@ J. Janz: Oops, sorry – I really didn’t mean to wrongly attribute someone else’s comment to you. Being blunt is fine btw

Ok, so basically you’d have liked us to use KDE as the general software brand (we’re kinda doing that by having the umbrella, but I do get what you mean) and you’d have KDE for the SC too, so it’s KDE 4.4 that’s coming up next, meanwhile we have (slightly) new brands for the Platform and the community. It’s not an idea that I have any fundamental objection too. In fact here’s a snippet from and email I sent to KDE-promo at the start of November:

“if we keep KDE branding for the team, people are going to remember that it means – or did mean – K Desktop Environment and I think that might lead to confusion. The question is, for most people, does KDE mean the community or the main software product? I suspect it’s the latter and so if we rename the main software product we’re taking on the bigger challenge”

As I guess you realise, I changed my mind (doesn’t mean I’m going to change yours). The basic flaw I came to see in my argument was that we couldn’t really sort out what the “main software product” was that people recognise as KDE – the compilation of stuff we release together or the desktop (or maybe something else?). If we call the desktop KDE then we’ll need another name for the netbook interface. If we call the compilation we release together KDE, then that seems to make it harder to for apps that release as part of the compilation to be seen indpendent from the complete compilation. And we did want to separate the desktop from the compilation a little. I know I’ve mentioned some of this before and I don’t really expect to convert you – but just to make the point that I initially had pretty much your point of view (I think) and changed my mind.

As for most free software teams taking the name of their product – yeah, it’s true. For some it works fairly well (I’m not sure that GNOME have the problems we have with names, people see the desktop and GTK as separate and a lot of the apps are seen as more independent – there are plenty of KDE people using GIMP I guess), others have problems (perhaps it sucks somewhat to be an Apache team not working on Apache). I’m not going try and find obscure examples of other teams doing what we’re doing, but there is a big one: Mozilla. The Mozilla community formed around the Mozilla Suite (commonly known just as Mozilla), but now we have Mozilla the organisation that produces apps like Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird and there is no Mozilla app. So it has worked for them – I know there are differences in that they didn’t rename the Mozilla suite as Firefox but instead made it a brand new product and I’m sure that helped them.

Ah well, I’m not going to convince you (or vice versa) but it’s been interesting to discuss

Well, there seems to be some confusion in your last comment (I’ll blame those stuff you’re busy in ). Who said “above all the desktop, but also anything else that looks and behaves as a part of KDE, including stuff outside of SVN” and “software that behaves as part of KDE” was klebezettel, not me.

I, too, said that KDE is software, that umbrella brand for all software using KDE technology (which was also what I read from klebezettel’s circular reference).

I also pointed what is called by what (always has been, by everybody everywhere I read) and why: KDE started as the desktop and got more software added to it (KDE), ’cause they were based on it. At the time no one made separation between them so it’s all KDE, an umbrella brand. It led to a base of libraries on which all of them depend on, KDE Platform. And it all has been mantained by a community, KDE Community. That is, KDE’s always been the software. Its community, even though becoming friends and having fun together, only are gettered around the sotware. Without the software, they wouldn’t have been a community. That is, the community is around KDE, so it’s KDE’s community.

And I add that the problem isn’t quite that (for nobody else than kde-promo, I see) not only for all the reasons raised in all comments above but because every single FLOSS community is named/branded the way KDE was. ALL OF THEM (maybe except a few exceptions you might hardly find out — I’ve heard of none, ’till now) are a community around the sofware.

What I tried (and am still trying right now) to point out is that, if there was a marketing issue with KDE (non-official) branding, a rebranding could actually do good (clear any possible clouds away) if it was not set against what was right to people that had no trouble ’till now (possibly almost everybody). It could be KDE (umbrella branded software — and, sure, the bundle itself), KDE Platform (KDE’s commom libraries base) and KDE Community. I doubt people would get confused by this (’cause it’s always been this way, to KDE and all FLOSS). Can’t you point out these to kde-promo, for an adjust to rebranding, to straight things up?

Come on people! I know you can come with something better and KISS.

Thanks for the comments and sorry for the lack of response from me – the last few days have been majorly busy (and the next few too, so don’t expect to hear too much else from me in the near future). I don’t want my lack of replies to be interpreted as ignoring the points raised or annoyance with the disagreement – people like d. hensely, I think your comments have added to the debate here in a positive way and I’m grateful to you for taking the time to make them. Fortunately Nathan has been able to add a few replies while I’ve been busy with other things.

I won’t go through all the comments one by one, but I’ll try and pick up a few main themes that I think you’ve raised. Please nudge me if you think I missed one that is important.

1) We’re attempting to solve a problem that did not exist
.
All I can say is that the branding positioning has been discussed at great length on kde-promo over more than a year. There have been a lot of different opinions, but I haven’t noticed anyone saying that they think we should stick with the status quo. There seems to be a pretty unanimous view among those of us trying to communicate KDE that there was a problem. This is likely a point where we just have to agree to disagree. The problem existed for me and for a number of other people.

2) There was no confusion in the old use of KDE

Well, in a sense: yes. When we have just one term KDE it is very easy for you to casually write stuff about using KDE etc etc. It’s also a lot easier to rant against something than to argue your case (and I thank all of you for not ranting, but rather putting foward your viewpoints in a generally polite and well-considered way).

JJanz said KDE was the software. I asked which software. He replied that above all the desktop, but also anything else that looks and behaves as a part of KDE, including stuff outside of SVN. So to me it sounds like his definition of KDE would be replaced by saying “KDE software” to cover everything. Also, in explaining what KDE is, he says it is any software that behaves as part of KDE – I’m sorry but that is a circular reference and suggests to me that he is having difficulty in defining what his “KDE” actually is. I still don’t know whether you see KDE as the Plasma Desktop, the SC or anything that uses the Platform

People have commonly used KDE to refer to the workspace, the SC and the whole world of KDE software or even the Platform. This has led to confusion – if Amarok depends on KDE does that mean I need to install the workspace, the SC or only the Platform to run it? I think there’s less ambiguity if we say that installing Amarok requires the KDE Platform and doing that is not going to eat your GNOME desktop.

3) Comparisons with GNU/Linux etc.

Can we put that one to bed as a separate issue? I thank Tommy for his insights in to that and correction of some errors I made in the analogy (or rather replying to the analogy that someone else made). The idea that our brands sound like “Windows Vista Home Premium’ etc – well I guess, in as much as they are brands. But I don’t think we’ll go down the KDE Plasma Desktop Home Premium route

4) About “KDE releases KDE KDE”

No we were never stupid enough to actually use that. It was just an example of something that is logically valid but clearly nonsensical in English. We have been suing KDE as an umbrella brand and KDE has also been a shorthand for what we now call the SC, so it is logically valid to call the KDE SC the KDE KDE under the old branding soup.

5) The umbrella brand is the same as the SC, SC is the shorthand for KDE software

No. The SC is not a real product and it’s certainly not everything we do. It’s really only of interest to us because it is convenient for a number of our teams to share infrastructure and a common release schedule. Few (any?) distros ship the whole SC in a default install, I doubt there are any that don’t add additional KDE apps like Amarok and digiKam and K3B. There is probably no one out there who is actually using the SC, the whole SC and nothing but the SC For the foreseeable future there will probably be a KDE SC, but only for practical reasons.

6) It would have been better to rename the community than the software

No one raised this idea explicitly, but I see it underlying some of the comments. We could have done this. I initially argued for it. In this case we would perhaps have had KDE as purely the desktop, called out community KoolPeeps and the Platform KoolCore (yes, I just made those names up). So “KoolPeeps today released KoolPeeps KDE built on KoolCore”. It’s ok (apart from the rubbish names) but makes our strongest brand (KDE) a mere sub-brand relating to a single product. At present KDE is recognised and it seemed better for us to therefore use that as the umbrella. We’ve also, basically accidentally, created a Plasma Netbook brand over the past year for our netbook workspace and we felt it made more sense to go with the flow on that rather than fight it. There are other arguments too I expect, I don’t remember the details but I remember I was convinced to make KDE the umbrella pretty quickly.

7) Users shouldn’t need to read lengthy posts on the internet to understand the brands.

Absolutely. That’s why it’s up to us (KDE promo team, documentation and release announcement wiriters, Dot writers and everyone on Planet KDE and you as informed users – you read the Planet so you are clearly informed) to use the branding consistently and correctly. People follow what other people say (many news outlets are already following us in talking about the beta release of SC 4.4) this will take time though. Explaining the brands to Joe user is unnecessary if people writing about KDE and KDE software understand the brands and the distros do too.

The repositioning of the brands won’t stick

It will only stick if we manage to carry enough people with us. That’s why we value feedback and we’re talking to people in writing our distro guidelines for example. Stuff like this takes time, but I think you’ll be surprised what can be achieved over time. The openSUSE peeps are finally winning their battle against SuSE (which no longer exists). Some of you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about, but references to SuSE were still everywhere a couple of years ago.

Basically it seems me, as joe user, that your goal is to make it clear that there are both KDE apps that work ‘stand alone’ and often cross platform, and also a cohesive group of software that is a desktop environment and may also work cross platform. And also that KDE is a developer community of diverse and talented people.

Well all that is no doubt true (even if I misunderstood what your goals are, I’m reasonably sure the description is accurate enough).

But I do not think an exercise in fracturing things by way of ‘re-branding’ is going to mean anything except added confusion in the user community. They are just beginning to grasp that there is this powerful force afoot in user enabling software –KDE.

Fist exposure is not likely to be aided by a confusion of terms (I agree they no doubt make sense within the developer community –or to some parts of it anyway), and may be somewhat useful to people that can at least file a bug report.

So, all I am saying is just that as joe user sees it, you are not re-branding, you’re just confusing. Maybe if you try long and hard enough you will manage to change the habits of joe user, but I very much doubt it.

As to the manual, I wouldn’t bother –joe user is not ever going to read it. That’s the nature of joe.

Now whether or not you see it this way, all I have been doing is trying to point out stuff as I see it. That is called feedback –that it is not feedback that you wanted to hear does not change what it is –an attempt to offer what is so often requested by posters on the Planet (You being one that asked, for example).

This is just some feedback from one user of the joe variety. It’s OK to ignore it –You all still make great software, and are no doubt a great community –This joe benefits from it very much, so thanks for that.

But then I also benefit from a great many other brands of software (except Microsoft, which I personally wrote out of my life several years ago… so maybe I’m not the exact joe user you are looking for after all).

Still, in my opine, most joe users of FLOSS type soft will see this re-branding as a confusing dilution of the brand, rather then a strengthening event. So that’s my feedback –you get to assign what ever value to it you chose… I’ve just done what you asked people to do in your post.

Thanks for that opportunity, a place to express what one thinks is always appreciated by everyone, especially joe user, who often feels very left out of the loop. My apologies if I have not been able to find a way to disagree that sounds pretty and polished –look at my posts as alpha quality verbiage. But then what else would you expect from joe user?

Yes, Joe

You not only get to misunderstand everything (it’s majorly you job) when we don’t do our job right.

If you had no trouble before and now we gave you one, how can we say the problem is that you don’t get the rebranding?

The rebranding (as is now) is an elephant in the living room … Will a guide of “how to ride an elephant” make it better?

‘KDE SC 4.4′
‘KDE Plasma Desktop 4.4′
‘KDE Platform’
‘KDE (community)’

all seem to bear a resemblance to:

‘Windows Vista Home Premium’
‘Microsoft Office Live Workspace’
‘GNU/Linux’

While the old term /was/ all-encompassing, it was also very easy to infer the context from how “KDE” was used. When users are required to read lengthy posts on the internet to simply type the correct name of a product, it seems that this move reached the opposite effect and introduced some strong branding issues.

Sorry for saying the same thing but it at least proves that it is true: people never had confusion. KDE is a brand for a bundle of software, from which became known the names KDE Community and KDE platform.

Is this hard to get? I never saw any confusion on the press, news, blogs or nowhere else. If a few people failed to explain to a friend what KDE is, I think it’s way a lot people more confused by this KDE Software Compilation and the whole rest.

Rebranding confusion can be easily fixed by adopting what I explained in last phrase of the second paragraph on this comment. It’s honestly and humbly my suggestion.