[kde-guidelines] [kde-artists] We need a Vision!

[Björn Balazs]

Am Dienstag, 11. März 2014, 19:34:53 schrieb Jos Poortvliet:
> On Tuesday 11 March 2014 16:00:52 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> > On Tuesday 11 March 2014, 15:25:46 Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> > > I am a little skeptical - we're a very diverse community and I don't
> > > think
> > > you can draft ONE vision for all of KDE - especially considering we're
> > > trying to expand what KDE is further and further (improv is hardware,
> > > bodega & owncloud & ghns are server, there's mobile, tablet, ...). But
> > > that
> > > note can and should be part of any discussion...
> > 
> > Only 12 people follow your argumentation and voted for "I don't think we
> > need a generic vision statement because...".
> > 
> > Result of votes (multiple answers allowed):
> > * Powerful, yet easy to use (46%, 132 Votes)
> > * Elegant software (42%, 121 Votes)
> > * All-purpose full-featured software (38%, 111 Votes)
> > * KDE: a community for all people (28%, 81 Votes)
> > * Cutting edge technology (27%, 78 Votes)
> > * KDE: Qt5 at its best (15%, 44 Votes)
> > * I don't think we need a generic vision statement because... (4%, 12
> > Votes)
> > 
> > In my opinion the vision should be something similar to what Kver
> > suggested: “Be the framework of people and software for the majority of
> > computing in 10 years time.” Despite of the 'tomorrow we rule the world'
> > notion it involves all applications and flavors of KDE. All other aspects
> > (powerful, elegant, feature rich etc.) would be bottom line text. As a
> > side node: the discussion seems to be of interest for many people and was
> > picked up by Golem [1], a German IT news page.
> > 
> > Actually, all projects should define own visions based on the common one.
> > The HIG [2] includes purpose and how-to, as well as a reference to the
> > common guideline.
> 
> First of all, I'm not opposed to what you try to do, that is why I said I'd
> be happy to join. I said I'm skeptical to the SCOPE. But I'm always
> difficult with the huge scope and ambitions of some people: I like ambition
> but I've seen to many grand plans fail. Practical, itterative and down to
> earth usually gets more done.
> 
> Aside from what Carl said (and I agree with him), I think it makes sense to
> create a vision for sub projects. The overall project - well, something like
> "bringing Free Software to common users" or something would probably work
> for everybody, but I doubt it helps you define a UX.
> 
> What I am saying is that a vision specific enough to help you define a UX is
> most likely a bad fit for at least parts of KDE's projects; and a vision
> that fits all projects will not add anything real to the manifesto.
> 
> If I were you, I'd try to define a vision for the Plasma Workspaces, then
> sub visions for each of the form factors. Applications can confirm to those
> visions if they care about the form factor and the workspace (many do, some
> won't - I doubt Gcompris will ever want to be "full featured" or "cutting
> edge").

Jos, I fully agree with you. Actually the scenario you describe might well be 
the result of the effort and would serve our desired purpose. 

Cheers,
Björn
 
> And again: as overall project vision, I'd look at the manifesto and see if
> there's more to add.
> 
> Let me add that this isn't the first time I've talked about vision:
> http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2008/05/vision-x.html
> 
> Even had a survey and BoF:
> http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2008/08/innovation-in-kde.html
> 
> I wrote a few blogs after that, talking about the point that most people
> brought up: we're about Freedom. Which is also central in the Manifesto and
> should indeed be at the core of any vision.
> 
> Ad in 2010 we had some more debate about it:
> http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2010/06/flameworthy-linuxtag-notes.html
> Ending with this:
> http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2010/06/being-free-why-it-matters.html
> 
> Now I'm fine if you don't read all that - I just hope it convinces you that
> I might be on to something when I say you should be a bit careful with
> trying to define a KDE-wide vision ;-)
> 
> > [1]
> > http://www.golem.de/news/entwickler-community-kde-ueberarbeitet-projekt-zi
> > e
> > le-1403-104995.html [2]
> > http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG/Vision