Plasma 5?

[Teo Mrnjavac]

On Monday, May 05, 2014 15:55:27 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am not happy with the 2014.6 name and naming scheme. There I said it.
> 
> The reasons for this are multi-fold. First, and to me most importantly: It
> feels awkward. Now that might be because it's new, but it also feels like no
> one else is going to understand it.
> 
> My thinking goes towards an option that we had briefly discussed, and I
> think dismissed too quickly, and for the wrong reasons.
> 
> So, I'd like to get some feedback on the proposal to call the new Plasma
> release Plasma 5.0, and use the "old" version numbering scheme going
> forwards. That means after 5.0 comes 5.1, 5.2, and so on, same for minor
> releases (however that is going to end up being decided). This feedback can
> then be taken up with the promo and marketing department, I think that we
> should first make up our own minds (for that reason, no cross-post to
> kde-promo at this point).
> 
> The baseline, to use "Plasma" as the brand, and only refer to the version as
> a technicality should of course stay the same.
> 
> Why do I think 5 is better than 2014.6, or <year>.<month of release>?
> 
> - It communicates continuity: Plasma Next really is the continuation of 15+
> years of doing a desktop. It has our DNA all over it, and it's not a
> disconnected "today's thing". Especially to our existing userbase, and those
> just outside of it (other people known to Free desktops), this has a real
> meaning. It's something people love, and sometimes hate, and it's not a
> completely new thing. This is well in line with what we've been talking
> about all along for Plasma Next.
> 
> - It's trusted and proven: it works and will cause no problems with
> packaging, and comparing version number
> 
> - It solves a bunch of technical inconsistencies (plasmapkg2 vs kcmshell5 --
> why has one the 2 appended, the other 5?), library sonames are 5 as well.
> 
> - It indicates (like we did traditionally) that this is the 5th major
> version, building on a new Qt5, and Frameworks 5, we get to re-use that
> kind of consistency.
> 
> - To me, it feels just right. I know many others feel that 2014.6 is bad,
> and I've yet to hear somebody that really likes it (might be my limitation
> of course).
> 
> Now one of the reasons to not go for Plasma 5 was that "people would say
> that's KDE5, and we don't want that". To be honest, I stopped caring about
> that, if people want to call it KDE5, so be it, we'll call it Plasma 5 and
> do that consistently, as long as people understand what's talked about --
> cool.
> 
> We won't convince people to stop calling it "KDE 5" by introducing an
> awkward versioning scheme, but we can do that by properly adjusting our
> communication towards that. The distinction between Platform, Workspaces
> and Applications is more clear with our separated release cycles anyway,
> and perception of that will just make this topic easier.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Take to kde-promo for further discussion

A big +1 to all of the above.

To me going with 2014.6 always felt like a compromise that few (if any) really 
like... IMO year.month doesn't add anything valuable in terms of branding, and 
it suggests a loss of continuity at a time where we should be comunicating 
that this is not a revolutionary change like KDE3->4.

Cheers,
-- 
Teo Mrnjavac
http://teom.org | teo at kde.org