[kde-ev-marketing] the "gamma" proposal - details that need working out

[jos poortvliet]

Op Saturday 14 July 2007, schreef Troy Unrau:
> On 10/07/07, Thiago Macieira <thiago at kde.org> wrote:
> > Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > >the aim is to create a 4.0 release in october (or whenever it is
> > >deemed "ready") without an official "to the rest of the world"
> > > announcement. this allows us to push 4.0 out to the community -and-
> > > create a media event on a day we can count on (e.g. past the day of
> > > scheduled release)
> >
> > I thought that was the plan all along. Why are we arguing about it then?
> >
> > Release Team gets code ready and tells Marketing Team: "here, release it
> > when you find the best time for it".
>
> Yeah, more or less.  The only difference is that between the scheduled
> release and the actual party is like three months, so we were assuming
> that there would be substantial improvements to the code in those
> months, especially the translations.  But we still wanted that release
> announcement to be about 4.0.0, and the way to do that was to shift
> all the release numbers down by one.  The better solution, as
> suggested by a few others, is to simply use release names.
>
> Anyway, the marketing stuff comes below:
>
> This whole debate can be solved if we move to using release names
> rather than numbers. In that event we can totally pull the wool over
> the eyes of the press. eg: Windows XP == NT 5.1, but still had a big
> impact.  OS X is releasing 10.5 shortly, but by giving it a name and
> burying the release number, it seems fresh and new.  After monitoring
> this discussion, I now believe that moving to named releases would
> solve our problems without messing with the current release cycle or
> structure.  Then everyone is happy, even Sebas. :)
>
> So, we then need names that reflect the state of 4.0 for both the
> "4.0.0" October release, and our slightly more
> polished/translated/fixed "4.0.1" release in January which would be
> used for the announcement.
>
> <em>Since a number of the marketing types are trying to steal and
> repurpose the word "gearhead" to mean "person involved or interested
> in KDE", I believe we could reasonably call 4.0.0 in October as "KDE 4
> Gearhead Edition".  Developers and early adopters would all likely be
> classified as gearheads, at least by the definition we've been using
> up until this point.
>
> Then in late January we can call 4.0.1 as "KDE Fourth Gear Edition" or
> such (inspired by a comment on one of ade's KDE T-shirt blog posts).
> Which is professional sounding enough to announce in Silicon Valley
> while giving it a strong KDE flavour and effectively disguising from
> the fact that it's actually 4.0.1 under the hood.</em>
>
> Additionally, since our main press event is in California (there will
> be other concurrent, community oriented events happening elsewhere of
> course), the terminology of Fourth Gear will be a hit.  For those
> unaware, Fourth Gear here is generally considered to be the gear you
> hit on the freeway when you want to pass somebody.  If we play this up
> properly, we can use this as the release where we are 'passing Gnome'
> or 'passing OS X' or such to go to the front of the pack. (Your
> thoughts on this name Aaron? since you're presenting speaking at this
> announcement...)
>
> Unless someone has a serious and legitimate objection to this (and not
> just bikeshedding on the names), I suggest that we make this our
> official course of action.
>
> We will be nailing down the exact date (of the announcement) this
> upcoming Thursday on a conference call between the event planners.
> Once that date is set (likely last week of january, or even February
> 1st), it cannot slip since we'll be booking hotels, journalists will
> be invited who will need to book flights, and so forth.  "KDE 4
> Gearhead Edition" (4.0.0) can slip a little if the release team needs
> more time (up to three months I guess) and it won't bother our
> announcement in January.
>
> Cheers

I agree, but I sure do want to bikeshed on the name. gearhead - isn't that a 
bit childish? The second name is reasonable, but the first... I'm not sure, 
maybe others can respond?

-- 
Disclaimer:

Alles wat ik doe denk en zeg is gebaseerd op het wereldbeeld wat ik nu heb. 
Ik ben niet verantwoordelijk voor wijzigingen van de wereld, of het beeld wat 
ik daarvan heb, noch voor de daaruit voortvloeiende gedragingen van mezelf. 
Alles wat ik zeg is aardig bedoeld, tenzij expliciet vermeld.

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

   A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation
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