[kde-promo] Terminology for Frameworks

[Carl Symons]

On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 10:09 (UTC) Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> Going through the article explaining Frameworks to the world*
> yesterday, I bumped into quite some inconsistent use of terms.
> 
> Right now, we mix up:
> modules
> components
> frameworks
> addons
> libraries

This article was developed using several previously published 
resources...blogposts, presentations, mailing list threads. These were written 
in different time frames, against a background of evolving understandings, for 
a variety of audiences.

The terms made sense within their respective contexts.

For people in the know, the distinctions are not a big deal. The multiple 
audiences intended for the article will not have a more-or-less automatic 
synonym-izer. So Jos and I went into some detail about what each of these 
terms would mean to various intended audiences.

The Frameworks 5 project looks one way to KDE developers. Other audiences such 
as technical journalists, Qt developers, managers of Qt-related projects and 
companies will have different views. This article will potentially reach many 
of these audiences.

Carl 


> 
> For example in the article, we mostly talked 'modules' intermingled
> with 'libraries', then suddenly started calling them addons and trow
> in some 'components'
> 
> As Kevin pointed out, library is certainly wrong: each
> framework/module CAN be multiple libraries (and even have binaries,
> runtime components).
> 
> After a discussion with Sebas and Carl, I now made the article talk
> about only 'Frameworks' and 'addons', the latter only in relationship
> to Qt, as in the KDE frameworks being a set of addons to Qt.
> 
> I added the following text to our Frameworks 5 communication plan:
> 
> To  prevent using too many interchangable and confusing terms, please
> try to stick to the following two: Frameworks and (Qt) addon. Use the
> term 'Framework' (capitalized) to refer to an individual, independent
> part of Frameworks 5 like KArchive or KIO. When explaining Frameworks,
> it is OK to explain that it is the result of an modularization of the
> older 'KDELIBS' and that one Framework offers one or more libraries
> and sometimes runtime components to (combined) perform a specific
> function.
> 
> See https://notes.kde.org/p/Frameworks5Communication
> 
> Feedback, as always, very much welcome.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jos
> 
> * http://dot.kde.org/2013/09/25/frameworks-5
>