trinity-devel@lists.pearsoncomputing.net

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Month: March 2011

Re: [trinity-devel] Naming: Trinity Desktop Environment or KDE Classic developed by the Trinity Project?

From: "Timothy Pearson" <kb9vqf@...>
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 14:14:07 -0600
> On Friday 04 March 2011 22:18:46 Kristopher Gamrat wrote:
>
>> > On the other hand, "thinity" indeed means something connected to
>> number
>> > 3: Qt3, KDE3. One can reasonably suppose there will be the 4th version
>> of
>> > Trinity and that it will be eventually ported to Qt4. The name then
>> will
>> > become outdated, should it then be renamed "Quartity"?
>>
>> It's still a continuation of KDE3. If we rename it to Quartitiy
>> because of Qt4, we'd have to rename it again (Petriaty?) when Qt5
>> comes out. That's the whole point of TQt -- make it easier to port
>> from one version of Qt to another without any changes to the base code
>> -- only the library (tqtinterface) needs updating, while the rest of
>> the code doesn't.
>>
>> Though QDE may not be a bad idea -- it may be generic, but Qt Desktop
>> Environment could be satisfactory if we want to avoid wars with KDE.
>
> I think this can be confused with Qtopia DE by Trolltech.
> http://www.owendia.com/forum/images/openpma-NG-qtopia.png
> And Qt is also obviously a registered trade mark.
>
>> Quenqueror could still work with the same pronounciation though be a
>> bit confusing when people see the Q, but we'd still have some naming
>> issues elsewhere if we change the app names.
>>
>> Whatever we do, we need to make clear that we are a continuation of
>> KDE3 by a different development team. That way, people know that their
>> KDE3 apps should work with a little bit of code change for TQt (which
>> will need some clear documentation when it's completed), but is still
>> largely compatible.
>
> Indeed.
>

OK guys, here's my $0.02.

We have too many bugs in the bugtracker as it is; this indicates that
manpower is severely limited.  KDE e.V. has shown to be very reasonable
thus far, and they have actually pulled some KDE4 fixes from the Trinity
branch, so I don't think there will be any legal problems with images,
etc.  However, that does not mean we should keep using the trademark "KDE"
throughout the desktop environment, as it will lead to confusion and
(rightfully) anger KDE e.V. very quickly.  I believe the renaming to
Trinity, as well as the removal of the "K" icon (it is now a "T" icon as
you may already know) is sufficient at this time.  So long as Trinity
remains a distinct piece of software with a different name than "KDE" I do
not forsee any issues, even if some icons are shared between the old KDE3
releases and Trinity.  The point is we are not grabbing the newest Oxygen
iconsets and artwork and purposefully making a head-to-head run against
KDE4 on the same features, look+feel, etc., and KDE e.V. knows that.

I say keep the "k" application naming for the older applications (konsole,
etc.) for legacy reasons, but for new applications either work the "t"
into the application name or leave the name generic.  Even better, come up
with a catchy name that is NOT tied to the DE--personally I always thought
the "k" in the application names was somewhat tacky and childish.

Tim