[kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - an alternative draft for discussion

[Martin Graesslin]

On Wednesday, February 3, 2016 10:05:20 PM CET Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> 
> KDE is an end-user focused, openly governed community of free software
> enthusiasts that strives to provide graphical user interfaces and
> applications for end-users for all types of computers across the device
> spectrum: desktops PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.

In the world of IT we see again and again the introduction of disruptive 
technologies which change the field of computing. In the past KDE as a 
community mastered some of them great, some of them badly. When KDE started 
the world was in the middle of the disruption known as the Internet. KDE 
handled it great. Today basically every person connecting to the Internet is 
using a KDE technology for that.

The next disruption "mobile" wasn't handled well, though. We were years too 
late and still haven't really got there. From our hundreds of applications 
only 3 are available on the most important distribution channel for mobile 
application. We clearly missed this disruption.

Currently we are again in an disruptive stage. We have the cloud and social 
networks. Again we are moving slowly and are not adapting to the disruptive 
change. But we had good cards for cloud with e.g. ownCloud. Overall I don't 
see any strategy on how to move our applications into the cloud and how to 
integrate the cloud better. We were great in the Internet age, but are not 
catching up. Similar the social net is not integrated at all into our 
products. Thus I would conclude that we are missing this disruption just like 
the last one.

Personally I think that we missed them because we didn't have a clear vision 
on where to go and were too focused on the good old things.

Thus now my question: How will this vision provide us guidance for the next 
disruption? How will we be able to use this vision to be a leader in the next 
disruption? Please explain why you think that the vision will help in the next 
disruption. If you don't think that the vision is for that please also explain 
why you think that. E.g. if you think we shouldn't care about the next 
disruption, please explain the reasoning for it.

Thank you!
Martin
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