Re: Application letter

Hey,

Welcome (and sorry for my slow response). This seems the best point in the 
thread to reply, but I read the whole lot

On Saturday 12 March 2011 23:33:47 Lukas wrote:
> > rules.  However you might find it useful to have a look at our wiki
> > where we do keep lots of useful information about all the things we're
> > doing:
> > http://community.kde.org/Promo/.  That'll help get you familiar with how
> > we tend to operate and what we're already working on.
> 
> I'll take a look at there.

And please feel free to add to it too - things you think should be done but 
don't have time for yourself or things you are going to start doing.

> Going back to promotion, one of the forgotten user group is WEB DEVELOPERS
> 
> The size of this group is quite impressive.

Indeed

> Why are web developers so important?
> 
> Besides the user base, web dev's are one of the most active blogers around
> the globe - getting them as KDE/Linux user would not only increase OSS
> market share compared to the fruit company and MS, but also some extra
> quality tutorials and publicity. Juts google for both Linux/mac set up
> Apache, and compare look and feel of those tutorials. Not strongly, but
> Mac wins - more results in general, pages has more images, contrast etc.
> And its not surprising - Mac users are more often a professionals, making
> a living from how good they are at creating UX, while Linux -
> administrators, living from maintaining infrastructures.
> 
> Also if it we could achieve a KDE - the choice of developers slogan to be
> accepted (similar to Mac-choice of designers) - it would be a big step of
> getting KDE widely accepted. Everyone wants professional tools ;)

Yes, this would be very cool

> What do we have?
> 
> Linux dominates the servers market - and having localhost server is a must
> for web developers. Despite Win can run Apache, if you want to develop for
> real world - working on the same infrastructure as the production
> environment is a big plus.

Ok, so an argument for Linux. But why KDE software rather than other GUI 
software or the command line?

One suggestion - if we were targeting Windows users then the KDE ease of use 
and superficial similarity of e.g. Plasma Desktop to Windows could be a selling 
point.

> * Find all webdevs already using KDE and ask for they help, both pointing
> out the most annoying areas of KDE user experience, and bloging tutorials
> how to use one or another feature on KDE.

Ingo already gave some views there and is probably your route into people 
doing web stuff for KDE. Of course, there may be many other people using KDE 
software for web development, but not doing web development for KDE. How do we 
find and reach them?

> * Encourage KDE community to blog tutorials more suitable for Linux
> newbies. If you have ever googled for some problem about KDE/Linux, must
> likely you have found answer in a forum. Try to google for e.g. jQuery -
> and you find most solution in form of tutorial - Entire solution is in a
> single page, formatted to be used by all readers.

Thomas (iirc) who is on this list has suggested in the past that we should 
have a bit more of a user rather than software focus in the website - i.e. we 
have headings for different types of user: home/office/web dev/artist rather than 
just saying: here is our stuff. There's no doubt that this would be good, but 
it is a lot of work...

> * Give freebies to the best post of the month etc. to encourage their
> involvement. Evey body loves freebies ;)

Or even recognition - like featuring the 'post of the month' on the KDE 
homepage or something.

> * Get those posts spread - like on Smashingnetwork Network Posts and
> similar. An easy way to reach the target user group.

How? Join and post manually like reddit/digg etc?

> * Collect best tutorials and share links/excerpts somewhere on kde.org -
> Kde.org has page rank of 7. Such listing would give better positions for
> valuable results in google, and create stronger links with KDE.

Actually, there's a web sprint in June (that I'm going to and Ingo who replied 
earlier is involved in organising) so we can discuss any specific changes 
there.

> * Get repositories with packages preoptimized for development - e.g. PHP
> settings showing errors by default, Apache - mod_rewrite activated. On
> local host nobody cares about performance and security, but waisting time
> to get everything working is annoying.

This would be an interesting departure for KDE, which traditionally does not 
host binary packages or repositories at all. It might be interesting to team 
up with a distro to do a 'Web Dev' KDE spin...

> * Build KDE developer edition live image with SUSE studio and promote it's
> usage with Virtual Box. Make it small steps towards KDE. Its very unlikely
> many would simply wipe out windows and jump ahead to Linux.

Yes. Something to talk about at the promo/web sprint too... and not jsut for 
web devs - we should have some virtual box/vmware images prominently available 
for download.

> * Talk to the creators of major developing tools/frameworks - Getting links
> to tutorials, how to set up working development environment, on their
> wiki's would attract some attentions of their users.

Sure. Do you have any contacts there?

> It's just a main points that came to my head, hope you can think more. It's
> not a small task, but I believe its doable. Especially if there would be
> someone with similar promotion experience???

Ok - it's all good stuff, but it is big. We don't (unfortunately/yet) have a 
load of people sitting around ready to jump on something like this - as far as 
I know ;-) And it's a hell of a lot for one person to take on.

So, break it up. Make a plan. What can be done in a month* that does not get 
us all the way there but makes some concrete improvement? What is needed to 
get there? That way you (and others) can actually see some results and get 
more people interested.

Speaking for myself - give me something definite like giving a pov on which 
live image we should use or proof reading some articles and I'll try and find 
the time :-)

*plan for a month and it will actually take 3-12 months ;-)

> And finally - a nice reading - http://www.getfinch.com/finch/entry/ux-is-
> mostly-desirability/

Yeah, it's a good point. I think we need to get a bit cockier with our 
marketing, particularly now that our products are pretty good ('good enough' 
as it were). We've been moving that way a little, but there is more to do and 
it annoys some people who see anything slick as being overly corporate.

Cheers,
Stu
 
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