Plasma 5?

[Jos Poortvliet]

On Monday 05 May 2014 19:25:51 Martin Graesslin wrote:
> On Monday 05 May 2014 17:56:04 Ivan ?uki? wrote:
> > Jens:
> > > the best option is to simply go with "Plasma by KDE"
> > 
> > and
> > 
> > > "So what version am I running?" is "Plasma 2", "Plasma 5",
> > 
> > +1
> > 
> > I don't mind the version 5.x (though, I didn't mind any of the proposals)
> > 
> > Wondering what is Martin's stance on this since the year.month was his
> > child.
> 
> oh well, as I'm addressed I'm going to answer.
> 
> As it's well known I dislike the 5 for two reasons:
> 
> 1. It will end in "Plasma" == "KDE". sebas's point to that is that he
> doesn't care, I understand that, but on the other hand I think it's a lost
> opportunity.
> 2. I'm afraid of people discarding the version because of fear of repeating
> 4.0.

Yeah. We once did the rebranding thing because there was confusion in our 
user base about what 'KDE' meant, which was hurting projects like Amarok and 
Krita (you mean you can run Krita outside of KDE? But you need KDE to run 
Amarok, right? I don't want all of KDE on my system just to run Kate...).

Of course, us being marketing noobs, we didn't do that rebranding very well, 
but history - let's not try to fix the past.

Technically, we've mostly solved this, and our application, library and 
desktop release schedules have now definitely diverged. But the confusion 
remains, for now. We CAN prevent this for the future. That's why I think it 
makes sense to go for Plasma 2 and start at 2.0... It is the 2nd incarnation 
of Plasma, after all. Of course there is more to Plasma then just plasma 
itself (KWin and all that) but this will certainly make it harder to call the 
entire thing 'KDE 5' for the press.

Of course today they call Applications 4.13 "KDE 4.13" and they are welcome 
to call Plasma 2.0 or Applications 5.0 or both 'KDE 5.0' but I doubt they can 
keep that up. By the end of the year, they would have announced, in (if the 
plans hold up) this order: KDE 5.0; KDE 5.0; KDE 5.1; KDE 4.14; KDE 5.2; KDE 
5.3; KDE 5.4; KDE 5.1; KDE 5.5; KDE 5.0; KDE 5.6.

If they're smart, they will just get with the change: Frameworks 5.0, Plasma 
2.0, Frameworks 5.1, Applications 4.14, Frameworks 5.2, Frameworks 5.3, 
Frameworks 5.4, Plasma 2.1, Frameworks 5.5, Applications 5.0, Frameworks 5.6.

Oh, and to Marco who noted:
> To me either of which wouldn't make much difference, it's true tough that
> looks less confusing if it has the same number as frameworks and Qt

That's not likely to happen at all, as Frameworks, Applications and Plasma 
will all be on different release schedules. I'd actually think it increases 
the confusion if all have a 5.x version number but they don't actually sync 
up in any way.

The question the user then has is: do I run KDE 5.1 (Plasma), 5.6 
(Frameworks) or 5.0 (Applications)?

It'd rather be that he/she runs Plasma 2.1, Frameworks 6 and Applications 5.0 
(yes I just said that the Frameworks should get rid of the 5 if they do 
indeed go for a monthly release cycle, just like Firefox, Chromium etc).