The project name

[Ralf Habacker]

Aaron J. Seigo schrieb:
> On Friday 08 February 2008, Jarosław Staniek wrote:
>   
>> Saro Engels said the following, On 2008-02-08 02:46:
>>  > Sometimes I think that KDE on Windows/MacOSX is a bad choice since
>>  > neither of the two targets the desktop itself (which is implied by that
>>  > form imho) but we only port the applications (... yet).
>>
>> The fact is that I have always claimed the same as you, see the
>> introduction at [1]
>> http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDElibs+for+win32 - written in
>> about 2004.
>>     
>
> honestly, i don't think that "KDE on $PLATFORM" matters at all. it's a name 
> for developers and the development team. users don't particularly care, imho. 
>
> we should just promote Kexi or Kontact or the "KDE Development Kit" or 
> whatever we end up calling that. the platform it targets should be irrelevant 
> for user level marketing; it's really only a developer issue. and for the, i 
> think KDE/Win, KDE/Mac, KDE/Solaris, KDE/BSD and KDE/Linux work just fine =)
>
> or maybe it's an array. KDE["Win"] .. or a function call? KDE(Win) ;) 
> anyways...
>
> when it comes to user level marketing, it's all about context of venue. so 
> promote Kontact on Windows by posting to windows forums or writing in windows 
> focussed magazines. the screenshots should show Kontact on Windows XP and/or 
> Vista. people will get the idea from there.
>
> at that point, people will start to notice that "hey, these apps run 
> elsewhere, too!" and that it's the app and the KDE platform, not the OS, that 
> is the interesting bit.
>
> yes, not everyone will switch off windows (in fact, by bringing these apps to 
> windows, we actually decrease the odds of that) 
Aaron, is this an assumption or really backed up by facts ? It could end 
up that more people switches to unix/linux because as you said - it's 
are the apps that are the interesting bit.
In the last nine years I tried many times to convert desktop users and 
servers to linux and the successfull desktop converts were the case 
where a specific propritary application was much cheaper than on windows 
- nothing else counted.  Other converts failed because it was simply to 
expensive to train the user for all the new apps at once. Third there 
were cases where the available linux software does not fit into the 
companies infrastructure (for example ms exchange compatibility)
What I have learned from this is that KDE applications could bring a 
chance for more windows to linux migrations if they are better as their 
windows competitors and if they are widely used - think about the 
success firefox has - people asked us why they have to stay with 
internet explorer and why Firefox was not installed on their machine. It 
is natural to ask for the better apps and when KDE applications creates 
such a demand in their home area, it is more easier to wipe out the os.


Regards
 Ralf