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List: kde-promo
Subject: Re: [kde-promo] aKademy 2008 Press Release Kit
From: "Jos Poortvliet" <jospoortvliet () gmail ! com>
Date: 2008-03-14 18:18:09
Message-ID: 5c77e14b0803141118t1fee9a1fre39ae7271d9f3768 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Vlad Blanton <vblanton@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Kde Promoers,
>
> Last year for aKademy 2007 I (with the help of Wendy and Aaron) created
> the pdf press kit.
>
> http://akademy2007.kde.org/press/aKademy-2007-pressbrochure.pdf
>
> Though I was satisfied with the previous years press kit, I would be
> delighted to create an even better one this year. I already have ideas
> on how to improve it -- particularly to make it a high quality PDF
> following contemporary standards and to make sure that it is as
> re-usable as possible for the future. Has anyone began working on it
> yet? If not, I'll jump on it nice and early to make the process as
> stress free as possible.
+1
You should imho use the stuff written for the KDE 4 release event by
Troy and myself... See attached.
>
> to KDE 4.1,
>
> Vladislav Blanton
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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</style> </head> <body revision="ddwz6w3d_26cf2s7z:119"> <h1>
Write about KDE
</h1>
<p>
The purpose of this page is to help anyone who wants to write about KDE, be it
for a blog or a magazine. We will give you some general tips and ideas, show
you how to find information and help you contact the community with questions.
</p>
<h2>
General tips<br>
</h2>
Free Software has different ideals and principles guiding it than proprietary
software. The following tips can help you write a better and more complete
article by pointing out the differences in culture between proprietary and free
software communities.<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>
<i>Search out the defining features, rather than comparing to commercial
products.</i> Many people in the commercial world view open source projects
exclusively as replacements for their Windows equivalents. While some
projects exist that do precisely this, the vast majority have unique
features that help to identify the program. Focusing on what makes the
program unique will produce a better response.<br>
</li>
<li>
<i>Don't hesitate to contact the program developers directly.</i> Direct
contact often produces the best answers. Usually programs will have an
"About" screen (in KDE, it's under the help menu) that lists the contact
information for the programmers that were actually involved in the creation
of that software. Most programmers are very happy to answer press inquiries,
or will redirect your questions to someone who can better deal with any
specific topic.
</li>
<li>
<i>Informal language is best. </i>Most open source programmers do not have a
degree in business, journalism, etc. and will respond faster and with more
details if they are approached as though the interview was taking place in a
coffee house. If you ask formal questions, do not be put off by the informal
response you may get in return. Ask for definitions of any jargon that you
do not understand as some words, especially the word "Hacker", have very
different meaning in the open source context.
</li>
<li>
<i>Don't expect immediate responses.</i> Many open source programmers are
coding in their spare time and work elsewhere to pay the bills. They will
usually respond, but you need to give them time.
</li>
<li>
<i>Discover people's motivations.</i> While some people work on free
software for altruistic reasons, you will find that many do not. Many people
are paid by a company to implement features that this company would find
useful. Others simply find it an enjoyable hobby, and like being a part of
the community. A person's motivation will often dictate what sort of
programming they will do. If you discover what motivates a person or
project, you will better understand their goals, which isn't always to
compete with commercial software offerings...
</li>
<li>
<i>Play up collaboration, not division.</i> While arguments between Linus
Torvalds and Sun's CEO may make the rounds in popular press, cooperation is
the prevalent mode of operation within the open source world. Free software
projects cover a wide range of applications, from web servers to games, and
quite often there is more than one product being developed under so called
'co-opetition'. Since the source code is available, projects readily and
freely borrow ideas from one another, and even though the implementation
details may be different, standards are developed for communications, data
formats, and so forth. Open source projects are often stricter adherents to
interoperability standards than their commercial counterparts.
</li>
<br>
</ul>
<h2>
Finding information.
</h2>
<p>
As most work in KDE is done over the Internet, 95% of the information can be
found there as well. But much of this information is hidden away in
mailing-lists, chat channels and blogs. It is hard to extract information out
of those in an efficient way, so we will give you a few pointers on how to
find information about a topic efficiently.
</p>
<h3>
The KDE site
</h3>
<p>
The first source of information about KDE and the project can be found on the
<a href=http://www.kde.org/ title="KDE website">KDE website</a> [1].
<a href=http://kde.org/whatiskde/>What is KDE</a> [2] and
<a href=http://kde.org/info/>general information about KDE</a> [3] are of most
interest. Of course, the <a href=http://www.fsf.org/>site of the Free Software
Foundation</a> [4] and the <a href=http://www.gnu.org>GNU project</a> [5] can
give you more information on our roots and the principles of Free Software.
Don't skip the <a href=http://www.gnu.org/philosophy>philosophy section</a>
[6]! If you want to read more about the way Free Software works and is being
developed compared to proprietary software, this essay by Eric S. Raymond is
worth a read:
<a href=http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ \
id=v6sm title="The Cathedral and the Bazaar">The Cathedral and the Bazaar [7].</a>
</p>
<h3>
Release announcements
</h3>
Often, the
<a href=http://www.kde.org/announcements/ id=s4xq title="release \
announcements">release announcements</a> [8] come with a nice, graphical overview of \
what's new. Based on this, one can quickly write an interesting piece showcasing the \
newest and greatest features in KDE.<br>
<h3>
Websites
</h3>
<p>
Most individual KDE sub-projects have their own website under the
<a href=http://www.kde.org/>kde.org</a> [9] umbrella. For example, the
educational project can be found on
<a href=http://edu.kde.org/>edu.kde.org</a> [10]. These sites are aggregated
on the <a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Projects>Projects page</a> [11]. It is
a good place to start and find the basic information, but be aware that it can
be seriously outdated!<br>
</p>
<h3>
Techbase
</h3>
<p>
Much more technical information can be found on the
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/>techbase site</a> [12]. KDE gathers all
relevant developer information here. Interesting pages can be:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Development frameworks in KDE 4:
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE4>Architecture/KDE4</a>
[13]
</li>
<li>
Release schedulers and feature plans:
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules>Schedules</a> [14]
</li>
<li>
Overview of the KDE projects:
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Projects>Projects</a> [15]
</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<h3>
The KDE news site
</h3>
<p>
A premier source off information about KDE is the KDE news site,
<a href=http://dot.kde.org/>the Dot</a> [16]. It offers
<a href=http://dot.kde.org/searchForm>search functionality</a> [17], and we
can give a recommendation: The
<a href=http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/dot?as_q=road+to+kde&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=100>'Road
to KDE 4'</a> [18] series by Troy Unrau are an excellent starting point on the
many new technologies available in KDE 4. Further, just searching for the
technology you are looking for, like 'Decibel' will help you find what you are
looking for.
</p>
<h3>
People
</h3>
<p>
For information about the KDE developers, we recommend
<a href=http://www.behindkde.org/>People behind KDE</a> [19]. It offers
interviews with many KDE developers. Further, you can find their blogs mostly
on the <a href=http://planetkde.org/>Planet</a> [20]. Look under subscriptions
for individual feeds.
</p>
<h3>
Commit Digest
</h3>
<p>
The <a href=http://www.commit-digest.org/>Commit Digest</a> [21] is a very
valuable source of more detailed information, but it can be hard to extract
due to the sheer amount of information. A good tip is to quickly read the
'This Week' section at the top to get a quick overview of "what's hot".
Further, you can use the search functionality in your web-browser...
</p>
<h3>
Mailing-list Archives
</h3>
<p>
The most detailed information generally available online is to be found in the
mailing-list archives of the several KDE projects. Links to these
mailing-lists can be found on their respective websites (see the
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Projects>Projects</a> [22] site).
</p>
<p>
An example of the edu mailing-list archives can be found
<a href=http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-edu/>here</a> [23]. Using the search
functionality is often required to find anything useful in a decent amount of
time!
</p>
<h3>
Contacting the community
</h3>
<p>
If you want to have the latest information, or verify what you're writing, the
best place to ask is on the
<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailinglist>mailing-list</a> [24] or the
<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat>IRC channels</a>
[25]. You can subscribe to the mailing-list (but don't have to, just be sure
to mention it if you're not so they include you personally in the replies),
information about this can be found on the individual
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Projects>projects'</a> [26] websites. The same
goes for IRC, the channel-names and server information.
</p>
<p>
If you want to get in contact with individual developers, you can send them an
email. Names can often be found on the
<a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Projects>Project</a> [11] website or on
<a href=http://www.behindkde.org/>People behind KDE</a> [19], and google-ing
often brings up their email address (tip: Google the name + "KDE").
</p>
<br>
<p>
</p>
<h2>
Conclusion
</h2>
<p>
If you want to write about KDE, it is often advisable to find a specific
source of interest, as the whole of KDE is a lot to write about. Picking one
of the technologies behind KDE and writing an article about them is made easy
by the huge amount of information available online. The above guide can help
you quickly gather the basic information, and it tells you where you can find
or ask about the current status.
</p>
<ul>
<br>
</ul>
<br>
Written by Troy Unrau and Jos Poortvliet<br>
<br>
Links<br>
[1] http://www.kde.org/<br>
[2] http://kde.org/whatiskde/<br>
[3] http://kde.org/info/<br>
[4] http://www.fsf.org/<br>
[5] http://www.gnu.org/<br>
[6] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy<br>
[7] http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/<br>
[8] http://www.kde.org/announcements/<br>
[9] http://www.kde.org/<br>
[10] http://edu.kde.org/<br>
[11] http://techbase.kde.org/Projects<br>
[12] http://techbase.kde.org/<br>
[13] http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE4<br>
[14] http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules<br>
[15] http://techbase.kde.org/Projects<br>
[16] http://dot.kde.org/<br>
[17] http://dot.kde.org/searchForm<br>
[18]
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/dot?as_q=road+to+kde&amp;as_epq=&amp;as_oq=&amp;as_eq=&amp;num=100<br>
[19] http://www.behindkde.org/<br>
[20] http://planetkde.org/<br>
[21] http://www.commit-digest.org/<br>
[22] http://techbase.kde.org/Projects<br>
[23] http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-edu/<br>
[24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailinglist<br>
[25] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat<br>
<br></body>
</html>
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