I generally agree.

One thing to note is that having a "KDE OS" wouldn't preclude others from shipping our software in their preferred way. Microsoft jumped into the hardware market and started competing with the OEMs who were shipping their software, but by all accounts, this didn't harm them; rather, the quality of Microsoft's first-party hardware broadly lifted the quality of the other PC manufacturers' offerings in response. Competition helped everyone. I think it would be the same for us; we wouldn't be out to harm other distros, just show the world how we envision a KDE distro looking. Everyone else is free to ignore it if they disagree.

I don't think Promo is the place to start carrying out this task. It seems to me that you would need to incentivise some deeper changes in KDE neon before thinking of promoting it as feature-complete distribution. As you say:

I really want to see KDE neon as the flagship os, but to realistically, this is requires to (hard) development.

And the Promo workboard is not where you should be asking for support to do that, (a) because we don't do that kind of thing in Promo -- it is more a developer/packager thing; and (b) because we don't tell others what they should do. We work with the end product, not influence (or try to influence) what that end product should be.

I do agree that this would be a good thing to promote when the first part, the part where you turn neon into a feature-complete distribution, is completed, but to carry out that, I think you have to take this task to another board.

In T12707#220975, @paulb wrote:

I don't think Promo is the place to start carrying out this task. It seems to me that you would need to incentivise some deeper changes in KDE neon before thinking of promoting it as feature-complete distribution. As you say:

I really want to see KDE neon as the flagship os, but to realistically, this is requires to (hard) development.

And the Promo workboard is not where you should be asking for support to do that, (a) because we don't do that kind of thing in Promo -- it is more a developer/packager thing; and (b) because we don't tell others what they should do. We work with the end product, not influence (or try to influence) what that end product should be.

I do agree that this would be a good thing to promote when the first part, the part where you turn neon into a feature-complete distribution, is completed, but to carry out that, I think you have to take this task to another board.

I agree, but we could to think in advance of a promotion scheme, many distributions have a bad way to promotion (IMHO). I think that KDE neon could to promote not like others distros, for example "fast, open, and privacy-replacement for Windows and macOS" and other open, secure, and privacy words is bad way to promote.
Most peoples don't knows about the Open-Source concept or about the digital freedom, that means that attracting people's with Open, Privacy or Freedom is wrong, or you need to do it differently.

I think you could to make a KDE neon comparisons with real life.
For example - Freedom, you can feel the freedom with Plasma customization, because Plasma is has no restrictions on the choice of appearance or your taste, and in Windows you need to comply the dress code. With Windows you is boring and restriction, with Plasma you is diverse and have the freedom in self-expression.

Again: do the other stuff and then we'll talk Promo. We cannot start working on promotion on something that has not happened, because it may not happen, and then we would be wasting time and resources.

Get people on board, make some progress, hit some milestones, and then we'll see.

I agree, but we could to think in advance of a promotion scheme, many distributions have a bad way to promotion (IMHO).

Opinions are a pretty poor way of judging the effectiveness of a campaign, @KonqiDragon. I am not saying you are not right (I don't know), but just because you don't like a certain way of promoting something, doesn't make it "bad". "Bad" is only if it doesn't work (or is immoral in some way).

The way you decide that a particular way of promoting something is good or bad is by collecting as much unbiased data as possible and looking at it objectively.

Get people on board, make some progress, hit some milestones, and then we'll see.g at it objectively.

I don't know how to do it. I don't know who works on KDE neon, and to who to tell about my ideas, and i'm also not sure that anyone wants to make big changes to KDE neon.

Opinions are a pretty poor way of judging the effectiveness of a campaign, @KonqiDragon. I am not saying you are not right (I don't know), but just because you don't like a certain way of promoting something, doesn't make it "bad". "Bad" is only if it doesn't work (or is immoral in some way).

Just see on the Linux market share on Desktop, it has about 1-2%, i think thath 1-2% on Desktop is "bad" situation.

I remember one phrase, it sounded something like this - "Linux distributions are developed by good programmers, but they advertise by worthless marketers.". I think that's something to think about it.

Let's not get sidetracked with the promo angle too early. Paul is right: we need to decide on a course of action and then execute the plan before we promote the message we want to communicate as a result of this plan.

The Neon team is principally composed of @jriddell, @sitter, and @bshah. Obviously this plan (and any plan regarding Neon) needs their buy-in.

Again, I agree with the goal here. I think making Neon "The KDE OS" would be a fantastic thing not only for KDE, but also for the other distros shipping our software. It would provide users with a clear and obvious "vanilla KDE" option, while showing our distro partners how we envision a KDE OS, providing them with some competition without actually harming them in any way (they're free to ignore it or learn from it).

Also, let's admit it: Neon is already "The KDE OS". We don't advertise it as such, and we pretend this isn't true, but it's totally true. :) We even have a vendor (Slimbook) shipping hardware with it. If that doesn't make Neon a real OS, I don't know what would! :) So what's being proposed in this task is IMO more about acknowledging reality and acting accordingly then it is about radically changing anything.

Let's not get sidetracked with the promo angle too early. Paul is right: we need to decide on a course of action and then execute the plan before we promote the message we want to communicate as a result of this plan.

The Neon team is principally composed of @jriddell, @sitter, and @bshah. Obviously this plan (and any plan regarding Neon) needs their buy-in.

Could to start with a few steps to discuss:

• Which audience is the target?
  • I think we should be targeting to common peoples (non programmers, hackers, etc.), largely young audience.

• Which applications will be from the box?
  • Krita and Kdenlive is a KDE flagship (pro) apps, but common peoples do not need these programs. I think could to make "Installation packs" with "Minimal" (most standard apps), "Full" (standard apps + office suit, some games, mail client, etc.), and "Custom" variations.
    • "Custom" variant is interesting thing, in "Custom" variant you would to find something like "Secret Installation packs" with the packs for Gamers, Content Makers, Programmers, Artists, etc. Also in "Custom" you would to pick the needed applications yourself.

• Standard appearance of KDE neon
  • Today it looks ok, but i like more the "Icons Only" mode on task bar, "close window button" without the circle (IMHO), i also want to more of effects, animations, etc. on Plasma.

• Customization
  • Will there be other (global)themes besides the Breeze and Breeze Dark? For example, Zorin OS have a kool "Desktop Layouts" with "Default", "Windows", "MacOS", "Ubuntu" etc. layouts. I think it'll help to newcomers to feel the great customization possibilities of Plasma.
    • Add more wallpapers by default.

• Versions and Codenames
  • Now KDE neon has no versions (the version same as Plasma version) and codenames, i think KDE could to get own versions and codenames.

I am not sure what the plan is. It hasn't really been formulated, has it?

There's a whole bunch of loosely related ideas on the table. With all of them the biggest question is: who's going to spend the time? You cannot sustain a full on operating system with 1-3 developers working on it. With containerization maybe, but neither flatpak nor snap are at a point where we can go down that route.

Meanwhile I can already tell you that appearance and other customization of KDE software are not going to be a thing. What you describe is yet another cookie cutter distro. Slap on a different wallpaper, give it a name, and call it a day. No one of the neon team will get behind that. We are KDE, why would we override design decisions made elsewhere in KDE.

https://community.kde.org/Neon/FoundingPlan

I agree, the proposed "KDE OS" version of Neon should continue to strive to be as vanilla as possible. It doesn't make sense to create a showpiece for KDE software that diverges from what KDE software does by default. If the default is bad, change the default. :)

I think a large part of this task is simply admitting that Neon is already an OS, and being proud of this fact rather than trying to hide it in the futile effort to avoid upsetting people who are already upset. Slimbook ships it on hardware. My wife who is sitting next to me has it on her laptop. It's an OS; if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. :)

In T12707#221268, @ngraham wrote:

I agree, the proposed "KDE OS" version of Neon should continue to strive to be as vanilla as possible. It doesn't make sense to create a showpiece for KDE software that diverges from what KDE software does by default. If the default is bad, change the default. :)

I think a large part of this task is simply admitting that Neon is already an OS, and being proud of this fact rather than trying to hide it in the futile effort to avoid upsetting people who are already upset. Slimbook ships it on hardware. My wife who is sitting next to me has it on her laptop. It's an OS; if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. :)

I think that KDE neon is like a Diamond but is not a Brilliant (diamond cut), for example i think that macOS is a Brilliant, it's very beautiful system, where a lot of attention is paid to small details.
KDE neon is good OS, but but it doesn't feels as something "complete", why KDE Partition Manager, Sweeper (I like more the Stacer) and Elisa is not included by default? There are no hints for beginners like in Mint or elementaryOS, newbie just thrown into the unknown place and he needs to study himself, like in old versions of Minecraft.

Do you want to make the (GNU)Linux more popular? Then make it simpler for beginers. This also applies to KDE neon, this is not "Simple distro for beginers".

What about 'Freedom for everyone'? Thanks, KonqiDragon!

I mean, if a difficulty with this is 'not simple for beginners', people can always push KDE as much as they can towards a direction, in the vanilla representation, that is a simple for beginners Operating System.