Last year I went to Akademy with two notebooks and sharpies and asked people to draw or write about one thing they think would make KDE better. This year I did the same again. The question was: “What’s the one thing KDE should do to have more impact?” Here are some of the great results:
The complete set is in this Flickr album. Check it out! What’s your favorite? What’s your one thing – big or small – that would help KDE have more impact?
I’m just a user who has been using KDE since forever… But my one thing I believe would help KDE is if it structured less like a “community”, and more like a -project- . I think KDE needs to be a much more “tight ship.” I realize this may be impossible given the nature of free software.
As a user I feel like I am constantly having the carpet pulled out from under me with half baked software full of experimental features that never become anything other than a waste of time and effort (AKA nepomuk, activities, etc). Everyone is just kinda going along doing their own thing. In short KDE feels unfocused and unpolished, both the product and the development process (at least from my outsider perspective).
Sending hugs over the internet? More Women, More Cultures, More Countries? How about stop wasting time on empty platitudes and tired identity politics and simply focus on building software that can compete with commercial products? That will create the most impact.
In my opinion KDE already creates awesome desktop and software. Many of them are the best in their category. But what I strongly believe is missing a lot is promotion. A strong and visible message so that people can at least know what is available. Only this way they can come as users and developers and so and in a nice feedback loop. So yeah it would be great if there was more focus on promotion. I kind of miss the old days of KDE when there was a lot of KDE liking/sharing/commenting activity on social news media websites. But today I can hardly see any developers doing this promotion of their community products. Not even their own and much less others from KDE. I