hi again :)
i'll just reply to this one email instead of each emai in the thread, though
all the replies were, i though, well thought out and interesting. i just don't
want to add more distracting noise than absolutely necessary to the devel list
here :)
so ...
On Thursday, November 3, 2011 08:38:08 Julius Schwartzenberg wrote:
> I have talked with multiple people in person and I had seen multiple
> articles and comments online which stated things like "I used to use
> KDE, but after I tried KDE 4 I switched to Gnome...". The submission I
> wrote was mainly meant to reach out to those people.
yes, i figured as much. on the good news side, many who made that switch have
come back to using the Plasma Desktop, esp in the last year as Plasma has
matured while GNOME and Ubuntu go through their own growing pains. others have
come to use Trinity because it fits them best. many who never used KDE
software in the past are doing so now.
so i think we're all achieving that goal of both growing our reach and appeal
while also retaining our loyal user base from current and past years. that
effort is absolutely worthwhile.
> This is the first time there was a lot of PR around Trinity. Previously
> the new releases had been more silent and because the Trinity project
> has a lack of manpower, it seemed like a good idea to make the new
> release some headline news.
sounds like a good plan ..
> I'm not a PR person, my wording was not the best. I am happy to receive
> feedback about this such as what Timothy already wrote in his reply. My
> apologies again, especially towards you as a KDE developer, whose work
> we're enjoying so much.
no problem; while a bit regrettable, it's nearly impossible to get things
perfect on the first try. more important is how we learn and improve things
for the future :)
> > when i read this in the announcement to the mailing list:
> >
> > "Why upgrade from KDE3.5.10, the latest release available from KDE e.V.?
> > Simply put, Trinity is faster, more secure, and far more feature rich than
> > 3.5.10 ever was!" (http://trinity-devel.pearsoncomputing.net/?0::3271)
> >
> > i feel sad because Trinity should really not be trying to stand out as a
> > _competitor_ to 3.5.10 but as the continuation of that code base. (btw,
...
> In neither case the intention was to present Trinity as competition. If
> this was interpreted as such, I hope that we can find ways to prevent
> this in the future.
i might have written it more along the lines of:
"Trinity 3.5.10 is an exciting upgrade for users of KDE 3.5: it is faster,
more secure and more feature rich than any previous KDE 3 release. Trinity
allows you to run KDE 3.5 software on modern Linux systems and take advantage
of all the strides forward in areas such as network and hardware
management that have been made in recent years. Trinity also <fill in 1-2 more
benefits>."
(could be made a lot better, that's just off the top of my head before i've
had my morning coffee ;)
the idea is to talk more about the benefits of Trinity itself rather than
speak in competition language. instead of reminding people that there was a
change in maintainership, the reader is focused on benefits they will get and
reminded that Trinity is a continuation of a great software product (KDE 3.x)
it's a small thing, perhaps, but it really shapes how people communicate and
behave. :)
> I'm not sure what would be the best way to prevent this issue in the
> future. As said, what happened was more due to manpower and abilities
> than due to intention.
that's almost always the case, and why i decided to reach out directly to
those who are involved with Trinity and putting their own blood, sweat and
tears into it (and subscribe to Yet Another Mailing List to do so ;). rather
than grumble in my little cave or write some blog entry or what-not, if figure
it's better to see what's up and work on improving things.
> To me it appeared that KDE e.V. was relatively distant towards the
> Trinity project other than providing a Subversion branch.
there's a mix of reasons for that:
* some don't care too much as they are very focussed on the 4.x code
* some are wary about people who focus on 3.x because of the amount of
negative feedback that was leveled at them from "ardent supporters" of KDE
3.x.
* some were/are unsure what it means and how well it can work to give "our
baby" (KDE 3) over to another team of people (Trinity) to maintain and
improve.
given than Trinity is working out pretty well, these attitudes can and will
soften. it's part of the process.
imho, the main thing we need to do is to stop giving people excuses to focus
on KDE 4.x code when Trinity makes a release. the article on osnews.com (which
was not written by any of you, i know! :) was particularly sad as Trinity
became an excuse for the author to repeat misinformation about KWin 4. nobody
wins there as Trinity doesn't get to keep the spotlight and misinformation
sucks, no matter who it's about.
resolving this issue will allow us to build much strong bridges between the
Trinity project and the rest of the KDE community.
> Maybe doing
> such announcements through the KDE site or using the expertise from your
> side in another way would help closing the gap that seems to exist.
> The least that could be done maybe is asking you or other people from
> KDE to read things like release notes or news items before they are
> published. Do you have any suggestions in this area?
i'd be happy to assist in your next announcements. here's what i can
personally offer: as long as you give me enough lead time (1-2 weeks is
usually enough) i would be happy to go over your release announcement material
and offer feedback (which you can ignore or accept, i give freely without
expectations there) as well as work on a story based on that for dot.kde.org
that will get accepted for publication.
i'm also on irc.freenode.net (nick: aseigo) most days and read my email like a
proper addict ;) so feel free to fire questions, queries, thoughts, etc. my
way.
happy hacking,
--
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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