Re: KDE 4.6 LiveDVD

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 8:04 PM, Markus Slopianka <[email protected]>wrote:

> Am Mittwoch 23 März 2011, 23:27:55 schrieb Justin Kirby:
> > I'd suggest having just "Release 4.6"
>
> Maybe "Plasma Workspaces and Applications 4.6"?
> Just "Release" is saying nothing.  I don't think it's primary targeted at
> people who
> already know what/who KDE is.
>

I think when it comes to tech speak "meaning" is created when people develop
an understanding of what "it" is.  That meaning is only established when we
call it by the same name consistently.  I realize that what you've just
mentioned is what we're actually giving them, but that sounds so clunky :-/
 I always end up thinking about it in terms of other major players to see
how it sounds...which has its downfalls in some cases, I know.  Aaron has
pointed them out to me more than once, but I think the following parallel
still holds true.  Imagine if MS called it "Windows and Applications 7" or
Apple said "OS and Applications X (or 10)".  There's an extra layer in linux
(the distro) but I think this paradigm still applies.  Apologies for what
will likely sound like a rant directed at you...it's not though :)  I just
fear where this conversation is headed having taken part in the exact same
conversation 100 times since joining the project only a few years ago.

Whether we call it just "4.6" or "Release 4.6" or "Software Compilation 4.6"
or something else it's the same thing...a workspace plus a bunch of
applications that run in that workspace that happened to be released
together because it has many practical benefits to do it this way.  But
along the way the people who have been here much longer than me have
repeatedly said "4.x" is no good because we want to differentiate KDE (the
Plasma Workspaces) from KDE (the applications) from KDE (the development
framework) from KDE (the community).  Ok...maybe we had a problem.

So then we tried "Software Compilation 4.x" imagining headlines like "KDE
releases SC 4.6" with longer descriptions sounding like "SC 4.6 includes new
Plasma Workspaces and Applications released by KDE (the community)" which
came from a room full of people brainstorming for an entire weekend at the
Promo sprint in 2009.  I was at that sprint, and it sounded like a good idea
at the time.  We were primarily focused on solving the problem in front of
us...creating separate brands for the apps/workspaces/people.  But in hind
sight (20/20!) we've learned that most people missed the point and simply
substituted "KDE SC 4.6" any time they would've said "KDE 4.6".   This
didn't really solve our problem.  Apparently (I learned at Akademy last
year) there was also backlash due to the clunky translation factor of
"software compilation".  People give different reasons but in the end we
have essentially just backed off mentioning SC as much as possible since it
didn't really help anything.

Since then we've been kicking around this idea of a "release event".
 Everyone seems comfortable with the idea of having an event ("it's the 4.x
release day!" type of statements sound ok) but it seems that we now have
this problem where nobody knows what to call the actual package of software.
 We've been harping on the differences between KDE the community, the Plasma
workspaces, the applications, and the framework (or is it "development
platform"?) enough that now our original problem and reason for this entire
exercise has mostly been resolved imo.  We just need to keep on making the
distinction between the three when we mean one of them specifically.

But with that problem mostly solved we've created a new one.  What the hell
do we call this "thing" that we release every 6 months? :)  It's apparently
not "4.x" and it's not "SC".  Is it a "Release" now?  Or can we go actually
go back to just calling it "4.6" now that the community has begun to
understand that KDE is the community, (Release) 4.6 is the periodic release
of stuff, and that release includes applications, workspaces, and a
development framework/platform?

Out in the wild I mostly see that people have defaulted back to calling the
release by the number.  Frankly I don't see a problem with that, so long as
they are aware that KDE are the people behind it and that it includes Plasma
Workspaces and additional KDE applications.  If there is some consensus on
that I withdraw my earlier email suggesting that we say "Release 4.6".  If
there are still serious objections from people about calling it "KDE 4.6"
then I re-affirm my stance that "Release 4.6" is the next best thing we've
got.

*fingers crossed that this lengthy explanation which covers our past logic
on this matter will save us from a future filled with bikeshedding*

-Justin


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