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Maniphest T15653

Making KDE NEON the official KDE distro
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adam, sitter, jriddell and 7 others
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adrlopgal, Jun 30 2022

Description

*Notice: My English is not good...

Motivation

KDE is a great project. In recent years, KDE software has evolved to become a real alternative to proprietary software thanks to the Plasma environment and many of its main applications (Okular, Krita, Kdenlive, etc.).

However, the community efforts are very dispersed (in terms of time and focus) and, therefore, a common user does not even know the full potential of KDE. There are too many distros with KDE, but each one pursues different interests and objectives that do not have to coincide with those of the community.

In order for KDE to continue to evolve, it has to attract more members (developers and users), and this is achieved through a polished experience that facilitates the transition and adoption of its technologies. To achieve it, KDE developers should focus their efforts to ensure the functionality and triage of their software on a same platform. Think of the motto: first us, then the rest.

Nate Graham, who I admire, presented the goal of professionalizing KDE. I, in the same direction, would like to point out some ideas to transform KDE NEON into main center of KDE software to users and developers.

Pros:

  • Homogeneity: If KDE NEON is officially the KDE distro, the community and their developers are compelled to try their software on the same distro, arrange release schedules and to set a common guidelines (UI/UX).
  • Integration: If KDE NEON is officially the KDE distro, KDE developers can vote and decide about features and priorities for one common OS.
  • Continuity: If KDE NEON is officially the KDE distro, the community and their developers can better observe what the needs and shortcomings of the platform/users are. In short, the KDE community can focus their efforts on what matters.
  • Independence: If KDE NEON is officially the KDE distro, developers and users are kept away from bugs, diverse problems and politics of different companies and organizations.

Plan

  1. Introduce KDE NEON as first-class distro: KDE developers should treat KDE NEON as their main distro/OS for creating and debugging and introduce it to users as a platform to access the latest and greatest of the community. Don't fear criticisms.
  1. Define short term goals objectives for KDE NEON: KDE developers should concrete some ways to show and "fidelice" users and developers. For example, KDE NEON could show a "start window" with simple instructions, links and recommended apps (like Open SUSE does), and offer a simpler way to do simple things (eg. formatting a USB with right-click from Dolphin, or adding a trash bin icon on desktop).
  1. Learn from propietary systems: It sounds ugly, but we can learn a lot from Windows or MAC in the way that they resolve complex problems by integrating and centralizing resurces. In GNU/Linux there are a lot of fragmentation regarding to packages. KDE NEON could focus on a type of package without limiting users. In my personal (and unprofessional) opinion, setting Appimage as the universal method to install apps on their own folder (MAC style) or setting KDE NEON as an inmutable system (like Fedora Kinoite) could be debatable options in the future in order to standardize, reduce errors and ensure users know what they are doing.

Community

Considering the details exposed by other members (funds, scope, limited resurces, etc.), I think that the KDE community and users could support any radical change if it is logical and well planned.

KDE developers could (or should) hear users' opinions with moderation, avoiding to waste time with insignificant things and volatile wishes.

Risks and needs

Priorizing and restructuring KDE NEON does not mean to add more fragmentation or to impose a way to do something. I don't want this goal to be interpreted as something authoritarian, but as a proposal to guide the community efforts into a more helpful direction.

I'm sure that you, KDE developers and other profesionals, will do a great job.

Champion

My name is Adrián López Galera. I'm a biologist and Spanish writer. Nowadays, I'm studying software development at my 30s. I'm the author of "¡Derechos Animales ya!" (Animal Rights now!), a personal website dedicated to promoting veganism and the ethical basis of Animal Rights. I give talks in libraries, universities and other public spaces.

I would like, some day, be able to get involved in the KDE development. However, I do not currently have the necessary skills to do so.

Regards!

Interest

Áron Kovács (@aronkvh)

adrlopgal updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 30 2022, 6:28 PM
adrlopgal renamed this task from Making KDE NEON the official Plasma distro to Making KDE NEON the official KDE distro.Jun 30 2022, 8:59 PM
hellokartikey awarded a token.Jul 9 2022, 4:05 AM
hellokartikey added a subscriber: hellokartikey.
aronkvh updated the task description. (Show Details)Aug 4 2022, 12:31 PM
aronkvh added a subscriber: aronkvh.
marzal added a subscriber: marzal.Aug 6 2022, 9:07 AM
HenningJW added a subscriber: HenningJW.Aug 19 2022, 12:25 AM

This proposal will hurt development of KDE and will not attract but repel developers. Potential and even current ones.

This will also facilitate KDE becoming an tightly coupled monolithic piece of hard to maintenance piece of software.

KDE Neon is rather bad for development, right now it ships GCC9 which was released 3.5 years ago. Same or worse for Clang and all the rest of the development tools.

KDE right now does not care about specific distributions but rather on agreed upon standards (POSIX, de facto standard init systems, etc), I don't see how focusing on one distribution should be better than standards.

By your proposal and arguments, I don't think you have the right experience and requirements to make such a proposal. In the way this is presented by you I find it very dangerous and potentially hurtful for KDE as a whole. Just to show you how dangerous I think this proposal is, when I first read it I thought it was satire and not a serious proposal (from a troll who likes different DEs).

adrlopgal added a comment.Aug 19 2022, 12:44 AM
In T15653#279654, @HenningJW wrote:

This proposal will hurt development of KDE and will not attract but repel developers. Potential and even current ones.

This will also facilitate KDE becoming an tightly coupled monolithic piece of hard to maintenance piece of software.

KDE Neon is rather bad for development, right now it ships GCC9 which was released 3.5 years ago. Same or worse for Clang and all the rest of the development tools.

KDE right now does not care about specific distributions but rather on agreed upon standards (POSIX, de facto standard init systems, etc), I don't see how focusing on one distribution should be better than standards.

By your proposal and arguments, I don't think you have the right experience and requirements to make such a proposal. In the way this is presented by you I find it very dangerous and potentially hurtful for KDE as a whole. Just to show you how dangerous I think this proposal is, when I first read it I thought it was satire and not a serious proposal (from a troll who likes different DEs).

I am just a simple user. I just wanted to transfer an idea with the intention of helping. I, as I have clearly stated, am not a developer nor do I have the knowledge to understand the complexity of this proposal. In fact, I barely know how to speak English.

I kindly ask you not to disrespect me. Perhaps I am not up to your knowledge in the field of engineering, but, seeing your comment, I do think I have more manners than you.

By the way, isn't it a bit strange that you signed up for KDE just to reply to my thread? A troll fits more with your profile.

HenningJW added a comment.Aug 19 2022, 8:37 AM
In T15653#279656, @adrlopgal wrote:

I am just a simple user. I just wanted to transfer an idea with the intention of helping. I, as I have clearly stated, am not a developer nor do I have the knowledge to understand the complexity of this proposal. In fact, I barely know how to speak English.

And this is fine, in fact developers could need a more dialog and well voiced proposals from outside in my perspective. At least for me I always find it very helpful from admins and "simple" users. However the proposal is, as you stated, very complex and it would've been good to get some feedback from someone who understands the complexity regarding this topic. There is no shame in not knowing, but there is in not asking/communicating.

Your English is fine and probably around my level, this has nothing to do with your English, it is just a bad idea (imo) and that's fine. There is no shame in voicing a bad idea if you don't know better.

I kindly ask you not to disrespect me. Perhaps I am not up to your knowledge in the field of engineering, but, seeing your comment, I do think I have more manners than you.

I find it incredibly dangerous to response to critique in that way. If you put your proposal out there and want to learn you probably should be happy about critique and not shut it down by off-topic comment about perceived manners.

I was saying that my first impression was that it came from a troll, when I thought it wasn't a serious proposal, I hope you didn't misunderstood me there.

It was never my intention to disrespect you and I don't think I did, as well as I don't see were I was bad-mannered. I just presented my thoughts about your idea without sugar coating it. Saying "I do think I have more manners than you." has some kind of irony in itself for me.

By the way, isn't it a bit strange that you signed up for KDE just to reply to my thread? A troll fits more with your profile.

Initially I commented on a reddit /r/kde post two weeks ago where AdamSzopa recommended me to comment here. And as I said I think this proposal will hurt KDE and this is why I felt obliged to comment on that.

adrlopgal added a comment.Aug 19 2022, 1:03 PM
In T15653#279657, @HenningJW wrote:
In T15653#279656, @adrlopgal wrote:

I am just a simple user. I just wanted to transfer an idea with the intention of helping. I, as I have clearly stated, am not a developer nor do I have the knowledge to understand the complexity of this proposal. In fact, I barely know how to speak English.

And this is fine, in fact developers could need a more dialog and well voiced proposals from outside in my perspective. At least for me I always find it very helpful from admins and "simple" users. However the proposal is, as you stated, very complex and it would've been good to get some feedback from someone who understands the complexity regarding this topic. There is no shame in not knowing, but there is in not asking/communicating.

Your English is fine and probably around my level, this has nothing to do with your English, it is just a bad idea (imo) and that's fine. There is no shame in voicing a bad idea if you don't know better.

I kindly ask you not to disrespect me. Perhaps I am not up to your knowledge in the field of engineering, but, seeing your comment, I do think I have more manners than you.

I find it incredibly dangerous to response to critique in that way. If you put your proposal out there and want to learn you probably should be happy about critique and not shut it down by off-topic comment about perceived manners.

I was saying that my first impression was that it came from a troll, when I thought it wasn't a serious proposal, I hope you didn't misunderstood me there.

It was never my intention to disrespect you and I don't think I did, as well as I don't see were I was bad-mannered. I just presented my thoughts about your idea without sugar coating it. Saying "I do think I have more manners than you." has some kind of irony in itself for me.

By the way, isn't it a bit strange that you signed up for KDE just to reply to my thread? A troll fits more with your profile.

Initially I commented on a reddit /r/kde post two weeks ago where AdamSzopa recommended me to comment here. And as I said I think this proposal will hurt KDE and this is why I felt obliged to comment on that.

This will be my last response to your interventions. Your arguments are reduced to saying that my proposal harms KDE, that it will repel developers, that it doesn't make sense and that I show a lack of knowledge and skills.

It is quite curious that you criticize my reaction to your comments when almost everything you have written is a constant mention of me and what you think of my words. That's not an appropriate way to start a debate.

You are not demonstrating or debating the feasibility of this proposal, you are only making categorical statements and criticizing the mere fact that I have presented it, while making ad hominem passive-aggressive mentions about my abilities that have nothing to do with the proposal.

I think that I and others have already read you. No need to keep repeating yourself or trying to justify your first message.

Thanks.

lydia added a subscriber: lydia.Aug 19 2022, 1:47 PM

For what it's worth: There is no room in the goals process for telling someone they are too new, inexperienced or similar to propose a goal. It is an explicitly open process to bring in new people and ideas. So please leave gatekeeping out of here and let's discuss the merit of each goal proposal.

adam added subscribers: jriddell, sitter, adam.Aug 21 2022, 5:35 PM

Adding Jonathan and Harald, as their input will probably be very important here.

adam added a comment.Aug 21 2022, 5:46 PM

Notes from the refinement session:

Aside from lacking input from Neon maintainers as mentioned above, we're not sure if making Neon THE official KDE distro will bring the changes mentioned in the "pros" section. Additionally, some clarification on what the underlying problems this is supposed to solve is needed.

adam added a comment.Aug 21 2022, 6:46 PM

The voting starts in a week, so any changes that you intend to do should be done soon :)

jriddell added a comment.Aug 25 2022, 9:49 AM

We aim for neon to be the reference of what a KDE software experience should be. There certainly is a problem with developer time available for neon currently, so the goal's target of getting more people on board seems reasonable enough. We are however a bit concerned that the goal champion has not yet reached out to the existing neon developers. It's also a bit unclear how the goal is to be achived exactly. Callling neon the official distribution won't magically make it that.

We are not sure that neon in its current form is ready for this. It's being developed by two people and so far there has been limited involvement from others. With that in mind we'd like to see the goal lay out a path towards greater community engagement to get more person-hours for the project.

Neon can be improved in various ways; there's plenty of tasks to do on the current setup improving infrastructure to make it more automated and promoting it to more people. So if people wanted to help make Neon even better than it is, that would be great. It needs a goal champion who is able to communicate with the Neon devs and coordinate work on it.

Harald and Jonathan