T10755: Unifying Applications' release versions

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

kossebau added a comment.


  Rediscussing the name "KDE Applications" makes a lot of sense. Because it is: broken. Very broken. As partially already mentioned above:
  
  - there is application software developed in the KDE community which is not part of the release bundle "KDE Applications" (e.g. https://kde.org/applications/ talks about "The KDE Applications" as well, obvious name clashing)
  - there are plugins and libraries released as part of the release bundle "KDE Applications"
  - the meta name "KDE Applications" hides what set of stand-alone software is actually released, which each would deserve some release news on its own
  - people who still think in "KDE" software product terms confuse "KDE Applications" version with "KDE Plasma" version
  - people who still think in "KDE" software product terms miss out that (most) software from the release bundle "KDE Applications" is multi-platform
  
  The release bundle "KDE Applications" is kind of what was left over when people split off KDE Frameworks and Plasma from KDE SC. Those driving that, mainly interested in the new Plasma brand, did not give much thought on that left-over and just picked any first roughly describing generic term. Without any thoughts about purpose and effects.
  
  IMHO "KDE Applications" is a process name, but not an actual product. The main purpose is
  
  - batch processing of the release work, by release managers and packagers
  - batch processing by translation teams, which can plan in advance for some bigger work due to aligned string freeze
  - ease of inter-product dependency handling, e.g. with plugins, services or libraries
  
  When it comes to the end user, they are facing names like Okular, Dolphin, Kate, KMail, etc. The term "KDE Applications" does not appear in the UI. It is an additional concept which only complicates things for them.
  
  Plasma itself is a product of its own. While it is composed of separate products (plasmashell, kwin, etc), only the combination itself is a usable product that people use as one item and thus also one name, "Plasma". So a unified version number there makes a lot of sense.
  
  Less so with application software or plugins which can be used individually, on different platforms even. People on the app store will search for the application software by the known name. The release bundle itself is only interesting to those involved in the release process.

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10755

To: ngraham, kossebau
Cc: kossebau, adridg, heikobecker, aspotashev, huftis, cullmann, hein, ltoscano, kde-utils-devel, #kde_games, #kde_pim, sitter, jriddell, #spectacle, #gwenview, #konsole, #kate, #dolphin, aacid, cfeck, #kde_applications, ngraham
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