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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] nepomuk / baloo naming implications
From:       Àlex Fiestas <afiestas () kde ! org>
Date:       2014-02-19 4:56:25
Message-ID: 2734416.2foMERSWVN () minibad
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On Wednesday 19 February 2014 02:04:51 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hi...
> 
> as the other thread is a bit spread out in terms of topoic, i thought i'd
> start afresh and try to collect the implications in one exhaustive list
> (it's long .. sorry :/)
> 
> == This is a journey ==
> 
> This will take a long time to communicate, no matter what happens: name
> change or not. I expect 6 months of consistent messaging is a bare minimum,
> and it will likely take longer. This is not a one-time communication
> question, but something that sets the tone for a 6 month trek, and which
> will easily have implications for the next 3+ years.
No it is not. We have been trying to hide Nepomuk for the last 2 years, up to 
some extend we have succeed on it specially for the users that have started 
using us around the 4.10 to 4.12 releases.

Why do we need to do any communication about something we have established 
many times (including in the previous thread) that is something technical? In 
any case it should be communicated to developers.
> == Established investment nepomuk ==
> 
> While we've tried to keep Nepomuk out of the default UI as much as possible,
> it still shows up in places. It is also required for troubleshooting, and
> as such exists on our support wikis. We have recognized visual identity
> components (the nepomuk logo icon) that have been more or less visible in
> Plasma for some time.
Which as stated in the previous thread bring good and bad things.

> Being able to attach the "bigger, better, faster" story of Baloo to Nepomuk
> is an easier story to tell than having to explain why Baloo replaces
> Nepomuk. It also allows us to preserve the above investments already made.
Nepomuk 2 is way bigger, better, faster than Nepomuk 1, you have to try it!
Baloo is way bigger, better, faster than Nepomuk! you have to try it!

As for explaining why we are replacing it, the reasons we should explain 
change depending the target audience.
Simplistic:
	It was impossible to reach further improvements with Nepomuk so we have to 
iterate and come out with something new.
Complex:
	All the techy stuff you want to put here,
> == Existing "common knowledge" of what Nepomuk is ==
> 
> The core Free software user community knows what Nepomuk is and does: file
> indexing and desktop search. This is not actually accurate, but it is the
> prevailing common understanding of it since that is what people have
> experienced with it. Usage by Akonadi or Plasma Active is not well known;
> some even confuse KRunner with Nepomuk since they use KRunner to search for
> things (!)
Sorry but this paragraph contains a lot of subjective information, including a 
definition that will be different on each of us: "The core Free software user 
community". We need better tools to be able to work on these things.

> IOW, people have a vague understanding of what Nepomuk does. If the details
> under the hood change, it really doesn't matter. Risk of confusion because
> the implementation details change but the name stays the same, therefore,
> is low.
+10 to this.
> We benefit by not having to re-explain what it is Nepomuk did and Baloo does
> now.
This is a matter of words, the same way you could explain what are the 
differences between Baloo and Nepomuk you can explain what are the differences 
between Nepomuk 1 and 2. 
So you can have the same problem both ways, it is  matter of what words we 
choose.
> In fact, as Carl pointed out: it is really hard to introduce Baloo
> without talking about Nepomuk .. which says a lot.
Because we are replacing it, I think this is common sense (maybe I'm missing 
something?).
> == API change ==
> 
> Some have noted that there has been significant API changes. This is true ..
> except for the widgets. Keeping the name makes that part of the story
> easier to communicate, so the question is whether it is significantly
> easier to communicate an API change with a new name.
> 
> If we look at things like Perl 6, Python 3 or Qt4 (or Qt2), or frameworks
> like node.js as it evolved: API changes are part of life. Developers choose
> a framework based on what it does ("does this open zip files? ‘cause I need
> to open zip files"), maturity, commitment by the team behind it and
> quality.
> 
> Given people know what Nepomuk does, keeping the name is a win there.
There are very few people in our community that know what Nepomuk technically 
does (I'm not included). If you are referring to a high level view of things 
then there will be many misconceptions since Baloo is specifically not doing 
some of the things Nepomuk was used for, like being a storage.

So, we will have to call this Nepomuk2 and explain all the things we no longer 
do which for developers is confusing and misleading.
 
> == The Quality Hump ==
> 
> This is an issue from both the end user and developer perspective.
> 
> Nepomuk has a relatively poor reputation (fairly or not). Keeping the name
> "Nepomuk" therefore carries some of this negativity. In the "keep the name"
> situation we then have the job of making the case for why/how the current
> work has improved .. well .. anything.
> 
> If we change the name, we need to still explain why/how the current work has
> improved anything. We also need to explain why Nepomuk was entirely
> abandoned. Which also implies "why we stuck with it for so long even though
> it needs abandoning".
I completely agree, and that is why we should not communicate all this in the 
announcement, the people that actually care will look at 
techbase/mailist/code/planet.kde.org where they will find good information of 
all the why's and how's and...

Again (sorry for repeating this so many times, but I think it is important) we 
need to know our demographic and our target audience.

> So changing the name doesn't save us much work at all; it may even create
> *more* work. The current article has an entire section called "Why change
> Nepomuk?" That entire section can pretty much be scrapped if the name is
> kept. It can be recycled into a "how this new version is better" and merged
> with the content currently under "About Baloo"
Which will result in the same amount of work (if not more since the article is 
already written) :p
> == Deprecation story ==
> 
> Saying "The Nepomuk project is officially deprecated" is pretty harsh
> sounding. It leaves an immediate question: 'what to move to if I'm using
> Nepomuk now?' On the other hand, people are quite used to old versions
> being deprecated (that's almost axiomatic). Keeping the name makes the
> migration path a lot more obvious while sounding a lot less like we're
> abandoning things and more like we're evolving things.
I agree, and again that's why I will remove relevance to this change and avoid 
having a dot article explaining something that should be hidden to the user.
> == Migration Story ==
> 
> Keeping the name also softens the migration story. Compare:
> 
> "Nepomuk and Baloo can coexist without issues. However, it is not optimal to
> run both of them on the same system. They both would be indexing files,
> emails and other data, duplicating functions, taxing the system
> unnecessarily, populating and synchronizing their databases."
> 
> with:
> 
> "Nepomuk 1 and 2 can coexist without issues, however it is not recommended
> to run both on the same system. Doing so would result in indexing all
> files, emails and other data twice, duplicating functions and taxing the
> system unnecessarily due to populating and synchronizing two separate
> databases."
> 
> or
> 
> "KDE Applications and Platform 4.13 will not ship with Nepomuk based search
> integrated. Nepomuk will still be available for distributions to ship as a
> separate component, but it is recommended that users who depend on
> applications requiring the old version of Nepomuk to hold off upgrading to
> Platform 4.13 until these applications have been ported. Linux distributions
> will most likely take care of this, ensuring that if any component needs
> Nepomuk it will be installed and otherwise, Baloo will be providing the
> search and storage capabilities."
> 
> with
> 
> "KDE Platform 4.13 will ship with Nepomuk 2 integration only. Likewise, KDE
> Applications 4.13 has also been upgraded to use Nepomuk 2 exclusively. This
> covers the majority of Nepomuk applications most people use. However, those
> relying on applications which have not yet been ported to Nepomuk 2 are
> strongly recommended to stay with KDE Platform 4.12 until those applications
> are ported."
> 
I'm not a native speaker, but your paragraph can be easily adapted to the 
renaming, making it sound as easy and professional:

"KDE Platform 4.13 will ship with Baloo integration only. Likewise, KDE 
Applications 4.13 has also been upgraded to use Baloo exclusively. This covers 
the majority of applications most people use. However, those making a lot of 
use of Nepomuk are recommended to stay in KDE Platform 4.12 until everything 
has been ported.

So for the second time, it is a matter of how we use words, and so far all the 
good words you can use with Nepomuk1/2 you can use as well with the renaming.

> == Possible post-baloo name churn ==
> 
> From the "pessimists" department: *if* Baloo were not to work out as we want
> and ends up being replaced / augmented with something else in the next
> years, we'll have this whole name change issue all over again .. and then
> it would be 3 name changes for the same thing.
> 
> (Which reminds me of Kat and Tenor :)
> 
> This will lead to KDE looking like it can't figure out what it is doing ...
> sort of like the Linux middleware name churn which certainly hasn't helped
> their cause in getting people to adopt new iterations without screaming
> bloody murder (and forking in some cases)
This part about the middle ware is quite unfair imo, and  I deal with them 
everyday... But lets not offtopic the thread.

Cheers.


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