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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Nepomuk in 4.13 and beyond
From:       Till Adam <adam () kde ! org>
Date:       2013-12-19 8:14:42
Message-ID: 3720921.FYnP7VDsam () celeron-400
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On Thursday, December 19, 2013 02:27:43 AM Mark Gaiser wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 11:07 PM, Jos Poortvliet
> 
> <jospoortvliet@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 17 December 2013 12:22:26 Todd wrote:
> >> On Dec 12, 2013 6:36 PM, "Vishesh Handa" <me@vhanda.in> wrote:
> >> > > i'll say it again here so that it is at least on record: i really
> >> 
> >> disagree
> >> 
> >> > > with renaming Nepomuk. call it Nepomuk 2 or whatever, but tossing
> >> > > aside
> >> > > name recognition and years of messaging is doing the promo teams a
> >> 
> >> massive
> >> 
> >> > > disservice.
> >> > > 
> >> > > i hope that Baloo remains a technology name well hidden from both
> >> > > users
> >> 
> >> and
> >> 
> >> > > developers.
> >> > 
> >> > It will remain hidden.
> >> 
> >> I am a bit confused by this. You say it will remain hidden, but the
> >> emails
> >> I am seeing are calling for the outright removal of Nepomuk api calls and
> >> replacing them with baloo API calls.  This does not seen very hidden from
> >> developers.
> >> 
> >> Further, you talk about disabling Nepomuk in system settings.  This does
> >> not seem very hidden from users.
> >> 
> >> So, although I cannot speak for him, I am not sure Aaron's branding
> >> concerns are being addressed.
> > 
> > In that regard - the promo team is also a bit uncertain on this. We
> > strongly advocated presenting Baloo as Nepomuk-next-gen, NOT a
> > replacement or a rewrite-from-scratch.
> > 
> > About the name - as Nepomuk also has its share of haters, I can't really
> > judge if a rename has a net positive- or negative marketing value so I
> > simply didn't and won't argue for or against it. Any real argument would
> > need market research - which we can't really do very reliably. Unless
> > somebody knows a web service which can judge the value of a word that
> > internet users seem to attach to it or something like that :D
> > 
> >> Now if this was keeping the Nepomuk namespace and billing baloo as a
> >> replacement for virtuoso, then I could see this as being hidden, even
> >> with
> >> substantial changes in how the APIs actually work.  But not when both
> >> APIs
> >> and user settings are being renamed.
> >> 
> >> If any news site catches wind of this, I don't see how they could present
> >> it as anything other than an outright abandonment of Nepomuk, and once
> >> that
> >> view gets spread around the web no amount of branding later will change
> >> it.
> > 
> > That we need to avoid. That is also why this mail was discussed with
> > marketing before it was send (heck, Vishesh and myself discussed this at
> > 
> > least a year ago already) and it is why it states:
> >> This is not a completely new project as large parts of Baloo code are
> >> derived from Nepomuk and therefore comes with years of testing and real
> >> world use.
> > 
> > Of course, this could be made more obvious and once we 'officially' say
> > something, we should take care with this. And we will.
> > 
> > That press can pick this up from here - is the price of doing things in
> > the
> > open...
> 
> I don't see an issue for "the marketing" folks.
> 
> Lets make a little comparison.
> KHTML comes to mind. Some company (apple in this case) came by, forked
> it and created the now quite awesome webkit. That in turn got forked
> to Blink by google. It's just the evolution of software. And now we're
> using webkit/blink in QML. Not KHTML.
> 
> Nepomuk was great in spirit, but started off with issues users
> experienced as annoying. So it was "forked" into a new project (Baloo)
> and now works a lot saner and faster. It might be "abandoning"
> nepomuk, but as far as i understand it, it's not abandoning the
> nepomuk ideas. Just another evolution.
> 
> Or this is how i see things in my simple mind :)
> 
> But there is one thing the marketing people could do here. If "a
> popular linux news site" picks this thread up the title will likely be
> "KDE drops Nepomuk" or something alike. That should be prevented.
> There should be a dot story outlining the evolution from Nepomuk to
> Baloo and the benefit the user will notice.
> 
> just my 5 cents.

It might help to get Sebastian Trueg to back it publically. Assuming he agrees 
with this direction, that is :). Failing that, stressing that this is being 
done by the very maintainers of nepomuk, evolving it, rather than forking it, 
might be best.

While I am personally quite excited about finally getting this important part 
of the PIM stack to the point where we can deliver on the potential of our 
work over the past years, I do worry about the perception impact this will 
have. I'd also be tempted to provide continuity and position Baloo as part of 
or an extension to Nepomuk as subsystem.

Till
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