A Plasma Vision draft

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Montag, 4. April 2016 15:04:30 CEST Jonathan Riddell wrote:

> I'm not convinced performant is a word although it seems to be used
> for computer jargon
> 
> http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38945/what-is-wrong-with-the-word
> -performant

It is clearly jargon. As Jens already said, the question is: Can we afford the 
jargon or not? We think we can, but there are certainly also good arguments 
against it.

> The main part which surprises me is the user profile for professional
> users. I guess you've thought about who that includes and who it
> excludes?  How does it differentiate us from the competition?

By definition, we don't exclude anybody. Anybody _can_ use Plasma, for whatever 
they want. The focus on professional users (using Merriam-Webster's first 
simple definition of professional as "relating to a job that requires special 
education, training, or skill") gives us the advantage of making clear that 
Plasma is for getting a job done. That doesn't mean it cannot be used for 
recreational tasks, but the focus is on productivity.

For example, any office suite I know is clearly made for professional use, but 
that doesn't keep people from using them at home. Yet if someone asks for a 
feature in an office suite that only makes sense in a recreational context, they 
will probably have a hard time convincing office suite makers to put significant 
effort into it, and I think that's a good thing.

We want the same for Plasma. When someone asks us to implement feature X, we 
should ask back "Please explain how this feature makes you more productive", 
and if all they can come up with is "But I like it that way!", we can point to 
our vision and say "Sorry, not our focus".

How does it differentiate us from the competition? In the desktop area maybe 
not so much (since most desktops seem to be geared towards professional 
productivity), but most mobile operating systems appear to be foremost 
environments for media consumption, and became productive tools more or less 
by accident. We can focus on productivity right from the start (Plasma Active 
did a lot in that direction, for example), allowing us to occupy a "niche" 
more easily (yes, Blackberry tries that, too, but due to their size, they need 
a far bigger niche to thrive in than we do).

Hope that helps,
Thomas