latest draft for mission (and strategy)

[Albert Vaca]

Thanks for putting this together! Some (late and) minor thoughts on wording:

I like that we state we want to "integrate well with other Free products to
complete the experience". I would explicitly mention "other Free *software*
and products", to make clear that we don't want to be a closed ecosystem
where KDE software only integrates with other KDE software.

I also think that the statement "maintains a diverse and inclusive
community" is fundamental in a truly open online community nowadays. I
would go further and say "a diverse, inclusive *and safe* community".

Apart from that, I agree with every point in the strategy and I'm happy we
have decided to write it down and make it public.

Albert

On May 30, 2017 11:55 AM, "Sebastian Kügler" <sebas at kde.org> wrote:

> Hi Agustin,
>
> On Tuesday, May 30, 2017 4:07:37 PM CEST Agustin Benito (toscalix) wrote:
> > thanks for driving this discussion. It is a needed one. Here are my
> > early comments:
> >
> > * "builds on open standards to prevent "lock-in" - I think that
> > prevent lock-in is not a reason but a consequence of building KDE
> > software on open standards. open stardars are aabout transparency,
> > agreement, provenance...
>
> That makes it too vague in my opinion. Preventing lock-in is a tangible
> benefit for our users, it is in fact why many instituional users choose
> Free
> software over proprietary offerings. We should call it by its name to make
> clear why we do this, and why users want and need it.
>
> > * "provides usable security and privacy features to protect against
> > surveillance and data theft" there is legal surveillance that we do
> > not want to prevent. In any case, privacy is a right challenged in our
> > digital era like was not challenged before, in the analogic era. Is
> > the right to privacy the central point, not the prevention against
> > data theft. You can prevent your data from being stolen through
> > proprietary software too, among other options.
>
> Legal says exactly nothing, since it's bound to a jurisdiction, a concept
> which doesn't exactly work in the internet era. Something can be legal in a
> given location, yet morally wrong. Also, we're not judging (a Free software
> principle), we're allowing privacy, full stop.
>
> > * "have consistent, easy to use human interfaces" and "provide a
> > seamless user experience" seems to me close enough to justify that we
> > condense them in a single statement.
>
> One is about the interface quality itself, the other is about a
> cross-device
> experience, I think they warrant separate mentioning to make the mission
> less
> fluffy and more concrete.
>
> > * I would be carefull with the words "integration" and
> > "interoperates". In order to work well, both concepts requires two
> > parties. We cannot guarantee any of them by ourselves.
>
> We can strive for it, however. Nothing wrong with that.
>
> > * Linked with the above, this statement is a set up for failure:
> > "interoperates well with proprietary software, formats and services" .
> > In simple words, it is not in our hands to provide a satisfactory
> > experience when dealing with proprietary software/formats/services. I
> > would re-formulate this in a way that reflects that we will do our
> > best.
>
> Again, I think it's absolutely sound to state that we want our software to
> work well with proprietary offerings. It provides real value to users and
> again makes it clearer why we do what we do.
>
> > * "empowers users independent of their abilities" I find this
> > statement vague. How are we going to empower them? what for? why it is
> > so important for us to empower software users? I would try to develop
> > it a little.
>
> How? :)
>
> > * I have a fundamental issue with the whole "user story". We are
> > upstream. We only reach 0.1% of our currrent users directly. We live
> > in an industry that has "downstream", that is, integrators and
> > distributors. I truly believe that one of our limiting factors is our
> > belief that we can reach users "by ourselves", through direct
> > interaction. This idea, which is popular in our community, has its
> > reflection in this Mission statement. No mention to any collaboration
> > with dowsntream in this section, to reach users.
>
> While we are upstream, we're responsible for the largest part of the user
> experience, we develop the software, we create the UI, we fix the bugs that
> annoy people.
>
> > I have been fighting this widespread belief since I joined in 2005.
> > Our situation is worse today than ever was, in my opinion. I would
> > really like to see ourselves turning the situation upside down, which
> > can start by discussing and ultimately reflecting in this Mission
> > statement how important it is for us the ecosystem that allow us to
> > bring our software to user's hands.
>
> Please elaborate what you want to do, and how. Your statement is really
> vague
> and I fail to make sense of it, possibly others have the same problem.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> sebas
>
> http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org
>
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