[kde-community] Give People Access to Great Technology - a possible vision

[David Wright]

To summarise and expand upon my thoughts on this given the feedback from a
couple of you:

Essentially I feel we should be concentrating on the promoting the
versatility of KDE ecosphere, and what that means to you as the user.
That's really what I was driving at when I was asking the question 'What do
you need KDE to be for you?' A lot of other desktop environments strangle
your workflow tighter than a Steve Jobs turtleneck, they demand that you
work around them and their vision, whereas I see KDE working for you and
with you, no matter where your end point may be, and what you are doing at
that endpoint. Let’s not forget starting points either, it should be able
to grow with you, from one app to many, from apps to desktop, from desktop
to phone and so on. Which is why projects like KDE for windows are so
important, as it provides that first hook to reel users in with, especially
business users, where change to a mid-fifties, conservative, company
director happens one app at a time, over a long period of time.

Now clearly I am no expert on plasma5, qml & kf5, but I have been given the
impression that it is very flexible (if that's not true then please tell me
and I will go back into the cupboard!); however I appreciate there will be
limits to what it can and can't do, so perhaps the use of 'it could be
anything' was quite rash.

I thought that maybe by understanding users needs we could either provide
solutions, or provide a signpost to where those solutions may lie. Each
users needs are different, so I thought that by splitting between
commercial and consumer needs we could consider what they are doing right
now, what they would like to see in the future, and how KDE technologies
can help with all that. By commercial needs I am taking about businesses in
offices (or wherever), and consumers being general peeps. Sorry, this is my
workplace terminology creeping in where it probably shouldn't! The reason
for this is that I've found that the way businesses use equipment such as
tablets and TVs can be very different to general consumers.



The KDE terminology issue I’m still not really understanding I’m afraid. I
understand the reasons for the splitting out of KDE (the community), KF5,
Plasma 5 and applications. The problem I have is that distros are still
going to be shipping a KDE variant, apps included. In the absence of KDE
supplying a name for the compilation of its software being used together,
then I feel the distros are going to simply use KDE or KDE 5, like they
would with Gnome, or XFCE, which is wrong, or KF5/Plasma5/Apps which is
crap.  What’s making this more confusing is that the VDG are now discussing
branding some apps along the lines of ‘Made for…’, which again I can
understand why, as when Windows ships Windows 8, it comes with a picture
viewer, file browser etc. But it’s still Windows 8. The only people who
have come close to giving this new amalgamation of software a name is
Kubuntu, with Project Neon. Maybe something like the ‘KDE Experience’ would
be fitting?



I don’t agree that everything should be completely separate however, there
should still be links to one another, otherwise KDE becomes nothing more
than a glorified Github.



Hope that makes more sense.



Kind Regards,



David.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Andrew Lake <jamboarder at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello again, I was going to reply to each response individually but I
> thought it might be simpler to do one reply.
>
> First off, thanks for being so so gracious in reviewing the thoughts I
> shared. As I mentioned these were personal thoughts prompted by my
> experience at Akademy this year. There's always a risk sharing such
> thoughts with a community that barely knows me, so I'm grateful for your
> kindness.
>
> At the risk of appearing to be defensive about the ideas expressed, permit
> me to provide some clarifications:
> * The ideas were not intended to communicate a "stand our ground" or a
> "don't adventure beyond the desktop" vision. Rather they was intended to
> say that the desktop doesn't have to be viewed as a now relatively stagnant
> participant in the ecosystem. I'm not sure anyone in the community thinks
> that is the case, but to the extent that there is concurrence, it seemed an
> element of value worth capturing and communicating about ourselves and what
> we provide.
> * Regarding integration, the ideas were really intended to regard
> applications, the desktop, devices and the cloud for their unique
> capabilities and how they can enhance each other. That can include the
> make-a-tablet/phone/cloud-version-of-[x] approach, but the hope is that it
> could include other approaches as well. As noted, there are already many
> efforts in the community that reflect such approaches, so it seemed an
> element of value worth communicating as well.
> * I'm no personal fan of exclusivity-driven integration. I'm rather a fan
> of open approaches to technological integration that enables people not
> hinder them. I've never sensed that as an attribute of KDE and I certainly
> won't advocate for it now. :-)
>
> There are details of the thoughts originally shared that are questionable
> and have been fairly questioned. For all the words and pictures in the
> original post that were intended to provide clarity but simply raised more
> questions, the bullets above hopefully contain the meat of the specific
> idea originally offered.
>
> Is it perhaps too limited?
> Maybe there should be more of a focus on KDE community. Valorie's quote
> from the manifesto seems quite good to me. (It was really great to meet you
> too Valorie!)
>
> Is it so broad that it loses focus or spreads us thin?
> I'm not entirely sure what a vision appropriate to our market position
> should look like, but I totally understand your concerns about lofty but
> unachievable goals Jaroslaw. Perhaps it might make sense if there are
> separate visions for our community and for each of the community's products
> (Frameworks, Plasma, the different apps). Then the folks doing the work can
> share their vision and better gauge the loftiness of any vision they
> signing up for. (What I originally offered seems more Frameworks and Plasma
> related.) How might that approach impact cohesiveness?
>
> I'm completely and utterly satisfied if whatever is identified as a
> vision, whether for the community as a whole or for specific products of
> the community, differs a great deal or entirely from the thoughts I
> originally shared. Maybe everything is fine and I just need to educate
> myself more about the road maps already laid out. I confess as a long-term
> user, an application developer and more recently as a designer contributor,
> I do occasionally find it challenging to see what the road ahead is. That
> may be a personal failing. I suspect though that it's not just me. The
> worst I could be is wrong. :)
>
> Much respect,
> Andrew
>
>>
>
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