From kde-promo Tue Jan 01 18:07:35 2002 From: Jono Bacon Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 18:07:35 +0000 To: kde-promo Subject: Re: [kde-promo] Re: as far as theKompany is concerned X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-promo&m=101251368223576 Hi all, I though I would add my 0.02c on this whole discussion. I find this an interesting discussion as I am a full supporter and contributor to KDE and I have discussed vaious things in the past with Shawn also. I have expressed enthusiasm to Shawn and others about theKompany, and even had Shawn send me promo material for me to take to the Linux expo in London when I run the KDE booth to show commercial software build for KDE. I find this whole situation a little unnerving to be honest as I count Nav, Dre and Shawn; as well as all other KDE folk as friends. I don't like to see this in-fighting within our community, and I count Shawn as much as a KDE community figure as any as he has indeed contributed to KDE. Some discussion in this thread has been around the switch from KDE to Qt with some theKompany apps. I think we need to look at a number of issues here: - Developing commercial software for one platform instead of three does *not* make commercial sense - I would prefer to see KDE software by far, but I can understand the reasoning here. - Shawn, if you switch an app from a KDE to Qt app, it *does* lose functionality in a direct and indirect way. David covered some of these elements. - We should all take a look at both sides of this discussion. theKompany are indeed bringing users to KDE even by releasing Qt software. The problem is that this influx of users are not true KDE users but simply use KDE as a shell - I would like to see real dedicated commercial KDE software. The side of discussion is the positioning of theKompany and PR which includes references to the dot. Well, I think theKompany have benefitted greatly from PR from the dot and others (and I count myself as one of these). I have personally advocated theKompany as a good company developing software, and I have to admit that when I learned of the switch from KDE to Qt apps, I did find my enthusiasm lag a little as I felt that we were no longer going to have a true commercial side of KDE application development - I know Shawn questions this with regard to functionality, but I do believe there are very real issues here too. I don't find this whole discussion of the article from Shawn on the dot involving dirty deeds too nice. I think these issues need to be resolved in private. The thing about this whole situation is that theKompany can do great things for KDE, and KDE can do great things for theKompany. I think some KDE folk need to realise that theKompany need to make money and this can involve tough decisions to make which may not be likable to some, but I think Shawn and theKompany need to realise that you can't just go online and moan at your customers and appear to take things personally - these are potential customers and the minute your reputation starts going belly up, things can be tough to resolve. I am not in a position to decide for theKompany or KDE, but I think we all need to shake hands and sort things out. It would be nice if Shawn could publish this article he is discussing - I will host it somewhere if no-one else, and maybe Shawn can discuss witht he KDE community about increasing KDE support in theKompany products. Remember that we are all forging the same goal but with differing circumstances. Cheers, Jono ===== -- Jono Bacon - [vmlinuz] - jono@kde.org KDE/Qt Developer __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ This message is from the kde-promo mailing list. Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.