[kde-promo] Take a look at Linux1.no

[Birger Kollstrand]

Hi,

Linux1.no is a small but leading Linux site in Norway. Take a look at the
graphs on the left side of the page.

Among the users there is an overweight of Gnome and a LARGE proportion of the
users are on (K)Ubuntu!


Regards Birger

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Aaron J. Seigo]

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Linux1.no is a small but leading Linux site in Norway. Take a look at the
graphs on the left side of the page.

do you have an idea what the readership demographics are?

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Among the users there is an overweight of Gnome and a LARGE proportion of
the users are on (K)Ubuntu!

hrm. more *buntu users than all the others put together. that says a lot,
since the real world linux desktop market penetration of *buntu isn't
anywhere near that right now. looks like the community around / associated
with linux1.no (or at least those that cared to vote) has a particular
profile, which isn't very odd given how tight-knit communities tend to flock
together. i'm doubtful that this useful data for general purpose
extrapolation, however.

what were your thoughts / hopes when posting it to this list? as an
informational tidbit or were you looking for something more concrete?

[Mr Bulldog]

You are right there on it been just an example of just one case, that is why
when we do any surveys for KDE, we cannot just ask people in one area, or
even just one country and this applies to other research or information we
find.

Mr Parry

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Linux1.no is a small but leading Linux site in Norway. Take a look at

the

Post by Birger Kollstrand
graphs on the left side of the page.

do you have an idea what the readership demographics are?

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Among the users there is an overweight of Gnome and a LARGE proportion

of

Post by Birger Kollstrand
the users are on (K)Ubuntu!

hrm. more *buntu users than all the others put together. that says a lot,
since the real world linux desktop market penetration of *buntu isn't
anywhere near that right now. looks like the community around / associated
with linux1.no (or at least those that cared to vote) has a particular
profile, which isn't very odd given how tight-knit communities tend to flock
together. i'm doubtful that this useful data for general purpose
extrapolation, however.
what were your thoughts / hopes when posting it to this list? as an
informational tidbit or were you looking for something more concrete?
--
Aaron J. Seigo
Undulate Your Wantonness
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set
digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Linux1.no is a small but leading Linux site in Norway. Take a look at the
graphs on the left side of the page.

do you have an idea what the readership demographics are?

This is one of the most active Linux sites in Norway (proabably THE most
active)

The "poll" is done by users setting in their profile what is their default
distro and desktop environment.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Among the users there is an overweight of Gnome and a LARGE proportion of
the users are on (K)Ubuntu!

hrm. more *buntu users than all the others put together. that says a lot,
since the real world linux desktop market penetration of *buntu isn't
anywhere near that right now. looks like the community around / associated
with linux1.no (or at least those that cared to vote) has a particular
profile, which isn't very odd given how tight-knit communities tend to
flock together. i'm doubtful that this useful data for general purpose
extrapolation, however.

If there is an interest then I can ask the moderator what percenage is Kubuntu
and what is Ubuntu.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
what were your thoughts / hopes when posting it to this list? as an
informational tidbit or were you looking for something more concrete?

It's mostly ment as information, we often see polls where people vote and then
KDE comes out good. This is based upon their profiles and is maybe more
accurat than a poll.

I think it also highligts that KDE needs to be active in these arenas also.
There are regularly new users comming to this site asking for advise and with
most of the users going Gnome... That is not good for KDE.

Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they want
to try Linux? It seems like may stick with their first choice.

regards birger....

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Aaron J. Seigo]

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Linux1.no is a small but leading Linux site in Norway. Take a look at
the graphs on the left side of the page.

do you have an idea what the readership demographics are?

This is one of the most active Linux sites in Norway (proabably THE most
active)
The "poll" is done by users setting in their profile what is their default
distro and desktop environment.

and yet it seems that less than 200 people have done so through a
self-selection process. i know of 50+ kde users in one particular office in
oslo (guess which one? =). if those people signed on it would look a bit
different, no? small sample sets are often misleading, though not always.
hard to gauge how this data reflects the realities of norway.

of course, as someone who actually -lives- there perhaps you would be able to
comment on how accurately this reflects on your experiences with other linux
users in the country? then again, i don't know if i could do that for my
country, only the city i live in really.

Post by Birger Kollstrand
I think it also highligts that KDE needs to be active in these arenas also.
There are regularly new users comming to this site asking for advise and
with most of the users going Gnome... That is not good for KDE.

well, it's better than if most of the users were going MacOS or Windows =) we
really try not to encourage a "KDE against GNOME" mentality as it too often
just devolves into squabbling and embarrassing events and makes the whole
open source desktop community look bad (hello /.) ...

however, what can do of course is to be a good KDE advocate and evangelist.
that means doing things like:

- provide help and support to existing KDE users (keeping existing users
takes the least effort and time and protects investment made elsewhere)

- write articles in your native language about KDE. perhaps highlight
specific applications, tips, tricks or news items. take new releases as an
opportunity to write.

- when someone asks, "How can I do <task>?" answer it from a KDE perspective
focussing on the benefits. e.g. "What's a good calendaring
application?" -> "KOrganizer is great. It supports over a dozen calendar
sources, handles multiple or large calendars well, looks nice and has nifty
integration with groupware servers, desktop reminders and even HTML export to
remote servers! If used as part of Kontact (just start Kontact, it
automatically uses KOrganizer for calendaring) you can use it with your email
so if someone sends you a message with an appointment attached you just click
on it 'Accept' or 'Decline' and it does the right thing." the nice thing is
that relatively few things are not possible in KDE, so there's often an
answer for "How can I..."

so in other words, be helpful, positive and pro-active. people gravitate
towards such things naturally.

most of all do not be argumentative or insulting to other people's efforts as
that just turns it into an emotional thing where people act out of pride and
spite. if that isn't part of the equation, however, people will choose what
works best for them ... and those are the users we want.

[Thiago Macieira]

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
i know of 50+ kde users in one particular office in
oslo (guess which one? =).

I should pay them a visit sometime... oh, wait :-P

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Thiago Macieira

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
i know of 50+ kde users in one particular office in
oslo (guess which one? =).

I should pay them a visit sometime... oh, wait :-P

Well at least get them to be a little bit active on Linux1.no :-)

cu

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
The "poll" is done by users setting in their profile what is their
default distro and desktop environment.

and yet it seems that less than 200 people have done so through a
self-selection process. i know of 50+ kde users in one particular office in
oslo (guess which one? =). if those people signed on it would look a bit
different, no? small sample sets are often misleading, though not always.
hard to gauge how this data reflects the realities of norway.

Of course.

But you do miss a point again. This is the site norwegian newcommers are
finding very early. They are met with a pro Gnome atitude. I prefere the KDE
environment to grow. The oops is about the actual current profile which is
leaning towards Gnome. Not to cheat the poll.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
of course, as someone who actually -lives- there perhaps you would be able
to comment on how accurately this reflects on your experiences with other
linux users in the country? then again, i don't know if i could do that for
my country, only the city i live in really.

Based upon general "feeling", Gnome and Ubuntu is the place where it is
cooking.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
well, it's better than if most of the users were going MacOS or Windows =)
we really try not to encourage a "KDE against GNOME" mentality as it too
often just devolves into squabbling and embarrassing events and makes the
whole open source desktop community look bad (hello /.) ...

You and I will not agree on this issue. I think we should market KDE against
Gnome. Especially in the tech heavy environments.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
so in other words, be helpful, positive and pro-active. people gravitate
towards such things naturally.

I do find this very naive.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
most of all do not be argumentative or insulting to other people's efforts
as that just turns it into an emotional thing where people act out of pride

Of course not.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
and spite. if that isn't part of the equation, however, people will choose
what works best for them ... and those are the users we want.

They actually need to get good adcvice on what is best for them.

Now I ask again:
Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they want
to try Linux?
This would help me in local promoting in Norway. And I guess in other areas
also.

Supporting the evangelists can't be bad Aaron.

birger....

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Mr Bulldog]

I mentioned earlier to the kde web team to sort out the homepage so
that it would have an image hotspot, or bigger link that went to the
page "Try Linux" on the side, this would clearly advertise and inform
users, who are coming to Linux, to choose KDE compared to gnome. This
especially makes it hard for users to use KDE, where they are given
advice from gnome users to try gnome for their distribution.

Look at gnome, they had a big image towards it, well a week ago they
did. This should be issued on there. Also I propose making the page,
http://kde.org/whatiskde/ much shorter, it is too much to read for the
casual person or just give some of the key concepts of KDE, similar to
http://www.koffice.org/tours/1.5/. Not using screenshots maybe icons,
but brief for newer users. This would help introduce KDE efficiently.
Hope these ideas are useful -> I don't think the kde web team even
noticed as usual.

Another example is amarok, key list of bullet points. It is a bit too
short and plain in my opinon, but you know what they are talking
about.
http://amarok.kde.org/content/view/51/1/

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
The "poll" is done by users setting in their profile what is their
default distro and desktop environment.

and yet it seems that less than 200 people have done so through a
self-selection process. i know of 50+ kde users in one particular office

in

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
oslo (guess which one? =). if those people signed on it would look a bit
different, no? small sample sets are often misleading, though not always.
hard to gauge how this data reflects the realities of norway.

Of course.
But you do miss a point again. This is the site norwegian newcommers are
finding very early. They are met with a pro Gnome atitude. I prefere the KDE
environment to grow. The oops is about the actual current profile which is
leaning towards Gnome. Not to cheat the poll.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
of course, as someone who actually -lives- there perhaps you would be able
to comment on how accurately this reflects on your experiences with other
linux users in the country? then again, i don't know if i could do that

for

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
my country, only the city i live in really.

Based upon general "feeling", Gnome and Ubuntu is the place where it is
cooking.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
well, it's better than if most of the users were going MacOS or Windows =)
we really try not to encourage a "KDE against GNOME" mentality as it too
often just devolves into squabbling and embarrassing events and makes the
whole open source desktop community look bad (hello /.) ...

You and I will not agree on this issue. I think we should market KDE against
Gnome. Especially in the tech heavy environments.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
so in other words, be helpful, positive and pro-active. people gravitate
towards such things naturally.

I do find this very naive.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
most of all do not be argumentative or insulting to other people's efforts
as that just turns it into an emotional thing where people act out of

pride
Of course not.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
and spite. if that isn't part of the equation, however, people will choose
what works best for them ... and those are the users we want.

They actually need to get good adcvice on what is best for them.
Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they want
to try Linux?
This would help me in local promoting in Norway. And I guess in other areas
also.
Supporting the evangelists can't be bad Aaron.
birger....
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set
digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Aaron J. Seigo]

Post by Mr Bulldog
I mentioned earlier to the kde web team to sort out the homepage so

don't mention it, do it. that's how it will get done.

[Mr Bulldog]

It is highly unlikely the kde web team has a lot of fury against me, I
daren't disturb them again, and most likely they will literally punch
me. It is a simple thing, they only have to create a bigger link and
just put something like, "New to kde?<bold><a
href="http://www.spreadkde.org/try_kde">Try KDE</a></bold>"

Until they sort out their attitude I am not getting involved with
them, I am not starting an argument, but they can use their initiative
just add something to the top...

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Mr Bulldog
I mentioned earlier to the kde web team to sort out the homepage so

don't mention it, do it. that's how it will get done.
--
Aaron J. Seigo
Undulate Your Wantonness
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Aaron J. Seigo]

Post by Mr Bulldog
It is highly unlikely the kde web team has a lot of fury against me, I
daren't disturb them again, and most likely they will literally punch
me. It is a simple thing, they only have to create a bigger link and
just put something like, "New to kde?<bold><a
href="http://www.spreadkde.org/try_kde">Try KDE</a></bold>"

i was actually referring to:

"Also I propose making the page,
http://kde.org/whatiskde/ much shorter, it is too much to read for the
casual person or just give some of the key concepts of KDE, similar to
http://www.koffice.org/tours/1.5/. Not using screenshots maybe icons,
but brief for newer users. This would help introduce KDE efficiently.
Hope these ideas are useful -> I don't think the kde web team even
noticed as usual."

if you did that up in a bang-up fashion, i'm sure it would be accepted. and
that would probably give you leverage to request a change in the link/button.

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they want
to try Linux?
This would help me in local promoting in Norway. And I guess in other areas
also.

Why are you asking other people? What if there was not the one and
only, always-true, everywhere-valid, for-everybody-fitting answer to
your question? Why would there by no Google hit, and no link on the
frontpage of www.kde.org if somebody had ever come up with such an
answer?

I suggest you find answer to *this* question first: "What are *my*
own, personal '10 good points' to convince a new user to choose KDE
when they want to try Linux?" Or even better: "...when I hear them
swearing about Windows?"

Once you have come up with 10 points (or 20, or 7 or 50), try to
condense them into an "elevator pitch"-style message. Then pose
them for discussion here. I'm sure it will help all those people
(I'm currently *not* one of them) who also may be dieing to hear an
answer, but who do not seem to take their own initiative to find an
answer....

Cheers,
Kurt

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
Why are you asking other people? What if there was not the one and
only, always-true, everywhere-valid, for-everybody-fitting answer to
your question? Why would there by no Google hit, and no link on the
frontpage of www.kde.org if somebody had ever come up with such an
answer?

1. I'm not good at marketing (trying to improve though)
2. I need guidance and information
3. My time is very limited. I got family , 3 kids, a buisinses beside my
daytime job and I do Linux marketing in Norway. I have lately arranged an
interview with the Norwgian govenment on their use of open
source(http://linux1.no/node/1687), another interview with the university
hosting the national broadcaster's (nrk.no/lyd) open source streaming of
radio(http://linux1.no/node/1772).
4. I was hoping the promo list would know and care about helping the local
evangelism.

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
I suggest you find answer to *this* question first: "What are *my*
own, personal '10 good points' to convince a new user to choose KDE
when they want to try Linux?" Or even better: "...when I hear them
swearing about Windows?"

I'm an engineer and I have noticed that the avarage users do not care about
Qt, C++ nad issues like that.

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
Once you have come up with 10 points (or 20, or 7 or 50), try to
condense them into an "elevator pitch"-style message. Then pose
them for discussion here. I'm sure it will help all those people
(I'm currently *not* one of them) who also may be dieing to hear an
answer, but who do not seem to take their own initiative to find an
answer....

thak you for the kind works.

birger....

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set
digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Mr Bulldog]

Post by Birger Kollstrand
I'm an engineer and I have noticed that the avarage users do not care about
Qt, C++ nad issues like that.

I total agree on this and adopting this into how we market KDE is important.
From this, people don't care how it works, but what they get out of it.

I'll put this into the situation with the KDE homepage (
http://kde.org/whatiskde/). Throughout the whole document, I counted over 16
"UNIX"s.

Saying technical phrases is not much help - but it tries to address what
UNIX means for a user. The description isn't useful ("When it comes to
stability, scalability and openness there is no competition to UNIX"). Here
it still doesn't mean much, these words are a glimpse of what UNIX means to
a person. I will finish off, as I am rambling on - addressing points that a
person can understand , and can relate to their self is beneficial. A
statement could be UNIX provides a safe environment for you to work in and
is the solid foundation for KDE to work on. -This is one point and UNIX
means more - just putting it into context...

The situation is we mix up who we are targetting and it isn't clear whether
we are attracting people from Windows / Mac OS X (etc.) directly to KDE; or
whether we are attracting people from Gnome to KDE; or both at the same
time.

Until we get people marketing KDE directly to people, the current way we are
marketing is to attract users who have heard or using Linux, Gnome, KDE.

---------------------------

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
I suggest you find answer to *this* question first: "What are *my*
own, personal '10 good points' to convince a new user to choose KDE
when they want to try Linux?" Or even better: "...when I hear them
swearing about Windows?"

I'm an engineer and I have noticed that the avarage users do not care about
Qt, C++ nad issues like that.

Hey -- I don't see myself having said one should promote the use
of Qt, C++ and issues like that to the average user.

Hmmm... now I understand: you probably meant it like: "I, as an
engineer care about Qt, C++ etc. only. These are the only things
which make KDE worth while form *me*. But these things don't count
for avarage users."

Is it that?

Cheers,
Kurt

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Kurt Pfeifle

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Kurt Pfeifle
I suggest you find answer to *this* question first: "What are *my*
own, personal '10 good points' to convince a new user to choose KDE
when they want to try Linux?" Or even better: "...when I hear them
swearing about Windows?"

I'm an engineer and I have noticed that the avarage users do not care
about Qt, C++ nad issues like that.

Hey -- I don't see myself having said one should promote the use
of Qt, C++ and issues like that to the average user.
Hmmm... now I understand: you probably meant it like: "I, as an
engineer care about Qt, C++ etc. only. These are the only things
which make KDE worth while form *me*. But these things don't count
for avarage users."
Is it that?
Cheers,
Kurt

Jupp, sorry for not beeing clear on that issue.

cu / birger....

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Mr Bulldog]

I have currently done my second draft version of the 'What is KDE'
Document". I have included details about KOffice, Amarok, Digikam and a few
more sections related to KDE. In some places I think I have really gone over
the top on, but I am assured everyone likes that. There are a few things I
am unsure on, which I have commented in the document attached. Otherwise the
only other problem is, have I covered everything? I presume there are some
points but trying to keep it short is also necessary.

Feel free to change anything you don't think is suitable or give comments
otherwise.

Thanks - Luke Parry

[Aaron J. Seigo]

Post by Birger Kollstrand
But you do miss a point again. This is the site norwegian newcommers are
finding very early. They are met with a pro Gnome atitude. I prefere the
KDE environment to grow.

if this was a mature market where the size of the market itself isn't growing
your statement here that implies that for KDE to grow GNOME must suffer would
make sense. reality is that for the next decade or so both can grow at their
own pace without stumbling into each other over a fight for scarce resources
(users).

Post by Birger Kollstrand
The oops is about the actual current profile which
is leaning towards Gnome. Not to cheat the poll.

i wasn't implying you should "cheat the poll". nor am i saying "don't worry
about it". what i -am- saying is that that particular site evidently has a
very small user base compared to probable size of desktop linux users in
norway.

in other words, the solution is to simply get more kde content and more
kde-friendly people on that site.

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
well, it's better than if most of the users were going MacOS or Windows
=) we really try not to encourage a "KDE against GNOME" mentality as it
too often just devolves into squabbling and embarrassing events and makes
the whole open source desktop community look bad (hello /.) ...

You and I will not agree on this issue. I think we should market KDE
against Gnome. Especially in the tech heavy environments.

negative campaigning and comparative marketing are two of the weakest forms of
marketing one can do. and in this case it also sends out a very negative
message to those who aren't already using kde or gnome. it also severely
damages our (KDE's) ability to network in the industry at large and engage
usefully (for KDE) in efforts such as freedesktop.org. in other words,
the "anti-GNOME" approach that has been tried at times in the past has caused
real and non-negligable damage to the project. much/most of it has been fixed
now, but it's taken us a few years to do that.

it is absolutely fatal for us to engage in a marketing war against each other
at this time.

but good news! we have >1% and <5% of market share right now. that means that
95-99% of people in a given area aren't using any open source desktop. so
target those people with positive messages about kde. they don't have any
position either way (kde or gnome) so give them reasons to make kde their
selection. if we target the non-linux users more successfully than other
people then we will end up with quite a nice share of the market.

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
so in other words, be helpful, positive and pro-active. people gravitate
towards such things naturally.

I do find this very naive.

and yet it works.

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
and spite. if that isn't part of the equation, however, people will
choose what works best for them ... and those are the users we want.

They actually need to get good adcvice on what is best for them.

yes. which is essentially what i said as well =)

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they
want to try Linux?

i agree with Kurt: pick your own favourite points. note that it's what appeals
to you, you'll come across a lot more effectively in conversation.

for me, i often note things like:

- kde is the most popular free / open source software desktop (most people
find comfort in numbers ;)

- it's flexible while remaining usable. it doesn't try and limit what you can
do so that you can acclompish whatever it is you need to get done.

- you'll find our technology used in a lot of other places, such as in MacOS
X (webbrowser, sherlock when it was around, nokia phones, etc) which says a
lot about the quality of our software

- we have an amazing user community as you can see at kde-look.org,
kde-apps.org and our user mailing lists.

- cool stuff? you bet! superkaramba, amarok, print to pdf in every app that
prints, a truly useful file dialog, konqueror (the best filemanager out
there, period), kio (show people how to use fish.. that's an instant winner),
dcop and more ...

- apps are generally consistent. e.g. there's exactly one way in all kde apps
to configure toolbars and set keyboard shortcuts. print dialogs are the same
in every app. etc, etc. .. this means you don't have to learn as much.

- if you use desktop linux, you're probably going to end up using kde apps
anyways like k3b or amarok. if you use them inside a kde desktop they start
faster and use less total memory on your system.

- for developers we simply have the best development tools: designer,
kdevelop, kde frontends to valgrind, build systems, nice APIs, etc...

- if you need calendaring and email combined, it's hard to be kontact. this
is a highlight example of the integration in kde since kontact is actually
half a dozen individual apps all cooperating behind the scenes to create one
full groupware app: you can even run the components separately (kmail,
korganizer, kaddressbook, etc)! and of course the integration doesn't stop
there: kontact happens to integrate very nicely with the kopete instant
messenger.

but that's just me and i don't use all the above in every situation. it's
highly dependant on the person / people.

were i to put together a static website with "10 points" i'd probably start by
doing separate lists for different categories: media, business use, content
creation, enthusiasts, free software advocates, etc ...

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Supporting the evangelists can't be bad Aaron.

was that what i said? no. i didn't answer the question immediately because
there was a much more important attitude to nip in the bud.

but just for fun , let me see if i can work this into a real flame war: your
mother smells of elderberries! oooooh, zing!

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
negative campaigning and comparative marketing are two of the weakest forms
of marketing one can do. and in this case it also sends out a very negative
message to those who aren't already using kde or gnome. it also severely
damages our (KDE's) ability to network in the industry at large and engage
usefully (for KDE) in efforts such as freedesktop.org. in other words, the
"anti-GNOME" approach that has been tried at times in the past has caused
real and non-negligable damage to the project. much/most of it has been
fixed now, but it's taken us a few years to do that.
it is absolutely fatal for us to engage in a marketing war against each
other at this time.

Hammer hits nail's head. Or something like that.

We have very limited media exposure at the moment, especially in publications
that reach our new target markets (small and medium businesses, third-party
developers, early adopters). We can convey at most three or four core
messages in any given press release, interview, promotional leaflet and trade
show talk. With web forum discussions and the like you have a bit more space
but you still want to keep people's attention and make them want KDE.

The question is: do we want to focus on the positives about KDE, or do we want
to leave space to knock down GNOME with comparisons? Which makes us look
better and convinces people to choose KDE?

Not only does knocking GNOME harm our reputation and our ability to work with
them, it also harms KDE directly because some of our key strengths lie in (a)
our cooperation with GNOME, (b) our shared free software heritage, and (c)
the fact that if somebody ends up using GNOME but running K3B and Digikam
that's a win for KDE, just not as big a win as them going for the whole
package. Negative marketing makes us look like we've got nothing good of our
own to go on, and can suggest contempt for people who make perfectly
reasonable decisions to go elsewhere.

When compiling the list of "top ten reasons to switch from Windows to
Linux+KDE" you might want to say, for example, that "KDE has all this amazing
kio technology unlike Windows, MacOSX and GNOME" but that's about as far as
I'd ever go.

Kind regards,
Tom

[Mr Bulldog]

It was apparent what you was talking about, that's okay.

Looking at it in more detail, does the common person have a clue what this
means? "Microsoft's MFC/COM/ActiveX technology." maybe activex and
microsoft, but come on how is this friendly to 'newbies to linux'?

The key to consider is the different groups of people for displaying the
information, you mentioned it one of your earlier emails Aaron. I can get it
across to beginners, not the more experienced users or buisnesses, who
require that intricate detail, displayed already.

I know you'll be saying sort out this problem, never mind mentioning it, but
I just don't see the idea of comments (http://kde.org/whatiskde/comments.php)
my idea would be getting people new to KDE, large buisnesses or
organisations who activly use KDE and other groups.

--
I'll get to the point, I'll do my best and sort out a page that gives an
introduction for beginners on a numerous topics, describing the features and
possibilities of KDE. I want to limit it to being short, but having an
incentive for people to try KDE.

However on this page it describes the KDE distribution - (
http://kde.org/whatiskde/project.php#distribution) talking about it as a
whole. Should information be provided on basic set of important
applications, i.e. amarok for music, koffice for office or possibly kontact
for Personal Stuff *emails. Other than this
What topics in your opinion would be the average computer be intrested in?

Here's of things I can think of now:

Usability and Configuration
-->Information on Menu's
-->Interpolarity with Unix Systems (Configuration / Security)
Working with photo's, music, movies other media like pdf
Applications - Konqueror for web browsing, Amarok for music playback
Amount of KDE / Qt Applications available - Choice / Freedom
Accessibility issues
The Brilliant KDE Communtiy, Support

An evil site, I know, but this is a good example of what I mean, it caters
for everyone on vista, but not webstandards!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx

i was actually referring to:


"Also I propose making the page,
http://kde.org/whatiskde/ much shorter, it is too much to read for the
casual person or just give some of the key concepts of KDE, similar to
http://www.koffice.org/tours/1.5/. Not using screenshots maybe icons,
but brief for newer users. This would help introduce KDE efficiently.
Hope these ideas are useful -> I don't think the kde web team even
noticed as usual."

[Mr Bulldog]

I have been working on this for the morning and wrote somethings up. I would
be greatful if you could have anyone could check them out to see if they are
okay.

I need to cover some more topics though.

Thanks Luke

[Adriaan de Groot]

Post by Mr Bulldog
I have been working on this for the morning and wrote somethings up. I
would be greatful if you could have anyone could check them out to see if
they are okay.

Darn it, how come you don't write like that all the time? Along the lines
of "Try KDE" or "a KDE tour" this would work really well, I think -- sprinkle
relevant icons in there, link to screenies and you're done.

[Olaf Jan Schmidt]

Hi Luke!

This is very nice work.

Olaf

[Mr Bulldog]

Thanks for the comments, I am activly trying to improve my etiquet in
englsih on the mailing lists. Anyway I'll keep working on getting some more
points done.

Meanwhile, I would suggest someone who uses KDE for buisness, organisations,
or alternativly knows what large groups want in a desktop environment: write
up the key features and benefits that KDE provides them.

This is needed as we intend to not target one group of people. Could someone
do this possibly - I am not the right person to fill the roll.?

Otherwise really greatful for the comments, I will need to make sure there
are no grammer problems (if any) and correct them.

Thanks Luke

Post by Olaf Jan Schmidt
Hi Luke!
This is very nice work.
Olaf
--
Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility co-maintainer, open standards
accessibility networker, Protestant theology student and webmaster of
http://accessibility.kde.org/ and http://www.amen-online.de/
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set
digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Adriaan de Groot]

Post by Mr Bulldog
I have been working on this for the morning and wrote somethings up. I
would be greatful if you could have anyone could check them out to see if
they are okay.

Two little things:

- there are a *lot* of "what is KDE?" texts floating around out there. The one
on the website (www.kde.org) is kind of dusty and old. There's another one
being worked on by the marketing group; I'll see if I can post that here.

- writing a document for many audiences is tough. The beginning of the
document should really sort out the audiences so each person is reading the
right bit of the document. One of the things in the
gosh-its-been-ongoing-for-so-long website update is to make it more clear
where the various audiences of the website need to go.

[Mr Bulldog]

Right, I understand that there are problems. The important procedure is to
remove older "What is KDE" pages, other than the one on the site (if there
are any). On the front page having an image or a large hyper link to What is
KDE, and aswell Try KDE would increase be useful for users visiting the
website. From this link it would come to a new page.

On the new page I would suggest we have different areas for the different
type of users - Everyone, Small Buisness, Organisations. These could be
image hyperlinks that reflect each group and keeping it as simple as
possible will help the usability more. After the user clicks on the image
link they go to What is KDE page, with the information targetted to that
group.

It is my opinion, that it isn't wise to try and write one document that
summarises KDE for beginners, large organisations or even advanced computer
users. The primary reason there is conflict. Keeping them seperate would
ensure there isn't any confusion between them. My first paragraph is a start
what could be done to solve this issue, but require coordination with other
people. The coordination is for someone to write an article related to the
needs of larger organisations and buisnesses - this I mentioned in an email
earlier.

If we get this right, it would introduce website users to KDE in a more
streamlined fashion. That would be brilliant!

--Didn't Send to Promo List.

Post by Adriaan de Groot

Post by Mr Bulldog
I have been working on this for the morning and wrote somethings up. I
would be greatful if you could have anyone could check them out to see

if

Post by Mr Bulldog
they are okay.

- there are a *lot* of "what is KDE?" texts floating around out there. The one
on the website (www.kde.org) is kind of dusty and old. There's another one
being worked on by the marketing group; I'll see if I can post that here.
- writing a document for many audiences is tough. The beginning of the
document should really sort out the audiences so each person is reading the
right bit of the document. One of the things in the
gosh-its-been-ongoing-for-so-long website update is to make it more clear
where the various audiences of the website need to go.
--
KDE Quality Team
GPG: FEA2 A3FE

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Tom Chance
The question is: do we want to focus on the positives about KDE, or do we
want to leave space to knock down GNOME with comparisons? Which makes us
look better and convinces people to choose KDE?

Would you say that a stetment like "KDE is consistently using modern object
oriented programming in C++ while Gnome is based upon legacy functional c
programming" is bashing Gnome and should be avoided?

(and yes I do know about other languages used, it's an example)

birger....

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Martijn Klingens]

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Would you say that a stetment like "KDE is consistently using modern object
oriented programming in C++ while Gnome is based upon legacy functional c
programming" is bashing Gnome and should be avoided?

IMO, yes, it is. Especially the words "modern" and "legacy" give the message a
strong subjective slant.

(And that's not even considering the fact that statements about programming
languages are flamebait in any case, and highly subjective by nature too. C
isn't by definition "legacy" and I wouldn't call C++ "modern". If it wasn't
because of all the cool things that Qt offers on top of the language our
choice of C++ would be better-than-C at best, but plain C++ is becoming
outdated rapidly too.)

So, if you want to go the language route, do something like "KDE is using
object oriented and component-based programming techniques for all its code.
KDE's foundation library Qt provides functionality that that enhances the C++
language with features like introspection and makes it one of the most
powerful development platforms available today."

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Martijn Klingens
So, if you want to go the language route, do something like "KDE is using
object oriented and component-based programming techniques for all its
code. KDE's foundation library Qt provides functionality that that enhances
the C++ language with features like introspection and makes it one of the
most powerful development platforms available today."

Great!

I'd love to have a bunch of those to use :-)

cu / birger....
(Trying to learn Python by the way :-) )

_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.

[Birger Kollstrand]

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
so in other words, be helpful, positive and pro-active. people
gravitate towards such things naturally.

I do find this very naive.

and yet it works.

No. Because the Gnome community is also very helpful, positive and pro-active
so they pick desktop by coincidence. I would like to influence the newcommers
to then to pick KDE.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo

Post by Birger Kollstrand
Is there a god "10 points" to convince a new user to choose KDE when they
want to try Linux?

- kde is the most popular free / open source software desktop (most people
find comfort in numbers ;)
- it's flexible while remaining usable. it doesn't try and limit what you
can do so that you can acclompish whatever it is you need to get done.
- you'll find our technology used in a lot of other places, such as in
MacOS X (webbrowser, sherlock when it was around, nokia phones, etc) which
says a lot about the quality of our software
- we have an amazing user community as you can see at kde-look.org,
kde-apps.org and our user mailing lists.
- cool stuff? you bet! superkaramba, amarok, print to pdf in every app
that prints, a truly useful file dialog, konqueror (the best filemanager
out there, period), kio (show people how to use fish.. that's an instant
winner), dcop and more ...
- apps are generally consistent. e.g. there's exactly one way in all kde
apps to configure toolbars and set keyboard shortcuts. print dialogs are
the same in every app. etc, etc. .. this means you don't have to learn as
much.
- if you use desktop linux, you're probably going to end up using kde apps
anyways like k3b or amarok. if you use them inside a kde desktop they start
faster and use less total memory on your system.
- for developers we simply have the best development tools: designer,
kdevelop, kde frontends to valgrind, build systems, nice APIs, etc...
- if you need calendaring and email combined, it's hard to be kontact.
this is a highlight example of the integration in kde since kontact is
actually half a dozen individual apps all cooperating behind the scenes to
create one full groupware app: you can even run the components separately
(kmail, korganizer, kaddressbook, etc)! and of course the integration
doesn't stop there: kontact happens to integrate very nicely with the
kopete instant messenger.
were i to put together a static website with "10 points" i'd probably start
by doing separate lists for different categories: media, business use,
content creation, enthusiasts, free software advocates, etc ...

Thank you! I'm not to good at this marketing so I need advice.

Post by Aaron J. Seigo
your mother smells of elderberries! oooooh, zing!

How could you possibly know!?!?


_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.