Goal: Improve Plasma Mobile platform for end-user needs

[Sebastian Kügler]

On maandag 4 september 2017 23:10:34 CEST Dominik Haumann wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 2:38 PM, Bhushan Shah <bhush94 at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> > For big-hairy-audacious-goal here is my proposal
> > 
> > "Improve Plasma Mobile platform for end-user needs"
> > 
> > I believe that after doing work on Desktop for almost ~21 years, it
> > makes sense to explore the new form factor. While we are offering
> > the privacy and security centric opensource products for the
> > Desktop, we should also attempt our best in providing same products
> > for Mobile as well.
> > 
> > I've written proposal in details at the Phabricator board [1]. Feel
> > free to give feedback or ideas.
> > 
> > Thanks!
> > 
> > [1] https://phabricator.kde.org/T6878
> 
> In general, I like the idea very much. A lot of work was put into
> Plasma mobile, and recent activities and events (e.g. postmarketOS)
> indiacate there is still interest also outside of the KDE community.
> 
> What I would propose to give this a big push is this ambitious goal:
> At the next Akademy, give every KDE contributor some handy device, and
> make a workshop day where essentially everyone will install plasma
> mobile on this. This would result in everyone having to go through the
> bootstrapping and maybe some initial development. This would lower the
> burden of getting into Plasma mobile development and maybe the entire
> software stack significantly. At the same time we would push a strong
> message to the outside world: Namely that our software makes a
> difference and is alive and kicking.
> 
> Of course this is a lot of work. In particular, we would need to find
> a way to get ca. 100 devices that will run Plasma mobile. But I think
> it can be done, maybe in collaboration with postmarketOS developers.
> Even if we don't reach the end users here, getting more technically
> versed closer to KDE and this project would possibly be a side-effect.
> 
> Worth to investigate?

Yes, I think so.

There's a big "but", however. PostmarketOS is more or less a
one-man-show with a great idea, I doubt this guy has the resources to
sponsor a significant amount of devices. 

Also, my impression has been that giving people devices for free more
often than not doesn't result in anything. Some will just use them as
their phone, keeping android on it, for example, others put them on the
stack of hardware they may try some time, but never end up doing
anything. The ROI of investment of spreading devices among community
members is sadly pretty low.

We are at a very interesting point with Plasma Mobile right now,
however. After last year's shutdown of Firefox OS and Ubuntu's mobile,
Plasma Mobile is the most promising option for those who want to
develop a smartphone outside of the Android (and of course iOS) world.
This brings an opportunity for us to enter the market by combining
forces from the outside. The fragmentation that we see in the desktop
space isn't currently there in the mobile space, and even GNOME clearly
admits that they have neither mobile ambitions nor the technology to
make it happen anytime soon. Plasma is in a position where we have done
the groundwork, and are pretty much the best option if you don't want
to start from scratch. We need to bank on this opportunity, and I think
the goal Bhushan describes could bring that push from inside the KDE
community. It does, however, need commitment from inside our own
community, and let's be honest, so far, that hasn't been great. Most
people applaud the effort, and then keep watching from the sidelines
without actually lending a helping hand, and we end up having to spread
the work across way too little shoulders to make significant progress
without burning out. This needs to change, and more people have to help
us achieving these goals.

Yesterday, the Plasma team had a meeting in which we defined our
further strategy a bit clearer, and the outcome was great. We've
created a roadmap as well as a communication plan (draft at
https://community.kde.org/Plasma/ Mobile/Roadmap if you're looking for
some inspiration, feedback welcome!).

Hopefully, this and the above-described window of opportunity provides
us the momentum necessary to push Plasma Mobile to a success story.
Remember, it's a very ambitious project, but *if* we get this right, we
can create the greatest success story KDE has ever seen.

Cheers,
-- 
sebas

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