Since 2015 I and other people have been talking about Evolving KDE – meaning reflecting on where we are, where we want to go and how we will get there. We have made great strides with defining our vision and mission since then. It has not been an easy exercise but a necessary one because it gives us focus and clarity about our purpose.
Our vision is: “A world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy.” We stand behind this. We want to fill this vision with life now. We came together at Akademy to discussed how to do that. How can we give the whole KDE community the opportunity to express what they think we should all be working on right now? How can we find all the creative ideas and ambitions that are hidden in so many of our community members? And how can we talk about them all together? I believe we have found a way.
Starting today all of KDE is invited to propose goals to work on for the next 3 to 4 years. We will then discuss and refine them. Finally we will have a vote for the goals we should pursue together. Goals can be about anything you consider important – it doesn’t have to be about writing code. The top 3 proposals will get supported in various ways for example with sponsorship of a sprint and presentation slots at next year’s Akademy. This way we will shine a spotlight on the most important things we are working on and together support that work in the best way we can. The plan is to do this every year and add one or two goals to the mix every time.
The timeline looks as follows:
- Today until beginning of October: work on the proposals
- All of October: talk about the proposal
- First two weeks of November: vote on the proposals by everyone with a KDE contributor account
- Middle of November: publish the results
To make it more concrete, here are some examples of potential goals that could come out of this:
- Improving the Developer Story: a new contributor should be able to create his first patch to any KDE application in 15 minutes or less;
- Big in Asia: users in Asia should be able to write in their writing system in any of the software produced by KDE;
- Appeal to All our Senses: a visually impaired user should be able to use all the software produced by KDE;
- Virtual Reality Painting: artists should be able to paint in 3D straight from a VR world using software produced by KDE;
- Speaking Your Language: 90% of the computer users worldwide should be able to use the software produced by KDE in a language in which they are fluent.
Do you have an idea for a goal for KDE? Get a small group of people together and propose it today by adding it here.
Thank you to Kévin Ottens, Mirko Boehm, David Faure, Frederik Gladhorn and everyone who helped flesh this idea out.
I’m not a KDE developer but a simple KDE user. This does not prevent me from posting my proposals. They are as follows:
Extend the principle of modularity as already done with the separation of Desktop, Libraries and Applications to the desktop itself: Make a lightweight desktop without all the bloat of Plasma but provide every possibility of extending it with a plugin architecture if wished or needed.
From the user perspective: offer a clearly defined three step model of expertise:
1. basic user: simple use, basic functionality, reasonable defaults.
2. advanced user: allow configuration, don’t force the user to use defaults.
3. professional or enthusiast user: allow extension by plugins and API.
Important:
A) Document everything especially for the advanced and professional users (not only for basic users). No feature should go undocumented. Make code and documentation an inseparable unity. No “use the source, Luke”. Document your APIs and offer examples. That forces one to think of the plausibility of API choices.
B) Really care for stability: Keep the core as bug free as possible.
C) Make it as easy as possible to integrate non-KDE applications into your desktop.