[kde-community] Results from the Mission Survey

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 29.07.2016 23:27, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> Yes, probably.
>
> How to interpret other results ?
>
> E.g. "Importance of goals".
> Do we consider the difference between 4.5 ("read as many users as possible"
> and "convince users to switch away from proprietary") and 5.5 ("do our part to
> promote Free...") as significant ?
> If so, how does that fit together ? Could it be interpreted as that users of
> proprietary OS are not that important to us (3rd option), and we also don't
> want to make them switch to free OSs (5th option), while it is important for
> us to promote free software (4th option) ?

That is indeed where we have to decide what to make of the results. I would not
recommend to exclude anything from the Mission which scored significantly above
the scale midpoint (which is why I did those tests). We may give those things which
scored significantly higher than others greater weight in the wording, but if 
something
is considered as more than averagely important by the community, why should
it not be part of the Mission? Nobody said that only the most important things can
be part of a Mission statement.

The aim of this survey was not to identify only the most important goals. The aim
was to confirm if the community agrees with us that the goals we identified are
indeed important, and it did so at least for all of the main goals.

About the "make users switch" vs. "promote free software": There are other ways to
promote Free Software (like we do with mentoring and advocacy) than directly
convincing users to switch away from proprietary software.
> Actually I'm a bit surprised that "reach as many users as possible, regardless
> of which OS" got such a relatively low score, because to me this question
> translates to "do we want to provide (our part of) freedom to as many people
> as possible (even if they still use a proprietary OS kernel underneath) ?"
> So it seems we don't want to.
>
We _do_ want to. If we didn't, it would have scored below the midpoint of the scale
on average. What I'd read from these results, though, is that providing excellent
software on Free OSes is _more important_ to the community than getting on
as many platforms as possible, which should be reflected in the Mission statement.
> One thing stands out quite clear: "provide stable and reliable software" got
> the highest points.
Yes, it seems that KDE is aware that higher quality standards should be a clear
focus for the future, which makes sense and is something that would certainly
sit well with the public, too.
> I'm a bit surprised that "aim for a presence on mobile devices" got a
> relatively low score. But that seems to match the (compared to GNU/Linux) low
> score for Android.

I'm not _that_ much surprised. Again: The score does not mean that the community
does not want presence on Android, but if it had the same priority to 
contributors as
desktop Linux, we would already be seeing _far_ more Android apps from KDE.

Presence on Android is clearly seen as an above-average priority, so it should
definitely be part of the Mission, but it's also clear that the community still 
sees
desktop (Linux) computers as more important.
> The even lower score for "embedded" confirms the impression I have in this
> regard from our community.

Yes. This is why I did this survey: I (and certainly some others) do think that 
embedded
is an important area for the future, but it makes little sense to put it in the 
Mission
of the majority of the community does not really care about it a lot.
The Mission is not fixed for eternity, so should that priority ever change for the
community, the Mission will reflect that change.
> The relatively low result for "use new online services created by KDE" and the
> relatively low result for "offer our own web-based services" seem to fit
> together.

Indeed. Web services were considered "moderately important" on average by
the participants of the survey, so that certainly does not mean that web 
services are
not welcome in KDE, but they are not considered important enough to shift
resources to them from client software.
> I find it noteworthy that we (developers, and even more users) consider the
> BSDs and even "Other Free OS" as more important target platforms than Windows.

Indeed. It seems like KDE cares more about a completely Free stack than about
reaching as many users as possible, as already seen in the first question.
> The "How much do you agree.." page is a bit complicated.
> I guess it means that we want to try to concentrate on "important"
> applications (so we cover the common needs of normal users), and that we
> should keep the focus on Qt.

Yes, those two seem to be rather clear-cut.
> The "focus on GUI" vs. "any useful software"... does that have to be
> considered also taking into account the relatively low score for web-based
> services ?

Yes, that point is indeed interesting. It does indeed look like having a GUI is 
less important
to us than running on user's systems instead of the cloud.
> Alex, going on vacation now :-)
>
>
Safe travel, and have fun!

P.S.: I won't cross-post future replies to this thread to kde-ev-membership.
Those who are interested in the Mission can follow it on kde-community.

Cheers,
Thomas