[kde-promo] Plasma Next Naming

[Jos Poortvliet]

On Tuesday 14 January 2014 20:18:17 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> Until now, we've been using "Plasma 2" as a working title for the next
> version of Plasma. We never formalized this, and the last discussion we
> had about this died out without producing a clear result. We've gone over
> these points during the sprint, and discussed some details about it.
> 
> Some things that came up that we think are important for a new name:
> 
> - We don't want it to be too technical, it should be engaging to "normal
>   people"
> - Version numbers seem confusing an not very expressive, these should
> rather be a technical detail (for example to group bugzilla entries)
> - We want something that can be related to its release date
> - We don't want to see it tied to a single class of devices
> 
> We came up with the following scheme, which we'd like to propose:
> 
> * The upcoming release of the KDE Plasma Workspaces is called Plasma
> * The version number used is Month (as name) + year
> * Each release gets a codename based on a marine animal (*1), in
> alphabetical order, one for each feature release
> * The exact name should be decided by the promo team (we have domain
> experts that can give input, *ahum*)
> * "workspaces" should hardly be used at all, it's a technical term and
> doesn't bear all that much meaning for users
> 
> So, some examples how that's used:
> 
> * "Please file a bug against Plasma June/2014"
> * "Plasma by KDE" (don't use "KDE Plasma", but rather "by KDE")
> * "KDE Releases Plasma Angelfish"
> 
> A release could go along with an illustration of said animal to make it
> more engaging.
> 
> (*1) we chose from a lot of options, and find marine animals quite nice for
> the following reasons:
> 
> - Many options
> - Animals are easy to relate to for non-technical users
> - There are many choices, and they can be connected to different
>   characteristics (think of swordfish for speediness, for example)
> - The names often bear some meaning without knowing the exact animal in
>   question
> - It's rather easy to express concepts like organic, elegance, while being
>   playful and colorful
> 
> Some example that I've found possibly suitable after a bit of research:
> Angelfish (example http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Angelfish , eloquent and colorful
> ), Barracuda ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Barracuda ; fast and mean ), Clownfish
> ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Clownfish ; small but fierce ), etc. As you can
> see, there's quite the variety.
> 
> Feedback to this proposal is very welcome, but please keep in mind that we
> would like to move on with this question. It's highly subjective to
> bike-shedding, and a decision is better than no decision.

So the thing Aaron brings up is that the codename (fish or whatever) creates 
an additional thing to learn/understand and some extra confusion. A few have 
agreed with that. And the points about the image one creates are clear.

There obviously are positive arguments, with this bringing some fun, 
creativity etc to the table.

It seems to me that Ivan's suggestion of having the animal name as a 
/for friends/ name is something we can agree on in principle, even though the 
exact implementation (should it be in the about dialog or not?) is open.

I'd like to point out that openSUSE has a similar tradition of code names. 
And I suspect very few of you who run openSUSE know the code names of the 
current and previous release. It does not harm our image, I'm fairly certain 
of that. It also does not give us the benefits of the 'funny names' of 
Ubuntu, except for the entertainment of our own community (who are often left 
to wonder what the logic behind the scheme is).

Reminding you that consensus does not mean full agreement but a willingness 
to cede one's opinion to a majority, I'd like to ask if we can move forward 
with the initial proposal, under the provision that we will keep the code 
names as an internal matter mostly. Thus, more openSUSE style than Ubuntu. 
This leaves us the space for talking it up more or less depending on how 
people respond or opinions change in the future.

So:
"Plasma by KDE"
"KDE releases Plasma June 2014" (6-2014?)
"KDE releases the First/Second/Third Update to the October 2014 release of 
Plasma"
And the code name is visible perhaps in the about dialog but not featuring 
prominently in the release announcement.

How about it?

And thank you all for having kept the discussion constructive.

/Jos

> Cheers,
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