KDE architecture diagram

[Martin Klapetek]

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org> wrote:

>
> Food for thought: How many Linux kernel developers do you know that try to
> divide the Linux kernel in subprojects for servers, desktops, embedded
> systems? Here, just like in Plasma, there are a few codepathes that differ
> per
> device, but the majority of the code is shared. The differences come from
> how
> you configure it for a given target device. That is conceptually the same
> as
> with Plasma we're building a system that you can configure for a wide
> range of
> target devices.
>

While I share your idea of Plasma Workspaces, I would imagine that
different parts of the kernel are maintained/developed by different people.
Sure, the core is the same, but the platform-specific stuff needs to be
different (if only a little). So one needs to see the difference between
core and the "workspace" in our Plasma case. In other words - if you add
method to the core and make use of it in Active, it doesn't magically
happen on desktop too. Which I think might be on of the problems - seeing
the Plasma team focusing on Active, bringing new features there while the
desktop is...well, it's the same for the past 3 years. And just look at
Facebook - they change stuff every 2 years or so. Now I'm not saying let's
forget what we have and start over. Not at all. But we're quite stagnating.

And that's in my opinion, where we need the vision. Aaron's vision is
great, but to me it sounds more like a general textbook "workspace vision".
I personally think we need a more precise vision (we already do have
organic uis, don't we?). For example - what's our vision for integrating
social media in the shell/Plasma? What's our vision for integrating IM? And
so on. Sure, there are teams doing these tasks, but we should imho have a
common vision, or goal if you wish, clearly defined by the Workspace
leaders. Those teams then lookup to that vision and build stuff to reach
it. To reach one great Workspace. Just like for Active - you have a vision
of creating a touch-based interfaces (very simply speaking), so basically
there's a vision of how you'd like Okular to behave in such environment.
And I would like to have this precise vision for the rest of the Workspace,
not just "to have scalable interfaces".

Each and every team can do their own vision. But then there will be
inconsistencies, different functionality etc. Just look at System Settings
- common place for so many apps and yet each module looks different. And it
looks bad in the final result. So I think there should be some well
understood "lead", a way the Workspace should go. Which currently there's
not. Or it's not well known.

My 2c on this.

--
Martin Klapetek | KDE Developer
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