[kde-edu]: 2009 introspective

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

On lundi 04 mai 2009 21:59:09 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> Hi...
>
> I'm putting together a "where are we now, where are we going" snapshot of
> as many of the "big pieces" in KDE 4 as possible, and I'd like some input
> from you on the KDE educational suite.
Thanks!

I hope other devels add their point of view as the following is only my own 
perception.

> In particular, what I'm looking for are 2-4 bullet items for each of these
> two questions:
>
> * What have been the defining achievements in the last year?
-> individual applications achievements: 
-- Marble components in several applications and plasmoids
-- use of Eigen in several applications
-- improvements in KStars 
-- improvements in Parley
-- work in KBruch by Brasilian students: UI improvements and integration of 
KPercentage

> * What are the main focus points and or goals for the project in 2009?
...

>
> If you're feeling extra helpful, you might want to also provide some input
> on:
>
> * What are the major pain points in your project right now?
- release cycle too short for casual contributors: all KDE-Edu developers are 
either working or students and for most of them, they do not seem able to meet 
the current release schedule. After 4.1 was out I see very few activity in 
terms of new ideas, directions to follow, group synergy,...
- lack of a  coordinator: I have had  very little time due to family 
priorities to glue the project together and make it a team. I said I would 
organize and edu meeting which I did not do. Maybe I did not give enough space 
to other people to step in?
- Too little integration with the rest of KDE: few interest from our team for 
the educational desktop for example
- Not being able to integrate core developers (we integrate students but we 
need a few core developers who would make us a team)
> * Outside of the core libs (kdecore, kdeui, kio, kfile) what are the most
> critical pieces of KDE technologies that your project is relying on?
currently
Get Hot New Stuff 
future
social desktop (sharing data)
creation of libs to make use of existing free resources (to get wikimedia data 
for example)
plasma (educational desktop and educational plasmoids)

Remark: we usually develop some libs which are then integrated into kdelibs or 
used by other KDE programs (put in kdesupport). So it's more from us to KDE.

-------

Best regards, probably other people will add their thoughts, it's a good 
occasion to see where we are and where we want to get to (and how).

Anne-Marie


>
> You can reply to me directly; I'll be collating and making public the
> results when they are in ...
>
> As an example of what I'm looking for, here's the answer set of Plasma:
>
> In the last year:
>
> 	* Parity with KDE3 desktop/panels
> 	* Finished out the foundational pieces (extenders, activities,
> scripting..) * Moved libplasma to kdelibs
>
> Focus points in 2009:
>
> 	* Ease of creating Plasma components (Plasmate)
> 	* Netbook interface
> 	* Media center components
> 	* Remote plasmoids
> 	* Social desktop features
> 	* Improved integration with Nepomuk and rest of workspace
>
> Major point points:
>
> 	* x.org driver quality
> 	* QGraphicsView is still going through growing pains
> 	* newness of our own codebase resulting in larger #s of defects
>
> Major technologies we rely (or will be relying) on:
>
> 	* x.org and kwin compositing features
> 	* QGraphicsView
> 	* Solid
> 	* Nepomuk
>
>
>
> As for why I'm doing this survey, here's an excerpt from
> http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/04/trailheads.html:
>
> "The pre-4.0 development of KDE was helped along by everyone knowing what
> we were striving towards: we had the Pillars, these new big chunks of
> technology we were busy slotting into place so that we could build ever
> better applications on top of; we had a renewed focus on clean, usable
> interfaces; we were also aiming for beauty and greater platform
> independence.
>
> The individual projects around the KDE universe all swirled around these
> shared goals. Each headed in their own direction that reflected their own
> interpretation of these goals as weighted by their development team in
> terms of importance. Not remarkably, while there was variance in execution,
> there was a remarkable harmony in the overall approach and results.
>
> That didn't happen by accident: it happened because we were communicating
> with each other about our goals and in-the-moment situations. I was part of
> only a fraction of these conversations, but I remember the huge number of
> informal meet ups both online and in person (part of my "coffee shop
> meetings around the world" tour, or at least that's sometimes how it felt
> ;). It was inspiring and helpful and marked a high water point in KDE
> community togetherness for me.
>
> We're into 2009 now and it's time to stoke those fires again."
>
> Thanks for your time and energy in advance :)