supported Platforms
> 
> [h2] Linux and BSD
> 
> KDE Workspaces and KDE Applications are available for most <Linux and
> BSD distributions> by using the distribution's software manager.  For
> more information please consult your distribution documentation or
> user support forums.
> 
> You can try out KDE Software on Linux without changing anything on
> your computer by using a <Linux Live CD or USB stick>.
> 
> [h2] Windows
> 
> Many KDE Applications are available for Windows XP, Windows Vista and
> Windows 7 using the <KDE Windows Installer>.  Some KDE Applications
> are also available as <individual downloads>.  The level of Windows
> support available may vary for individual applications.
> 
> For more information visit the <KDE on Windows home page>.
> 
> [h2] Mac OS X
> 
> Most KDE Applications are only available for Mac OS X by using the
> <MacPorts>, <Fink>, or <HomeBrew> package managers.  These
> installation methods are not recommended for most users.  Some KDE
> Applications are also available as <individual downloads>.  KDE hopes
> to provide more user-friendly installation methods in the future.
> 
> For more information visit the <KDE on Mac home page>.
> 
> [h2] Source Packages
> 
> All KDE Software is <Free Software> with the source code freely
> available for anyone to download, modify, build, and distribute in
> accordence with the terms of <our licences>.  You can obtain tarballs
> for any release from our <download servers>.
> 
> For more information on building KDE Software from source visit the
> <KDE TechBase>.
> 
> [h1] KDE Software
> 
> [h2] KDE Applications
> 
> The KDE Community develops a wide variety of <applications> which can
> run under any supported operating system or desktop environment.
> These may be released as part of the regularly scheduled KDE
> Applications releases, or may be released independently.
> 
> The latest <KDE Applications> release is <version 4.13.2> which was
> released on 10 June 2014.

An idea: Couldn't we just link to the announcement page so we don't need to 
keep this page up to date.

> [h2] KDE Plasma Workspaces
> 
> The KDE Community develops Desktop, Netbook and Tablet workspaces for
> use on Linux and BSD systems.
> 
> The latest <KDE Plasma Workspaces> release is <version 4.11> which was
> released on 14 August 2013.  This is a Long Term Support (LTS) release
> that will be supported with bug-fixes until after the release of
> Plasma 5.  The most recent LTS bug-fix release is <version 4.11.10>
> which was released on 10 June 2014.

Same here. The less dates we've the fewer of them become outdated. And there 
is already a big list of stuff to keep uptodate when doing a release.

> [Add at Plasma 5]  The Plasma 5.0 desktop was released on 7 July 2014.
> While this is a stable release, it is not yet recommended for general
> use.
> 
> [h2] KDE Development Libraries
> 
> The KDE Community develops many libraries and tools for software
> developers which are used to build the KDE Applications and KDE
> Workspaces.  Other developers are free to use these for their own
> applications under the terms of our licences.  See the <KDE TechBase>
> for more details.
> 
> The latest <KDE Development Platform> for use with Qt4 is <version
> 4.13.2> which was released on 10 June 2014.
> 
> The latest <KDE Frameworks> for use with Qt5 is <version 5.0.0> which
> was released on 7 July 2014.

And of course the same here.

> [Ends]
> 
> This may still need editing down, as the intent should be to fit on a
> single page, or at least the platform download links section should.
> The Windows and Mac details may be better placed on a separate wiki
> pages where we can easily change the list of installers, but that
> increases the number of clicks required.  The alternative is listing
> them all on this page (mostly Krita, Marble, Digikam?).
> 
> The Package Policy page at
> http://www.kde.org/download/packagepolicy.php page has a level of
> detail that should be on TechBase instead, and its FAQ section strikes
> me as rather unprofessional in places and should be removed.
> 
> The CDROM page at http://www.kde.org/download/cdrom.php page seems
> archaic and is empty so should either be deleted or replaced with a
> list of Live Distros running off USB or CD.  A wiki page may be a
> better option for such a page?
> 
> The Distributions page at
> http://www.kde.org/download/distributions.php page can be kept, but
> note that distrowatch.com is broken right now so perhaps we should use
> distrowatch.org instead.  We may prefer to provide direct links to the
> distro homepage rather than always send them to Distrowatch (although
> there may be legal issues around that for the eV?).
> 
> Longer term, once we have individual Win and Mac installers per app,
> and perhaps apps in the Android store, we are going to need something
> better.  I have ideas about adapting http://www.kde.org/applications/
> to be a proto app store auto-generated from AppData files with links
> to the downloads, but that's a bike-shed for another occasion :-)
> 
> Thoughts?

Just one other: I'd add a donation button to the download page as well. If 
people like our software, they download it, might come back or even already on 
the first download would like to give something back. Probably a link to "How 
to contribute" as well. I think the download page might be one of the most 
visited ones.

Otherwise thanks for taking care and I agree with the rest.

> John.

griits
Mario