Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News) [LWN.net]

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 24, 2007 6:39 UTC (Sat) by jd (guest, #26381)
Parent article: Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

KDE 4 looks like it will be a pretty cool piece of code. My main concern is buzzwordification. When people start throwing around terms like "milestone", "artwork concepts" and "new technologies", I begin to get a little concerned. As far as I can tell, the new press release could be compressed to read: "we've cleaned out some cruft and added a little more portability, the icons are flashier, scripting is easier, but the apps writers are all dragging their feet." True, KDE's version looks more impressive, but it really doesn't say anything more than that.

One of the big dangers of over-written press statements is that they are easy to spot and are frequently used by people who couldn't write code if civilization depended upon it. I'm not saying this is the case (kase?) with KDE, but they're in serious danger of being lumped in with that crowd. People make mental associations according to how people talk or write. It may not be fair, but fair has nothing to do with it. If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it will be pronounced a duck and nothing on this planet will persuade people otherwise.

(This goes for all press releases. The more things sound impressive without really saying anything, the more people will assume the Emperor has no clothes. Doesn't make a bit of difference if said Emperor can barely move from the sheer weight of fabric or is the best-dressed person on the planet. The best communication is the clearest communication. I am not a great communicator, because I'm too verbose, but I'm generally considered better-than-average because what I do write doesn't require a schizophrenic with a PhD in business management to translate into English.)

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Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 9:30 UTC (Mon) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

translate into English" terms like "milestone", "artwork concepts" and "new technologies"?

Quick, what's an "artwork concept", as opposed to just saying "artwork"? (But other than that, I did not find the announcement too buzzword-laden).

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 15:27 UTC (Mon) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link]

Well maybe it's somewhat similar to a class diagram being a concept of the code that has yet to be written.

artwork concept

Posted Feb 26, 2007 16:04 UTC (Mon) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

The artwork concept is the general theme that the artwork will follow. The artwork is the
files that implement that concept.

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 24, 2007 22:59 UTC (Sat) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link]

(i'm in a bit of a philosophical mood right now, beware!)

an interesting cultural thing is happening here:

we're reaching out to new audiences (communities) without leaving behind
the community (audience) we currently are a part of and have. different
audiences have different communications needs, but as we speak to them as
well (as opposed to "instead of our previous audience") the current
audience will sometimes go, "hey! we don't speak that way! are you losing
your religion on us?"

this is something that is rooted deep in the dualism and ownership
concepts deeply embedded in most of our cultures which say "you can only
do one thing; if you do another you can not do that first thing too"
and "one can not have multiple associates". it's easy to see these ideas
embedded throughout our cultures.

since free software is, in part, an ethical-cultural exercise these
prejudices transfer over.

however, they are simply not true.

we are still committed to churning out the usual technological goodies we
do in a community manner with the usual technical discussion/rigor and
levity/fun we tend to engage with. that has not changed, nor will it.

we are also striving to be able to talk to people for whom that mode of
behaviour is completely alien to the point of not being interfacable for
them.

such audiences include people currently mesmerized by the marketing of
microsoft and apple, the technological hipsters of the world, ISVs who are
starting to look afield (thank you microsoft for such a wonderfully poor
showing with vista =), system integrators who are working with free
software but doing so mostly on their own (and often feeling adrift) ...

kde is no longer a small project. if we were a neighbourhood pub at one
point we're now an entire stretch of pubs, clubs, eateries and more.
diversification happens in that process.

however, as someone who is watching this happen in his real-world
neighbourhood right now and therefore realizes how disturbing it is: we
are conscious of the fact that we must not "gentrify" our neighbourhood so
that the cool little pub goes away.

it is, after all, where i and most of our contributors still live. =)

btw, the commit digest, mailing lists, irc channels, etc.. are much
more "down home" if you're looking for that ....

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:58 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"" "you can only
do one thing; if you do another you can not do that first thing too"
and "one can not have multiple associates" ""

hmmm... i belive i know what you mean, but FOSS is already a "barrier" transcending paradigma, so *can*... The *can not* is only for the psichotic materialistic part of the world.

"" the current
audience will sometimes go, "hey! we don't speak that way! are you losing
your religion on us?" ""

You are absolutely right, never alienate your standing base. Good or bad, talking dirty or reciting erudit poetry, they (those you know) are your best trust, your backup defence.

Jump in the world of commerce and marketing language, from which i desire more each time to get disconnected from, and know that it is, in a philosofical proper sense, only *sophism*. Exercises of style, image, which semantic is the catch of the attention of victms... oops customers... not their comprehension.

But that catch is BASED on the fashions, looks, ways,... that are constantly and *ARTIFICIALY* being delivered and promoted, like in a brain wash operation, upon the world population.

Those promoting it, are from big think-tanks, connected to various extremely influencial interests, commercial, politic... various... (its not a conspiracy, its a method), that neverthless have always big mass-media mediums(brain-wash machine) and money at their disposal.

Everybody else, to have marketing sucess, much intuit what are the next fashions, styles, looks, ways... being artificialy promoted, and capitalize on it.

Making a long story short, talk(whatever) in the way of the big media promoted *style* of the momment, and you may get good press coverage, tell the truth and no one will print a line.

Its my belive that Open Source, never needed that, quite the opposite... i still have in my power 1997 IT magazines where, those Linux guys, where treated like unreliables fanatics not deserving trust...

But the irony of it, is that Open Source is already bitting the but, of the always promoted, Big Miss Universe of the IT (MS le Crap), and has turned Unix preception from esoteric to accessible.

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 9:07 UTC (Mon) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link]

> never alienate your standing base

i assume you read the -rest- of what i wrote explaining exactly
this? =) we agree on that point, which is good.

realize, however, that by asking for some imagined purity what you are
asking is to restrain who we can effectively talk to and what we can
effectively accomplish. if we are only allowed to speak the language of
the free software world we will not reach other areas that we really need
to be.

fortunately, it's not an exclusive, binary sort of being. but realize that
your taking offense over something that doesn't affect you in the least
will lead only to you having less of what you want in the future.

free software is for more than just you and me.

and it isn't just sophism. at least not what we're doing. it's explaining
what we have in terms that are understandable to others. we're throwing
bridges across communication gaps that others (primarily, the proprietary
competition) would sooner see remain.

what would be sophism is to try and fool people with half-truths and lies.
there are those who do this in the open source world, sadly, but i don't
think we're (KDE) one of those communities.

we -started- by asking ourselves: what do we want to focus our messaging
around? what should everything we talk about resonate on? our answer was:
1) freedom, 2) technological prowess. in that order.

we're looking for effective, and even new, ways of communicating our core
values in ways that will allow them to be heard by more people.

and if that offends you, i'll see your claim of "sophism" and raise it
with an "elitist behaviour" right back.

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 18:07 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"" but realize that
your taking offense over something that doesn't affect you ""

??... i didnt take offense of nothing !

My point is that the *language* inside developments circles, dosent have to adress *sophistic* language requirements of the marketing world:

.- they are more or less orthogonal, meaning that the development should or must or have to have a commercial focus, but no matter what, marketing language will only be at best a generalized approach.

.- inherent openness of FOSS is what make marketing live hard, because they try to pick notions that are terrible at generalization, and often at odds with fashions, styles or ways... being promoted.

.- FOSS thrived so far being at odds with generalized perceived *ways*... so why bother?

All the best.

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 18:41 UTC (Mon) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link]

> they are more or less orthogonal

i would agree in general; so when we do speak with more "market friendly"
terms at times, we need to find a way to remind the community about the
rest of our communication which is quite dry and straight forward.

the initial reaction to this article is a good example of why.

> inherent openness of FOSS is what make marketing live hard

to me that just means we need to re-shape "marketing" a bit, just as we
have re-shaped development methodologies a bit. certainly a challenge, but
challenges are fun.

> so why bother?

because this has not worked on the desktop side of things, and for pretty
obvious reasons. while the server side of the market is indeed populated
primarily by sophisticated, tech-aware people who are used to dealing with
technical terms, complex ideas and community networking on- and off-line,
the desktop market is very, very different.

> All the best.

likewise =)

Third KDE 4 Development Snapshot Released: 'Kludge' (KDE.News)

Posted Feb 26, 2007 20:04 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Completely on agreement.

"" ...to me that just means we need to re-shape "marketing" a bit... ...certainly a challenge, but challenges are fun. ""

agreed... but lack of control of the "bigtime promotion of general fashions, styles, looks, ways... " can turn the fun... not so fun. Remenber how recently, MS CEO tryed to connect the general FOSS paradigma with an "IP thieves" lair, in a purely marketing(FUD) manouver.

So a thick skin and caution is also required.

Wow! aseigo not only deciphers mmarq's posts but responds in kind!

Posted Feb 27, 2007 5:04 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

I'm very impressed. It seems mmarq has met his match :-)