The project name

[Peter Kümmel]

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> 
> honestly, i don't think that "KDE on $PLATFORM" matters at all. it's a name 

Yes, I never heard about 'Firefox on Windows'?

> 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...

bool kde(const char* os);

boost::function<bool()> KDE = boost::bind(&kde, "Win");

bool isGreat = KDE();


> 
> 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) but that message will appeal 
> to those who are looking to switch and will especially appeal to those who 
> are needing to manage heterogenous environments (e.g. pretty much any 
> company, school or government operation of size).
> 
> so what i'm saying in a very long winded fashion here is that, imho:
> 
> * KDE/$PLATFORM is a development team term only
> * users should see the KDE brands (e.g. KOffice, Kontact, etc) directly
> 

I agree, the longterm goal of KDE is (should be?) to make the OS transparent.
Transparency in the meaning of making the OS invisible.
The only visible/opaque thing is KDE.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_%28computing%29).


Peter

>> But the _desktop_ is not the only meaning of the KDE term. Aaron has
>> blogged about this more than twice I guess. Since then [2] has been updated
>> too. And KDE is now
>> - development platform
>> - selection of applications
>> - a desktop
>> (what's more important depends on the context and who is asking ;)
> 
> one of the problems we have is that we refer to all these things by the same 
> name. this is understandable given how KDE grew from a more simple "let's 
> make a desktop" project into what it is today.
> 
> i do believe that going forward we will need to brand the different pieces 
> separately. maybe one day we'll actually call the whole workspace the "Plasma 
> Desktop" or something, which would go a long way to helping with the issue. 
> we're not there yet, though.
> 
>> There is still one KDE on many platforms, just not presenting all the
>> features (it's true on BSD too).
> 
> and OpenSolaris, for that matter.