KDE Rebrands, Introduces KDE Plasma Desktop

Jiilik Oiolosse writes "The KDE community has killed the term K Desktop Environment (previously the Kool Desktop Environment). 'KDE' had previously ambiguously referred to both the community, and the complete set of programs and tools produced by the KDE community which together formed a desktop user interface. This set of tools, including the window manager, panels and configuration utilities, which KDE terms a 'workspace,' will now be shipped under the term 'KDE Plasma Desktop.' This allows KDE to ship a separate workspace called 'Plasma Netbook,' and independently market the various KDE applications as usable in any workspace, whether it be the Plasma Desktop, Windows, or XFCE."

Comments

Wow

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

That won't be confusing.
I say that as a KDE user.

Re:Wow

[Midnight Thunder]

That won't be konfusing.
I say that as a KDE user.

There corrected that for you ;)

Re:Wow

[CannonballHead]

There korrected that for you ;)

*ahem* Fixed that for you.

Clarity?

[cgenman]

Great! Now Linux will still have two major competing desktops. But now one of them could be one of several separate versions, or some applications on a different desktop, or a version of Windows running Koffice. Thanks, clarity committee!

Re:Clarity?

[R.Mo_Robert]

Thanks, Klarity Kommittee!

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Clarity?

[TheModelEskimo]

Two? Linux will always have a million+ competing desktops. Linux is there to be customized, man, from the kernel on up. The fact that we currently think of the desktop as some specific thing is messing you up. Think about workflows. Think about a personal brand of work-fu or play-fu that you develop in partnership with your Linux machines. Your workflow is so good, you take on an apprentice to teach it to. He's thanking his lucky stars that someone who can create workflow experiences like you can would be willing to let him in the door to learn the trade.

I've said it before: You talk like Windows(TM) and Mac OS (TM) are these wonderful things because they're monoliths. But we've learned from monoliths and their creators that there is no "clarity" in that direction, only broken promises. One size doesn't fit all. The new landscape of devices and interfaces will give you clarity and specificity in exchange for your old monolith. If you won't trade it in, prepare to be left in the dust.

We'll look back at monolithic desktop computing and wonder what on earth kind of idiots we were to sit in front of this thing all day, all using the same basic type of chair, same keyboard with carpal tunnel syndrome included, and interfaces that worked like something only a masochist would use.

Anyway, back to writing another Nautilus script.

Re:Clarity?

[camperdave]

One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

Re:Clarity?

[Ibiwan]

I think you mean the KDE Klari.... wait, never mind.

Re:Clarity?

[CannonballHead]

I have no idea why "a low end non power user" would know or care what their display resolution is.

"Is there a way I can make my screen bigger?"

"The power went out, and when I turned my computer on, everything was really big and now I have to scroll to see anything."

...

I don't know what end users you know, but the ones I know definitely care :)

Re:Clarity?

[causality]

One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

What follows is my personal opinion. Ideally, Linux can be the one (or one of the few) environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves. Users who don't want to learn how the machine works already have two major systems designed specifically for them: Windows and OSX. To me it makes perfect sense that Linux would be Open Source because Microsoft and Apple both recognize that the real money is gained by appealing to the general public and the general public is nearly technophobic.

I say that because I strongly believe that anyone who is literate and has access to Google can inform themselves. There is no conspiracy or secret cabal trying to hide any of the information one would need in order to understand any system I have named. It's out there, it's available, and it's accessible; it's purely a case of the average person not wanting to utilize it or otherwise to educate themselves. These are the folks who find "easy to use" and "supported by a vendor"** worth paying for. Therefore, the beauty of Open Source allows Linux to exist independently of the financial success of any particular company or organization so there is no reason to appease a crowd that major vendors already cater to. I also don't believe Linux could hope to displace Windows on the desktop without sacrificing many of the things I really enjoy about it. For these reasons, I am not concerned with whether Linux will ever bankrupt Microsoft and I don't view that as its purpose.


** I am far less familiar with OSX so I'll limit my comment here to Windows and Linux. I'll add that I don't really think Windows is very easy to use. I personally find it cumbersome, sometimes tedious, and sometimes difficult to automate. I would describe Windows as "easy to learn" but learning all about it doesn't make it much more convenient to use. I would describe Linux as having a much steeper learning curve by comparison, particularly if you are thorough and intend to master the command line. However, once the investment of overcoming that learning curve is made, you then find yourself with a system that doesn't get in your way or second-guess your actions. The more you master Linux, the more you can automate and the more you can get it to do with less and less effort on your part. The more you learn about it, the easier it is to perform complex tasks with an economy of expression that is difficult to find in a non-Unix system.

Also, the times I have needed support for Linux, what I found was a community of volunteers who welcomed me with open arms and provided a level of support that rivals or exceeds anything you would get with a commercial support contract. All of this was from volunteers who do what they do because they care. I believe that part of what made this possible is that the questions they were answering concerned real bugs and real problems. They were not drowning in a sea of trivial issues of the sort that are well-familiar to anyone who has ever worked a front-line technical support role. This allowed them to focus their efforts on issues that really did require the attention of experts which, in my opinion, makes a big difference.

Re:Clarity?

[N3Roaster]

You mean Pubuntu. May not want a brown color scheme on that one.

Re:Clarity?

[Tanktalus]

I have no idea why "a low end non power user" would know or care what their display resolution is.

"Is there a way I can make my screen bigger?"

"The power went out, and when I turned my computer on, everything was really big and now I have to scroll to see anything."

...

I don't know what end users you know, but the ones I know definitely care :)

I've never seen xorg.conf get corrupted the way the windows registry can. And that's probably partly because the xorg.conf is not open in read/write mode, nor with pending changes currently cached by some part of the system (fs cache, hd cache, etc.). Because it's read-only, owned by root (which you're usually not logged in as), and, heck, not even opened after X loads up, it's highly unlikely to be damaged by a power failure. Meanwhile, Windows keeps that information in the registry, which is probably opened in read/write mode at all times, with far too much access given to normal applications that may damage this particular part of the registry, and with pending writes that may be interrupted by the power failure, resulting in a partially corrupted registry. So you need to know how to do that on Windows.

That said, I'd simply point them to krandr (I'm assuming kde here, though I suspect there's a gnome equivalent) and let them play with it. It sits nicely in the system tray, too. Dynamic changes to the resolution? Just as easy as on Windows. Like anything else, though, only once you know where to look. (krandr will remember its setting and go back to it during log-in, so it's still permanent even though you don't have write access to the xorg.conf file. Just like things should be.)

Re:Clarity?

[V!NCENT]

What version of Windows do you have? "Ewr I don't know".
What desktop environment do you have? "Ewr I don't know".

*At this time you ask user for visual hints so can figure it out yourself.*
*At this time you ask user for visual hints so can figure it out yourself.*

*After figuring it out, you have to know for each Windows version where the option is located*
*After figuring it out, you have to know for each desktop environment where the option is located*

Re:Clarity?

[westlake]

Linux can be the one environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves.

Two words: Pulse Audio.

It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth.
 

Re:Clarity?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I've never seen xorg.conf get corrupted the way the windows registry can

The windows registry is not your ordinary file structure. It was, I believe, an outgrowth of the old Digital RSX-11M,RSTS/E virtual table construct (yes, I am that old). The original purpose of that file architecture was to make an indexible in-memory structure map to locations on disk when memory was very expensive, and available addressability even more so. It sort of made sense when the language of choice was 16-bit Basic Plus. It gave the ability to manage large-ish tables using only array addressing in a highly constrained environment, via a movable address window. Sort of like proto-virtual memory coupled with a tree index structure.

However as ol' Ben Franklin said, two removes equal one fire, and when the format adapted from RSTS/E -> VMS -> NT the format suffered a wee bit from bit decay.

Considering how cheap and powerful hardware is today, it makes eminent sense to simply read the file in and parse it as you please, so xorg.conf makes a lot more sense now. It's simpler, and that appeals to me.

In all, the file format used by the Registry was just a clever piece of code once to make more out of less. A noble venture, venerable, and rather obsolete.

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

And this thread just sums up the problem - in three posts we have now made mention of four different sound systems, and I'll go ahead and mention JACK, oss, and esd right here to make it 7. Various programs are written for each of these, and while some are more deprecated than others, the fact is that getting sound to work on linux is a LOT harder than it needs to be.

Sound stopped being a pain in windows with the advent of Win95 and PnP. Before that the windows bit of it wasn't actually that bad (midi mapping was a little painful, but generally the defaults weren't bad). Getting the DMAs/IRQs right was the real pain.

My linux system has a pretty nice wavetable audio board, but to be honest if I want to play something I just use timidity since I've given up on trying to get the hardware to actually work right. If I needed more than rudimentary sound I'd be really up the creek.

Re:Clarity?

[visualight]

Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

Actually that's not true, Linux is already much easier to support than Windows, but I'm others here will jump at the chance to explain that to you so I won't get into it.
The biggest barrier to mainstream Linux adoption is Corporate email, messaging, and calendars. I've worked for several Linux focused companies the last ten years, one of them even had 'Linux' in it's name, but all of those companies still used Exchange for company communications. What I've realized is that IT departments are not choosing Exchange for _any_ technical or security reasons, they are making this choice because to choose anything else means they have to own that choice. With any other solution they actually have know pretty much everything there is to know about the package(s) they're implementing.

In most companies (that I've been exposed to of course) most of the IT staff are Windows only, maybe a few Ubuntu 'installers' sprinkled around. These people know where all the wizards are and which boxes need checkmarks but that's pretty much it. When there's a Linux based alternative to Exchange that this class of people can choose without feeling any risk, THEN you will a massive expansion of Linux on the desktop.

PS:I mean no slight to the intelligence of the IT staff -the OS they are using is essentially closed to them so they are merely not in the habit of digging deep, or radically altering the behavior of the OS or application stack. Also, job security is a really really powerful motivator when you have a family to care for, I can't fault anyone for making the safe choices.

XFCE

[oldhack]

X fecce is awesome. Crap name though.

sounds exiting

[Punto]

will it be able to leverage the synergies of social media 2.0 user-facing semantics?

Re:sounds exiting

[MichaelSmith]

Yes. All mouse movements will send automatic twitter updates.

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[H0p313ss]

Kno!

Stupid

[realmolo]

You know, the KDE guys just don't get it.

They almost remind me of Commodore, during the Amiga days. They have this really cool technology, but it doesn't work as well as you want it to and has some glaring deficiencies, and their marketing department is absolutely clueless.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[arose]

WTF is Aqua? WTF is Glass? WTF is Snow Leopard? WTF is Safari? WTF do I need to Access? How in the world does one lauch a Word? WTF am I supposed to Excel at? WTF is Vista? WTF is Zune? WTF is that Blue Ray? WTF is in Ex Box 360? WTF is anything without lots of marketing money?

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[kjart]

I've got news for you - no amount of marketing money would make a name like GIMP gain wide acceptance.

"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[Lemming Mark]

Plasma isn't just that thing for making desktop widgets of dubious usefulness. What KDE has actually done is, in my opinion, a fairly smart design move regardless of whether you like their implementation.

Desktop widgets aren't applications, they are people extending the functionality of their desktop. What the KDE folks saw was that a well-designed API could be used to write the desktop UI itself (task bar, clock, pager, whatever), the things we used to use taskbar applets for (media player control, etc) and the flashy new desktop widgets. Instead of having a basic desktop and plastering a widget API on top, they've gone and unified the whole thing so you can use the same API to write taskbar applets, widgets or write replacement taskbars or ... whatever. The various desktop elements are separate building blocks (plasmoids) that can be assembled together. They've also produced loads of bindings for this API to give folks the chance to write stuff in their favourite language.

The plasma netbook interface then takes some of the default building plasmoids, adds some new ones and then glues them together in a different way. So you can get a similar family look and similar functionality (and, fundamentally, the same desktop) but in a way that's optimised for a different form factor of device. I think that's actually pretty neat and somewhat reminiscent of the way you can configure and compile the core Linux kernel down for tiny machines or up to big iron whilst still getting the benefits of a common codebase.

There's a load of other cool stuff including a standard set of "data engines" which separate producing data from displaying it, thus making it easy to glue data sources together in interesting ways. Despite the various feature regressions that rewriting the desktop led to, it's a really neat architecture and should hopefully stand them in good stead for the future.

Krikey!

[RoboRay]

If this means they're going to stop using kwirky misspellings of various words for the names of every program, I might actually be konvinced to start taking them seriously.

The future of KDE bug reports: Some sample replies

[clemenstimpler]

Step 1: "The KDE software compilation team happily acknowledges the bug report you have filed. Why we are happy? This bug report in fact concerns the KDE workspaces team. Or so we believe. Please be so kind as to file your bug report again at the appropriate place. If the KDE workplaces team should be able to prove that this is none of their matter, please be so kind as to reopen this bug. After reopening the bug here, please be aware that it will be triaged for at least nine months as a matter of policy. If you should be obnoxious, we may decide at our own will to extend the period to at least eleven months. Thank you very much for your assistance in making the K Desktop/Compilation/Workspace/Application Experience even better. Salvatory Clause: The expression "K Desktop experience" is only preserved for the purpose of backward compatibility."

Step 2: "Thanks a lot for filing a bug report. We certainly appreciate your willingness to enhance the K Workspaces Experience (formerly known as the K Desktop Experience, an expression preserved only in order to preserve backward compatibility). However, we have noticed in your bug report that Amarok 1.1.4 has been opened while encountering your bug. Since Amarok 1.1.4 certainly cannot be regarded as part of the K Software Compilation experience, you should consider updating. If this does not remove the bug you have encountered, please be so kind as to file a bug first against the respective K Software Compilation. If this should not prove to be sucessful in the next two years, please reconsider opening the bug here. Before that, it will be futile anyway."

The sweet stink of rebranding!

[hackshack]

For me, at least, "rebranding" has always had a certain stink of failure about it. (I like KDE, BTW, so don't lose your fucking minds.)

Witness:

• Palm, Inc. > PalmOne + PalmSource > Palm, Inc.
• Tropicana > Tropicana "generic crappy label" > Tropicana
• AOL > LOL "remedial art-school" logo

How did you feel while the respective companies were doing this? Is there anyone in the room that remembers reading the headline, "Palm splits into PalmSource and PalmOne," and thought, "Man, that's some sexy marketing right there. I need to get me a Treo but quick." No. We saw it and thought, "the shark has been jumped, the drain is being circled." Yes, you did.

While I'm on a roll, for shits and giggles, let's look at the bastard sibling of rebranding, "editions."

• Toothpaste. Now was that Crest Tartar Control plus Whitening, or Crest Whitening plus Tartar Control? And did you want that in paste or gel? I swear, we need meta-toothpaste, where it's formulated on the spot. You have a big board with all sorts of shit like "mint," "sparkly" (for the child or man-child in your household), "tartar control," and buzzword of the year, "whitening." Then you push a whole bunch and hit the MIX button, and get a toothpaste tube with all that shit custom-made. It'd be like ordering an HP server; it'd even warn you about compatibility issues! But I digress.
• Windows 98 > Windows XP. Then it hit the fan. Windows Vista Home Basic + Home Premium + Business + Ultimate. I won't get into Windows 7, but suffice to say there's an edition for everyone, even your crazy next-door neighbor that listens to Yanni all day, has an alpaca fetish, and taught his kids to communicate solely in Klingon. (Sorry if I've touched a nerve amongst anyone here.)
• Sun is particularly adept at this. You can almost taste the management schizophrenia: Solaris > Solaris Express Community Edition + OpenSolaris + Solaris > Solaris + OpenSolaris (not including Indiana, Nevada, et al. the distinctions between which I'm not sure anyone truly understands). Besides, half the stuff will be discontinued by the time you read this, so why bother itemizing it all?

The moral of the story, kids, is that rebranding is for the desperate, and editions are for suckers.

Peace out.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[mopslik]

no amount of marketing money would make a name like GIMP gain wide acceptance.

So... you're saying I should reevaluate my KDE Ultimate Network Tool then?

Re:3.5

[Kjella]

KDE3 was a very solid house. But the foundation just can't take building anything more on top. Qt3 is dead, arts is dead, so much of the technlogy is dead. Maybe they got a little bit carried away when they designed KDE4 but the foundation had to change. Going back to KDE3 just isn't an option.