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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: why is there so little KDE PR ?
From:       Andreas Pour <pour () mieterra ! com>
Date:       2001-01-19 1:05:18
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Torsten Rahn wrote:
> 
> > I also think, as I have explained to Ralf, that tieing KDevelop releases to
> > KDE releases is bad for this purpose.  KDevelop is a major app onto itself
> > and can generate publicity and interest by its release.  To bundle it
> > together with the rest of KDE lessens its impact.  Of course it doesn't
> > have to be released far apart -- even 2-3 days is good; it makes KDE look
> > more productive, like more is getting done.
> 
> I disagree with you. Sorry, but right now our PR is very good IMO.
> Oh well, Gnome got more news: But have a look what they are about:

[ ... stuff about feel-good GNOME press omitted ... ]

I hate to say it, but this attitude is the biggest hurdle for KDE being very
successful.  If you do not understand marketing, then please just let others
concentrate on it instead of reacting negatively.  If you do understand
marketing, please explain, using marketing principles, why each of these news
items is not good for GNOME.

Yes, technically none of the news items you lambast are good.  In fact, as you
point out, in many cases it's bad news being trumpeted as good news.  But
that's what marketing is -- hype, spin, promotion.  And in the end marketing is
as, if not more, important than technical success in determining determines
market success.

OK, some of you will say you don't care about marketing success.  Fine, you
don't have to.  But does that mean you have to oppose those that do care, does
it?

I spend a good deal of time speaking with non-techie people, and a lot more of
them (at least in the US) are hearing about GNOME and don't know about KDE. 
Why?  B/c Gnome is in the news.

> 
> Besides that I also disagree that KDevelop should not be part of KDE 2.1.
> I think at this point of time it makes very much sense for many different
> reasons. It might lessen the "news-blurb"-impact but it is important for
> strategical reasons to release KDevelop together with KDE 2.1

Could you explain what those are?  Offlist is fine with me.

And I am not saying that KDevelop should be considered part of KDE 2.1.  What I
am saying it doesn't have to be released on the same day using the same press
release as KDE 2.1.  At least not all the time.  I can see for the 2.1 release
why it would, since it is being upgraded to use KDE 2.1.  What I suggest is
that the release cycles not be *forced* to coincide.  E.g., that kdelibs
release is held up b/c KDevelop is not ready, or vice versa.

Human perception is more influenced by quantity than quality.  It is a fact of
human social psychology that the more you hear of something, the more positive
you evaluate it.  You can make one press release announcing 100 really great
features of KDE -- but nobody will read the 100 great features, and soon they
will have forgotten about the press release.  But if you have 100 press
releases and people hear a new one every-day, they start to think, Wow, this
KDE stuff is really active and getting a lot of really cool stuff done.

> 
> And  "But there is no reason why Konqueror could not be released more often"
> is absolute nonsense as Konqueror *is* KDE2, as it is "just" a set of
> components representing the functionality of kdelibs. I doubt that it would
> make sense to release konqueror independent w/o kdelibs.

So Simon's Konqueror-embedded made no sense, in your opinion?  Where your point
is valid is that most of Konqueror's abilities lie in kdelibs -- e.g., you
cannot, from a package management perspective, update khtml or kjs separately. 
But it doesn't have to be that way.  There could be a separate kdelibs-html
package that contains a lot of the HTML stuff -- like JavaScript, SSL support,
kcookiejar, khtml -- and so it would be easier to upgrade subcomponents.

> 
> KDE2.1 will be ready 4 months after KDe 2.0. This is a very good cycle if we
> can keep it for future releases. If we would release every app independent
> then we would probably not see as much progress as we see it now as people
> would make their own more relaxed schedules and wouldn't try to get into the
> timeframe that is also being made by other apps.

I guess this is an empirical question.  I can see arguments going the other way
as well.

> 
> I think we had a lot of real news (while other desktops didn't) which were
> giving the impression that KDE currently actually develops very quickly now
> and doesn't only consist of hype ....

The problem is that despite this other desktops get more attention and are
getting improved mindshare.

> 
> > Particularly too KOffice should definitely be on its own cycle, IMHO.
> 
> I agree with that one for KDE 2.1 but it might make sense for KDE 2.2 to ship
> it together -- we'll see.
> 
> I like what I see on dot.kde.org and I always enjoy Tinks interviews very
> much, and the same goes for apps.kde.com. If the PR-guys think that they even
> can improve our PR - then it is fine for me but it should stay real news and
> not evolve into some warm air.

Releasing things in a natural manner which also optimizes publicity instead of
force-releasing everything on the same cycle has, IMHO, nothing to do with
"warm air".

[ ... ]

Ciao,

Andreas Pour

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