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

[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").

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-zie
> le-1403-104995.html [2]
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG/Vision