OK, that makes sense.

In T15627#279336, @lydia wrote:

I'd very much support this. It addresses a major problem I have with the proposal as it stands. (Happy to jump on a call to bounce off ideas if that'd help you.)

The other problem I see is the title: do we want to talk about "professionalizing KDE" for the next few years in our public communication? I'm not sure we're doing ourselves a favor by portraying the current situation as unprofessional. Maybe we can find a better framing for that? (I don't have a good idea yet.)

KDE could of course just hire professionals from the community. The larger point is that in order for professionals to do professional work, it usually helps if they can do the job full time. This is why I think it's necessary to pay some people to do the "fun work", not just the stuff that volunteers don't want to do.

Yeah we agree.

I don't think volunteers can fix this problem. However, volunteers might be able to understand that there is a problem.

I get all that but it's a good idea to make sure the foundation's in order before piling on more bricks. The sooner the foundation is fixed the the more productive the later efforts will be (unless you think it's already close to perfect).

How about convergence with Gnome? Provide the tooling to make apps that can feel at home in both Gnome and KDE. QT apps can fit in with both Mac and Windows, so why not the two main linux desktops? Now that would be something.

Dolphin still doesn't look anything like this and even that cyan border is still there. While I understand the need to redesign a major app, all the other QT apps look just as bad or worse. A lot of this is down to the theme engine. There's been some kind of theme change recently but it hasn't made anything better - arguably worse by blending in the titlebar with the window chrome without making the whitespace in the chrome actually act like a titlebar. For the love of god people, please take the well thought out platforms as your point of reference - Windows 95, Mac OS, even Gnome ... anything. (sorry if this sounds hostile - as a dedicated KDE user I mean well).

That would be a good idea obviously, with a strong emphasis on the first part.

Oh yeah, pacing is not an issue. Easing in is fine, as is just not wanting to do it because it would be a pretty big undertaking and a pretty big departure from business as usual (like I wouldn't want the job personally lol).

Edit: just going to revise this reply to Nate for clarity.

Can I be frank here? In the spirit of this thread, suppose you brought in a small team of highly reputable software architects and designers - cause what professional project doesn't need them, correct? - and they told you that KDE is not in fact "mature." This is what Gnome did a while back and they told them that the patient needs major surgery, not a few more bandaids. The Gnome team proceeded to fix the problem by radically pairing down the scope of their projects, because there is only so much volunteers can do well (hence the need for "professionalism"). And it still took them almost a decade to bring what is essentially a "showcase" - by the standards of corporate-backed offerings - up to snuff. (Sidenote: Obviously the comparison to corporate projects is unfair but from an end user PoV it will be made, ditto if we wish to invoke "professial" standards. Can't be helped. You alluded to as much when you said probably tongue in cheek that you want KDE as "base desktop for every device on planet Earth" )

For the goal-based crowdfunding scheme, it would be a good idea to hire a UX professional to formulate a coherent design and oversee its execution to completion. Gnome has a guy like that I think. Without this, it will be very hard make a compelling pitch because crowdfunding works by showcasing a "product" and asking "you want this?", at which point your audience hopefully responds with "Shut up and take my money!"

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but my point was that KDE as a *desktop and platform* is not widely used in professional settings. It's not widely used in personal computing either but it still has millions of users, and there is room for growth if it improves. So that's where the money is if your goal is to revamp the desktop and the platform as a whole.

There is the caveat that Blender, Thunderbird and so on are specialized cross platform applications used in professional settings. So they can raise enough money from corporate sources for what they're trying to do, though usually not enough to get them anywhere near the quality of commercial offerings. KDE in contrast is very broad and it doesn't have much commercial application at the moment.

I'm not a fan of Steve Jobs but he had the right idea here I think:

It's very good that KDE is mulling this problem, since the lack of "professionalism" has been THE problem with desktop linux since its inception. Professionalizing the work of fundraising is a good start but if you really want to get over the hump I think you need to fundamentally change the fundraising model.

BTW, there is no evidence that blue light from LCD screens is worse for your eyes than any other kind of light produced by LCD screens with the same level of brightness.

Looks good. The main things I would suggest however are: