Repositioning the KDE Brand (KDE.News)

KDE has proven it has had something to say for 13 years. We've done that in the form of millions of lines of code that sits on computers used by 10s of millions of people around the world. We've done that by creating technologies like KHTML that have become WebKit which is used by some of the largest companies in technology today in their core products. We have a lot to say, we have said it pretty well. When communicating to those who know us, I think it's reasonable to ask that you take the communication within the context of our history.

I do agree that often "blusterous people who have nothing to say" will take on the mantle of enthusiasm and passion so as to fool people into thinking they have something to be enthusiastic and passionate about. However, it would be a shame if we therefore stopped being or showing enthusiasm and passion just because there are charlatans out there. What I see in the announcement is a lot of enthusiasm and passion; I don't see any charlatanism.

"My not-very-well-thought-out opinion is that it would have been a better idea to rebrand the KDE platform, and attach that brand to KDE applications"

If by "platform" you mean "development libraries" that's what we're doing.

Note that we haven't rolled out the detailed guidelines for how to tag applications as "KDE" (since there are a few different ways in which an app can be "KDE": it can come from the main KDE community itself, it can be part of the SC, it can be completely 3rd party but use the KDE dev platform), but I think the distinction between what you've suggested and what we've done may not be as big as you think.

If by "platform" you mean "the desktop workspace" then we'll just have to agree to disagree because the entire point of this exercise is to recognize the existing realities that:

* KDE's libraries do not rely on the KDE workspace, and many of the libraries are completely stand-alone

* KDE's applications do not rely on the KDE workspace

* we have multiple workspace offerings now, so there is no "one workspace" to brand everything with if we even wished to

"all the distinctions you are trying to make are pointless, even meaningless to the end-user"

Some of the distinctions are for developers who might use KDE's libraries, and for them it's anything but pointless. Some of the distinctions are for our enthusiast community who helps evangelize KDE to the broader world; if they don't understand how things fit together, they will recommend things poorly. Some of the distinctions are for ourselves so that we remember to tell others about the real benefits possible, such as the multiplatform support, without feeling bad about "betraying" our own workspaces (which, btw, is what I happen to work on, oddly enough :) or without the message being confusing because we use the same terms in our communication for more than one thing.

Communication and marketing isn't easy, it isn't obvious and it isn't something one can get right without some serious effort and enterprise.

Thanks for wishing us luck, it's always helpful to get a few breaks here and there along the way.