App duplication again (Re: new project in kdemultimedia)

[Richard Dale]

On Sunday 05 May 2002 8:48 am, Thomas Diehl wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 5. Mai 2002 02:03 schrieb Waldo Bastian:
> > I don't believe in the whole notion of "core" packages. IMO the only core
> > that we have is kdelibs (for apps/developers) and kdebase (basic runtime
> > environment) and everything else is "apps" in my book.
> >
> > Application selection is done at install time and your software vendor
> > will be able to provide you with a selection of various "*core*
> > distributions".
>
> Which seems to leave the question what we offer the software vendors
> to create their distributions from? If I understand you correctly, there
> would be no "real KDE" at all, as far as apps are concerned. It would be
> just SuSE, RH, Mandrake and so on who decide _solely_ what KDE really is
> and what it looks like. The apps part of KDE would be nothing but a
> repository like apps.kde.com with some additional benefits like more
> up-to-date code, better compliance to the style guide etc. But there would
> be no problem to have eg 5 cdrw programs, a hundred vocabulary trainers, or
> 10 vector drawing apps in it -- right?
> 
> Well, while we are stating our opinions here, I'd like to add: This is
> surely not the KDE I want. I have absolutely no problem with SuSE, RH etc.
> creating their distros and make KDE look like they want. At least not as a
> matter of principle. In reality, I absolutely hate the way some of those
> distros slap their "Corporate Identity" logo crap on each and everything
> our artist group created. Just as I hate what many of them are doing to our
> localizations and well designed translations. I want to be able to go to
> KDE CVS and get "the real thing". And if somebody around me gets fed up
> with what distros are giving to him or her, too, I would still like to show
> him or her this "real thing" we created here: well picked apps, sensible
> defaults, and a good overall design while saying: Forget RH, SuSE,
> whatever. _This_ is KDE, and if you want to you can help to make it even
> better.
I personally would like KDE to be the best environment since NeXTSTEP 10 years 
ago, for creating 'Mission Critical Custom Applications', such as a trading 
system in a bank. The things that are important for that are kdelibs/kdebase 
(the api and runtime), developer tools like KDevelop/language bindings for 
RAD, kmail and KOffice suite (especially KSpread), and probably not a lot 
else. 

And I'm sure a bank would love to have the SuSE or Red Hat corporate identity 
all over the desktop, because it makes them feel comfortable. They will only 
move away move from Microsoft if they feel 'more comfortable'. 

A home user would have a completely different view of what was important 
(email, web browsing and CD burning perhaps). And what I would call 'KDE 
enthusiasts' like Thomas want something different again. So I agree with 
Waldo that KDE should stay pretty agnostic about what people choose to do 
with it, and that 'core apps' doesn't mean a lot.

-- Richard