Repositioning the KDE brand

[Evgeny Egorochkin]

On Wednesday 01 July 2009 06:57:53 nf2 wrote:
> Cool article! Sounds more than just a marketing concept to me... Some
> thoughts...
>
> * Desktop: What has been the initial idea of having multiple desktops?
> Freedom of taste. To have different views (or frontends) into the
> *same* system. I really like the term "Workspace", because it makes
> this even clearer.

Yeah, but there's still no consensus on what this "same" system should look 
like, although there's some progress.

> * The term "Desktop-Environment" emerged when more and more "system
> technology" was pulled in, which created different frontends for
> *different* systems. In my opinion a very unlucky development.
> Fortunately, with newer technologies  (like network-manager, HAL,
> D-Bus...), those mistakes have not been repeated.

In the meanwhile, you can see that for every system tech component that 
becomes shared, another unshared one appears engulfed in the same flames like 
it's not needed or rather needed implementing 10% of the functionality(without 
any provisions for substantial improvement later on).

> * I like the idea to find a name for marketing the core libraries, but
> i think "Platform" is still too close to "Environment". "KDE toolkit"
> would be clearer. Because that's - what i believe - what it should
> become in the long run: A convenience and portability-layer for
> writing rich and beautiful GUI applications - but phasing out
> system-technologies. Something like Qt enhanced.

As long as system technologies are sane and do what KDE needs, definitely yes.

> * System (or Platform, or infrastructure) technologies like ioslaves
> or kwallet: While KDE has been the "market leader" for a long time,
> comparable technologies have caught up or have even become "cooler".

Note that these technologies didn't try reusing KDE stuff in any way. Lots of 
KDE stuff eg KIO is not strongly coupled to kde.

KDE implements something new, then 5 years down the road some(rather short) 
feature/functionality/arch wishlist accumulates. Then the [it's not needed, 
it's useless, it's crap, we already have 10x weaker tech] bashers of the 
original concept tech reimplement the KDE tech from scratch with minor 
improvements and now KDE is obliged to waste resources, break code and bend 
over backwards in other ways because having shared tech is an advantage to 
FOSS in general and you can't expect anyone else but KDE to seek compromises?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all FOR compromises. However legitimizing such  
approaches causes KDE to be caught in an eternal process of innovating, then 
being blamed for innovation and then "footing the bill" by fixing something 
that already works.

IMO people should either participate or shut the fsck up(unless they find some 
fundamental flaw with the tech that indeed makes it worth abandoning)

> Therefore KDE could benefit from "incorporating" them. The "Platform"
> should move to the layer below KDE - things that are eager to be
> shared by everyone.

It better be but you need participants to respect each other's work and 
accomplishments for this to happen. As soon as(if) NIH ceases to be a 
prominent ideology, this is likely to happen indeed.

> You won't love me for that, but honestly: That
> part of the world should be ruled by GLib and GObjects...

Nah, it should be ruled by QTCore and QObjects. Care to explain?

GLib/GObject because they always lagged behind, whined, refused(and still do) 
to reuse the best tech already available?

The flaw in your position seems to be that you blame the lack of sharing and 
cooperation equally on all parties affected. And this effectively punishes good 
behavior and encourages bad one.

Also please note that despite all those "comparable technologies" It'd 
probably take 1 man/year to get KDE emulate behavior/functionality/look and 
feel/etc of $SOME_OTHER_DESKTOP but only KDE can be made to match KDE without 
dumping  lots of money and time into it.

> * And i also love the plan for KDE applications to become more
> "promiscuous"...

Freedom of choice FTW

P.S. Having said all this, I'd like to stress that I appreciate your intents 
but you need to face the reality, the essence of the problems you're facing 
and trying to fix

-- Evgeny