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List: kde-promo
Subject: Re: [kde-promo] Plasma Next Naming
From: "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date: 2014-01-17 16:32:43
Message-ID: 2995669.hDWT2g34Jq () freedom
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On Friday, January 17, 2014 12:46:04 Martin Klapetek wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:37 PM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo@kde.org> wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 16, 2014 18:13:23 Martin Klapetek wrote:
> > > I can't speak for "the team" (whichever team), it's my own opinion and
> >
> > that
> >
> > > is that being more informal is simply more attractive to broader group
> > > of
> > > people.
> >
> > a specific â broader groupâ , or do you mean â more people than \
> > Plasma appeals to
> > now"?
>
> More people than now.
More people who are .. developers? enthusiast Free software users?
> > there are more options than â informalâ and â technicalâ ; â \
> > sophisticatedâ , "professionalâ and â inspiringâ are three \
> > other options that occur quickly to
> > me.
>
> Sure, I'm happy to see some proposals from those "categories".
Personally, I like the date naming scheme with the ‘by KDE' moniker. It's elegant, \
understated, professional and just a little "swish".
> > â itâ s
> > not for serious businessâ response.
>
> And there we have new konqi design, which is ridiculously cartoonish
> (please anyone don't take as an insult or anything). And I remember Ossi in
> the konqi thread raising this very question about us being for serious
> business. It seemed it wasn't problem in that thread...
Konqi never is and never can be a mascot that appeals to serious business. No matter \
how cartoonish or not cartoonish, a fanciful dragon with a cute name isn't that.
Thankfully, Konqi does not represent any specific KDE product nor do we use it to \
present KDE to the public (anymore). We're not asking promo to use Konqi in naming \
schemes or distros to put Konqi by name in the log in screen. He's more suited to \
being an internal mascot ...
Personally, I think raising Konqi as an important mascot for the KDE contributor \
community is really beneficial and help gives us more "glue" to stick the community \
together with. The new Konqi is pretty great from that perspective: it's fun, \
light-hearted, echoes the past but looks like today.
Hopefully KDE will not use Konqi for public promo of its technology, however.
(I'm one of those people who think he shouldn't appear in the About dialog. It \
violates Branding Rule #1 (don't screw with your logo) and Konqi is a purely \
in-group meme that looks anything but professional from the outside; it certainly \
doesn't communicate anything useful to the average user who isn't part of that \
in-group. I've been asked by non-geek KDE users more than once what the story is \
behind that dragon in the about dialog.)
> > not in their software ... some love it (Hello, openBSD), but it will not
> > speak
> > to people who donâ t get why a (changing) fish is part of the brand for a
> > given
> > desktop/tablet/etc. interface. as a more informal (and abstract) concept
> > and
> > may not play well with more formal contexts (e.g. business, or simply the
> > straight-laced)
>
> Then again - you have Ubuntu (changing every 6 months), OS X and I don't
> know what else....and using an animal (weird ones in Ubuntu's case) works
> good for all their purposes (including business)?
Running a $20 million loss on 60 million in revenue after 10 years (none of which has \
been profitable) is not a business success. That may not be Canonical's goal, \
though, so I don't personally judge them by that.
Red Hat is by far the king of successful business Linux distros. This is how they \
manage to have an annual revenue of 10^9+ US$ and can afford to be the single \
largest contributor to the Linux kernel, among other projects. Their branding \
‘mood' is a part of this. Internally, they have cool customs like giving every \
employee a red fedora, and that's perhaps analogous to Konqi for KDE: a fun social \
identity creator. Externally, they are this:
http://www.redhat.com/
It's an interesting mix of somberness and aspiration.
Ubuntu has taken a different track: it has worked hard to woo the enthusiast \
community. They did things like set up LoCos (though that seems to be mostly in the \
past?), sponsor big community gatherings centered on their product, did massive CD \
give-aways, gave cute names for their distro releases and chose an emotional phrase \
for their brand ("Linux for humans" and "Ubuntu"). Combined with a public, \
charismatic patron and having a charismatic community manager front and center in \
their strategy, this was a very successful approach they used to dominate the \
conversation in the popular Linux sphere. They are also running that ~25% deficit \
with ~6% the revenue of Red Hat.
So it's evident that both approaches have strengths and weaknesses; they also talk to \
different audiences and create different expectations. Both probably see themselves \
as successful, though measured by different metrics and with different target \
audiences in mind.
Which is why I asked about audience; both Red Hat and Canonical made purposeful \
decisions based on who they wanted their audience to be. Picking a meme in hopes it \
will appeal to more people without a clear idea of who those people might be is \
usually not very successful .. at least according to every book and article I've \
ever read on the topic.
Another important take-away is that Red Hat took 10 years to turn their first profit; \
Ubuntu is also 10 years into their efforts and it took the bulk of that time to \
climb to their current mind-share position in the community. So it takes a ~decade \
of consistency in this market to move such a mountain, whether one goes for the \
"serious business" crowd or the "community" appeal angle (or something else \
entirely). That's a lot of consistency. Look how long the KDE rebranding took, from \
the point of internal discussion to fairly consistent levels of usage.
Plasma has spent the last ~3 years defining itself with terms like "elegance" while \
working to deliver technology ahead of the rest of the pack (c.f. the modern craze \
around convergence). The years prior to that were spent getting Plasma to the point \
where competitive claims could be made. It has been a successful theme in that \
Plasma dragged itself from being a pariah people tossed stones at (even KDE people, \
sadly) to being recognized as the #1 Linux desktop environment today; this is not \
only because the technology matured nicely but because of the messaging we undertook \
to support that. Another 3-7 years of consistency is probably needed to fully realize \
the potential of the concept, but what was achieved so far is pretty decent given \
that this effort started ~3 years ago with ~0 budget.
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN" \
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd"> <html><head><meta name="qrichtext" \
content="1" /><style type="text/css"> p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }
</style></head><body style=" font-family:'Oxygen'; font-size:10pt; font-weight:400; \
font-style:normal;"> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">On Friday, \
January 17, 2014 12:46:04 Martin Klapetek wrote:</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:37 PM, Aaron J. \
Seigo <aseigo@kde.org> wrote:</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">> > On Thursday, January 16, 2014 18:13:23 Martin Klapetek \
wrote:</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > \
> I can't speak for "the team" (whichever team), it's my own opinion \
and</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > \
</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > that</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > > is that being \
more informal is simply more attractive to broader group</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > > of</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > > people.</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > a specific â \
broader groupâ , or do you mean â more people than Plasma</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > appeals to</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > now"?</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> More people than \
now.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">More people who are .. \
developers? enthusiast Free software users? </p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > there are more options than â \
informalâ and â technicalâ ; â sophisticatedâ ,</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > \
"professionalâ and â inspiringâ are three other options that occur \
quickly</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > \
to</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > \
me.</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> Sure, I'm happy to see \
some proposals from those "categories".</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Personally, I like the date \
naming scheme with the ‘by KDE' moniker. It's elegant, understated, professional \
and just a little "swish".</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > â itâ s</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > not for serious \
businessâ response.</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">> And there we have new konqi design, which is ridiculously \
cartoonish</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> \
(please anyone don't take as an insult or anything). And I remember Ossi in</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> the konqi thread raising \
this very question about us being for serious</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> business. It seemed it wasn't problem in \
that thread...</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">Konqi never is and never can be a mascot that appeals to serious \
business. No matter how cartoonish or not cartoonish, a fanciful dragon with a cute \
name isn't that.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">Thankfully, Konqi does not represent any specific KDE product nor \
do we use it to present KDE to the public (anymore). We're not asking promo to use \
Konqi in naming schemes or distros to put Konqi by name in the log in screen. He's \
more suited to being an internal mascot ...</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Personally, I think raising Konqi as an important \
mascot for the KDE contributor community is really beneficial and help gives us more \
"glue" to stick the community together with. The new Konqi is pretty great from that \
perspective: it's fun, light-hearted, echoes the past but looks like today.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Hopefully KDE will not use \
Konqi for public promo of its technology, however.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">(I'm one of those people who \
think he shouldn't appear in the About dialog. It violates Branding Rule #1 (don't \
screw with your logo) and Konqi is a purely in-group meme that looks anything but \
professional from the outside; it certainly doesn't communicate anything useful to \
the average user who isn't part of that in-group. I've been asked by non-geek KDE \
users more than once what the story is behind that dragon in the about dialog.)</p> \
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > not in their \
software ... some love it (Hello, openBSD), but it will not</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > speak</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > to people who donâ \
t get why a (changing) fish is part of the brand for a</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > given</p> <p \
style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > desktop/tablet/etc. \
interface. as a more informal (and abstract) concept</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > and</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > may not play well with more formal \
contexts (e.g. business, or simply the</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> > straight-laced)</p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> Then again - you have \
Ubuntu (changing every 6 months), OS X and I don't</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> know what else....and \
using an animal (weird ones in Ubuntu's case) works</p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> good for all their purposes (including \
business)?</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Running a $20 million loss on \
60 million in revenue after 10 years (none of which has been profitable) is not a \
business success. That may not be Canonical's goal, though, so I don't personally \
judge them by that.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">Red Hat is by far the king of successful business Linux distros. \
This is how they manage to have an annual revenue of 10^9+ US$ and can afford to be \
the single largest contributor to the Linux kernel, among other projects. Their \
branding ‘mood' is a part of this. Internally, they have cool customs like giving \
every employee a red fedora, and that's perhaps analogous to Konqi for KDE: a fun \
social identity creator. Externally, they are this:</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"> http://www.redhat.com/</p> \
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">It's an interesting mix of \
somberness and aspiration.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">Ubuntu has taken a different track: it has worked hard to woo the \
enthusiast community. They did things like set up LoCos (though that seems to be \
mostly in the past?), sponsor big community gatherings centered on their product, did \
massive CD give-aways, gave cute names for their distro releases and chose an \
emotional phrase for their brand ("Linux for humans" and "Ubuntu"). \
Combined with a public, charismatic patron and having a charismatic community manager \
front and center in their strategy, this was a very successful approach they used to \
dominate the conversation in the popular Linux sphere. They are also running that \
~25% deficit with ~6% the revenue of Red Hat.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">So it's evident that both approaches have \
strengths and weaknesses; they also talk to different audiences and create different \
expectations. Both probably see themselves as successful, though measured by \
different metrics and with different target audiences in mind. </p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Which is why I asked about \
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Another important take-away \
is that Red Hat took 10 years to turn their first profit; Ubuntu is also 10 years \
into their efforts and it took the bulk of that time to climb to their current \
mind-share position in the community. So it takes a ~decade of consistency in this \
market to move such a mountain, whether one goes for the "serious business" crowd or \
the "community" appeal angle (or something else entirely). That's a lot of \
consistency. Look how long the KDE rebranding took, from the point of internal \
discussion to fairly consistent levels of usage. </p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Plasma has spent the last ~3 \
years defining itself with terms like "elegance" while working to deliver technology \
ahead of the rest of the pack (c.f. the modern craze around convergence). The years \
prior to that were spent getting Plasma to the point where competitive claims could \
be made. It has been a successful theme in that Plasma dragged itself from being a \
pariah people tossed stones at (even KDE people, sadly) to being recognized as the #1 \
Linux desktop environment today; this is not only because the technology matured \
nicely but because of the messaging we undertook to support that. Another 3-7 years \
of consistency is probably needed to fully realize the potential of the concept, but \
what was achieved so far is pretty decent given that this effort started ~3 years ago \
with ~0 budget.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;">Going in the direction of "informal" will bring \
something of a reset there as Plasma reformulates its publicly. Such a change is a \
message of experimentation and, by extension, searching for maturity. Adopting a fun \
theme could emphasize that even more. Honestly, I was hoping we wouldn't go there \
again any time soon, not after finally having put 4.0 behind us.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">That said, it's not \
necessarily an unworkable position; the point I'm working towards is that it is best \
to go into it with eyes wide open.Prepare for the long haul and know clearly what \
you are trying to achieve and who you are trying to reach.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Expect to work on it for 3-5 \
years before it really clicks, and a decade before you have a good idea of how far it \
can go. This is not just a decision being made just for Plasma 2 and today's \
developers, but for the people working on it for the next 10 years.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">The reason I liked "elegance" \
and "progressive technology you can rely on" as themes to reach for is that they are \
timeless and universal without much specific definition (they are plastic terms). It \
also don't have a personal stamp on them: elegance can be contextualized to the team \
of the day and to any number of audiences. Elegance is a timeless concept.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">The current devel team may be \
feeling a different vibe, of course: they may be focused on personal enjoyment and \
good humor (which are positive traits), rather than aspirational themes. If so, then \
the devel team hopefully has a clear idea of how they are going to help promotional \
efforts around Plasma translate that vibe into something that will speak clearly to \
the people KDE wants to attract.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">I say "KDE" there and not just "Plasma" because \
the desktop environment is one of KDE's crown jewels in terms of external importance \
and brand definition; the decisions made here will end up impacting KDE as a \
whole.</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> \
<p style=" margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">> Or is there any evidence \
it's actually hurting them in some way?</p> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">I think someone else in the thread already noted \
that the animal naming + the dates was confusing within their community \
communication. I don't have personal experience with that, so can't say.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Personally, I would not be \
looking to a chronically unprofitable company who publicly promoted a losing revision \
control system (bzr rather than git), advocated an impossible development cycle which \
they no longer even follow for their own devel (which for better or worse KDE \
adopted, though that seems to be coming to an end), failed very publicly at \
crowdfunding a device, is busy publicly forking the Linux desktop space to much \
jeering, has bet their desktop future by basically mimicking what Plasma started 6 \
years ago (from choice in UI toolkit to ‘big picture' device goals) and is \
generally seen as one of the more divisive entities in Free software for the last \
couple of years as a role model for public positioning.</p> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">-- </p> <p style=" \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Aaron J. \
Seigo</p></body></html>
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