'Re: [kde-promo] "A finer grained division of possible target'

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List: kde-promo
Subject: Re: [kde-promo] "A finer grained division of possible target
From: Mihnea Capraru <mihnea_capraru () yahoo ! de>
Date: 2005-11-21 22:19:03
Message-ID: 20051121221903.12064.qmail () web26305 ! mail ! ukl ! yahoo ! com
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Tom Chance <tom@acrewoods.net> schrieb: On Monday 21 Nov 2005 16:43, Aaron J. Seigo \
wrote:
> On Monday 21 November 2005 03:07, Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> > Which will by the way have deep impact on our marketing strategies. We
> > can advertise loose KDE applications and gradually convert people to
> > using KDE as soon as apps are available for win32. It opens a big new
> > target group which is yet quite hard to reach.
> 
> be careful with this. wait to see the quality, support and utility of KDE
> apps ported to win32 before thinking of such things. and even if they are
> great, user uptake will most likely be small. Firefox has made a 10% run,
> and it is a native windows app first and foremost; OpenOffice has yet to
> make anywhere near that much dent and it too was a win32 app first and
> foremost.
> 
> moreover, neither Firefox nor OpenOffice has led to any significant
> movement to open source desktops. we can expect the same or similar with
> win32 KDE apps. therefore the questions begs: can we support KDE libs if
> the usage of them is primarily individual apps on win32?
> 
> the target group it actually opens up for us is developers. these are
> people who are targetting win32, but whom we can now introduce to
> technologies and get writing apps that are easily ported to open source
> OSes. there is a stupid number of these people out there, and a great
> hunger for development tools. this will enable us to grow our stable of
> native applications.
> 
> we _really_ need to think more strategically on this matter.

Absolutely. A lot of this boils down to our individual reasons for promoting 
KDE. Aaron seems to sit in the middle on this and advocates (IMO sensibly) a 
fairly popular aim for KDE. I'm much more interested in promoting freedom 
than promoting any particular KDE applications. Others would probably love to 
encourage people to try Krita as cheap and fairly useful paint application.

 In order to promote software freedom one needs to persuade people that thi possible \
at all. Just talking about freedom will make it sound utopian. Showing people \
something that works acts as a definitive proof of possibility.  
 Besides, I'm afraid that epople need to be constantly educated in the spirit of \
freedom - this means that people tend to really not care about freedom. This is \
shocking to the political activist, as socking as their not caring about source codes \
can be to the coder.  
 While making everybody read source codes is not a sensible goal, making many people \
interested in freedom is one of the highest goals imaginable. But we need to give \
them reasons to be free. I know this sounds shocking, but they really won't accept \
freedom without some collateral gain. They will always be willing to use MS Office, \
as long as it provides an extra level of comfort and they can spare the money. No \
matter whether it's free or not.  
 Which brings me to my point: it's not freedom that will draw people to KDE, it's KDE \
that will draw people to freedom.  
 As for the individual reasons of promoting KDE, I am confident that those who \
promote it because it's good are perfectly compatible with  those who promote it \
because it's free.  
 I for one would like to promote it for both reasons, but especially for the second. \
As a matter of fact, I consider Sun's Java implementation a mindblowingly good piece \
of software, and I sometimes take great pleasure in reding through it's source codes \
(one is allowed to do that), but I wouldn't actively promote it. Good is not enough \
for this.  
 I like the freedom of KDE, in a much broader sense than just software freedom. I \
might be interested in doing an articel on this, but I'm not doing it now on the \
ailing list, this would make it ephemeral :)  
Also bear in mind that many of the key strengths we repeatedly promote for KDE 
probably won't translate across to KDE apps running in Windows: Integration 
with the desktop and other applications won't be there; they probably won't 
more powerful nor of a higher quality than competing applications on the same 
platform; they certainly won't excite home users who already use lots of 
shareware and warez.

A tricky tightrope for us to walk...

 I completely agree with this. I see great problems with promoting KDE apps to \
Windows users (except those that would be willing to migrate)  
 However I do think that something must be done about this, I mean they should \
somehow get promoted to end users on Windows too, and they should bear prominent \
references to the KDE brand. When (and if) the great migration starts, the brand will \
be known to them. How many newbies choose Firefox over Konqueror just because they \
know it from Windows?  
Regards,
Tom

Mihnea

---------------------------------
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[Attachment #5 (text/html)]

<div id="RTEContent"> Tom Chance &lt;tom@acrewoods.net&gt; \
schrieb:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); \
margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> On Monday 21 Nov 2005 16:43, Aaron J. Seigo \
wrote: &gt; On Monday 21 November 2005 03:07, Sebastian Kügler wrote: &gt; &gt; \
Which will by the way have deep impact on our marketing strategies. We &gt; &gt; \
can advertise loose KDE applications and gradually convert people to &gt; &gt; \
using KDE as soon as apps are available for win32. It opens a big new &gt; &gt; \
target group which is yet quite hard to reach. &gt; &gt; be careful with this. \
wait to see the quality, support and utility of KDE &gt; apps ported to win32 \
before thinking of such things. and even if they are &gt; great, user uptake will \
most likely be small. Firefox has made a 10% run, &gt; and it is a native windows \
app first and foremost; OpenOffice has yet to &gt; make anywhere near that much \
dent and it too was a win32 app first and &gt; foremost. &gt; &gt; moreover, \
neither Firefox nor OpenOffice has led to any significant &gt; movement to open \
source desktops. we can expect the same or similar with &gt; win32 KDE apps. \
therefore the questions begs: can we support KDE libs if &gt; the usage of them is \
primarily individual apps on win32? &gt; &gt; the target group it actually \
opens up for us is developers. these are &gt; people who are targetting win32, but \
whom we can now introduce to &gt; technologies and get writing apps that are \
easily ported to open source &gt; OSes. there is a stupid number of these people \
out there, and a great &gt; hunger for development tools. this will enable us to \
grow our stable of &gt; native applications. &gt; &gt; we _really_ need to \
think more strategically on this matter. Absolutely. A lot of this boils down \
to our individual reasons for promoting KDE. Aaron seems to sit in the middle on \
this and advocates (IMO sensibly) a fairly popular aim for KDE. I'm much more \
interested in promoting freedom than promoting any particular KDE applications. \
Others would probably love to encourage people to try Krita as cheap and fairly \
useful paint application. In order to promote software freedom one \
needs to persuade people that thi possible at all. Just talking about freedom will \
make it sound utopian. Showing people something that works acts as a definitive proof \
of possibility. Besides, I'm afraid that epople need to be constantly \
educated in the spirit of freedom - this means that people tend to really not care \
about freedom. This is shocking to the political activist, as socking as their not \
caring about source codes can be to the coder. While making everybody read \
source codes is not a sensible goal, making many people interested in freedom is one \
of the highest goals imaginable. But we need to give them reasons to be free. I know \
this sounds shocking, but they really won't accept freedom without some collateral \
gain. They will always be willing to use MS Office, as long as it provides an extra \
level of comfort and they can spare the money. No matter whether it's free or \
not. Which brings me to my point: it's not freedom that will draw people \
to KDE, it's KDE that will draw people to freedom. As for the individual \
reasons of promoting KDE, I am confident that those who promote it because it's good \
are perfectly compatible with&nbsp; those who promote it because it's free. \
 I for one would like to promote it for both reasons, but especially for the \
second. As a matter of fact, I consider Sun's Java implementation a mindblowingly \
good piece of software, and I sometimes take great pleasure in reding through it's \
source codes (one is allowed to do that), but I wouldn't actively promote it. Good is \
not enough for this. I like the freedom of KDE, in a much broader sense \
than just software freedom. I might be interested in doing an articel on this, but \
I'm not doing it now on the ailing list, this would make it ephemeral :) Also \
bear in mind that many of the key strengths we repeatedly promote for KDE \
 probably won't translate across to KDE apps running in Windows: Integration \
 with the desktop and other applications won't be there; they probably won't \
 more powerful nor of a higher quality than competing applications on the same \
 platform; they certainly won't excite home users who already use lots of \
 shareware and warez. A tricky tightrope for us to walk... I \
completely agree with this. I see great problems with promoting KDE apps to Windows \
users (except those that would be willing to migrate) However I do think \
that something must be done about this, I mean they should somehow get promoted to \
end users on Windows too, and they should bear prominent references to the KDE \
brand. When (and if) the great migration starts, the brand will be known to them. How \
many newbies choose Firefox over Konqueror just because they know it from \
Windows? Regards, Tom </blockquote>Mihnea </div> <hr \
size=1>Gesendet von <a href="http://de.mail.yahoo.com" target=_new>Yahoo! Mail</a> - \
Jetzt mit 1GB kostenlosem Speicher

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