KDE Media Pulse

So, I'm getting my Marketing hat back, Wade promised...

I'm a little rusty, so in order to get back into the swing of things, I thought I'd start with a quick overview of the current state of KDE in the press, including public sentiments in comments far and wide. To begin with, most of what follows is from Google's various services, Google News, Google Blogsearch, etc. I excluded all items that were already published in the KDE world in some way (Dot, planetKDE syndicated, etc.) as well as those not published in English.

Speaking of which, I don't know if many planetKDE contributors know this, but there are quite a few blog entries that get unofficial translations to other languages and reposted on the internet, usually with a link back to the original. For planetKDE authors, try picking some keywords from one of your more popular articles and running it through Google Blogsearch about a week later.

So what follows is a (somewhat) organized list of KDE's internet media presence in the last 7-10 days, with an occasional comment for things I find interesting from a Marketing POV.

• Yakuake (for KDE 4) Review (TuxArena)
• Krusader 2.0.0 (for KDE 4) Review (TuxArena)
  TuxArena is a little late on this one, as it was released three months earlier, however anytime KDE applications get print is important to the greater KDE application ecosystem. And I'm not talking about kde-apps.org, which is great (thanks, Frank), but wider exposure is great for showing the world that KDE is more than just the set of default apps that you find on most distros.
• Best Linux PIM: Kontact or Evolution? (Byfield)
• Newly Cooked: KRecipes for KDE 4 (Linux Magazine) Article about the porting status to KDE 4.
• KOffice 2.0 Reivew (Tech Radar) Some quotes: "KOffice's launch speed is comparable with that of OpenOffice.org 3.1, and its rendering is beautifully smooth, even when shifting around large blended objects." and "[...] the new KOffice isn't ready for the masses just yet. However, many of the elements in KOffice 2.0 show great promise and we look forward to testing the suite once more when it's ready."
• Sidux 2009-2 Preview 1 Release notes state: "While KDE4 is certainly a work in progress, both upstream and in terms of making it viable for a release, this marks the first milestone release for sidux. Be aware that the KDE-lite flavours avoid KDE3/qt3 packages, which means that k3b, kaffeine and umtsmon are not preinstalled. These packages will be part of the KDE-full flavours and are still installable."

  This is interesting as it relays a few pieces of information. 1) They consider KDE 4 upstream to be "a work in progress", 2) They don't want to install both KDE4 and KDE3 concurrently in lightweight installs (understandably), and 3) the applications they are waiting for (from KDE) are k3b and kaffeine. Interestingly, Slackware 13.0 will ship KDE 3 libs as part of the extras package in order to support k3b as well. It appears that k3b is the killer app from KDE 3 that hasn't made the full transition yet. We should perhaps focus on this as a community somewhat.

  Bugsquad, is there anything you can do to help?

• PCLinuxOS 2009.2 KDE This edition ships with KDE 3.5.10. The Release announcement, however, details that 2009.3 will use KDE 4.
• openSUSE 11.2 M3OpenSUSE is testing KDE 4.3 to be included with 11.2. Interesting comment to the announcement: "Seems like a trivial complaint but you don’t want your sporty car to just say Chevrolet, you want it to say Corvette. Likewise I would like the System to say 'openSuSE 11.2 Milestone 3 and KDE4.3 Beta 2' and not something else."

  This brings us back to Aaron's co-branding idea. There's a lot of work to be done.

• KDE 4.3 RC Review, Kubuntu Jaunty (TuxArena)The same site also has instructions on how to install the RC.
• Ubuntu 9.04 Review"Strangely, Kubuntu users have to do without Firefox and GIMP, and the KDE package manager is less user-friendly."

  This is a mixed problem. Kubuntu tends to ship with all the KDE apps enabled as defaults, which I think is great for KDE and the visibility of our apps, however, it seems that certain apps are ubiquitous and users expect them to be there.

• Yellow Dog 6.2 Uses E17 as default, but also ships KDE, Gnome, XFCE. The interesting thing is that is runs on PPC and Cell processors. Has anyone tried getting KDE up and running on their PS3? This could be a good opportunity for Plasma media centre development.
• Mandriva 2009.0 KDE Shipping with KDE 4.2.2, and some praise for their Artwork in one of the comments: "However, now they’ve really nailed it. It’s the best looking KDE 4 implementation I’ve seen anywhere! Other distros need to take note." I still wish Mandriva KDE shipped a few more KDE apps, even if they aren't set as defaults. Krita is pretty good, but nowhere to be found, for instance. They should also be a strong candidate for some co-branding initiatives.
• PC-BSD 7.1.1 Shipping KDE 4.2.4.
• Sabayon 4.2 KDE Shipping KDE 4.2.4. Can anyone tell me how Sabayon's implementation of KDE is?
• GCDS: KDE and Gnome Fortulate Common Goals Or, as one of the blogs that linked to this article said: "Pigs can Fly!"
• Linux Desktop Market Share (CertCities) The interesting/relevant quote: "I think it's finally time to throw in the towel. The latest numbers are out, and even with Ubuntu and other distributions doing such a fantastic job, after almost 20 years Linux still has only about 1 percent of the desktop market. This is after Novell's strong attempts to take the operating system into the classroom (bringing the price of student PCs down substantially), after GNOME and KDE both offered a better interface than anything coming from Redmond, and after hardware vendors started offering PCs without an operating system pre-installed. The cold hard fact is that users just don't want to run Linux."

  What I read from this: if the product is superior, and the price is unbeatable, and we're still "losing", then what remains is Marketing.

• Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts (Computer World UK) Glyn Moody covers the keynotes from GCDS. On page two is something interesting: "However, even I must disagree with Stallman on one thing he said. He noted that it was rather inefficient having two rival desktop projects, and suggested that it would be good if one day they might be merged – two alternative versions of the same underlying code." and "[...] I think it's vitally important that they continue to go their separate ways, each convinced that their approach is best, but each ready to be stimulated by – and learn from – what their colleagues and rivals are up to." I agree. Gnome need to be strong, as it drives KDE. Our target is not the 1% of the Desktop that Linux currently sits at. It should be the other 99%.
• Links Aaron's Plasma Screencast (TechWorld AU)
  This is one of many sites that picked up Aaron's Plasma Screencast. Quote: "Despite all the doubts about the initial direction of the KDE 4 series, the project is moving ahead well and, at the very least, 4.3 should finally dispel any claims that it is not ready for general consumption."

  Well, there will be the circular logic folks that will claim that because claims are made that 4.3 is ready for general consumption, that means exactly that it isn't, so they won't even try it. Well, whatever, I didn't write that quote. Fighting logic like that is like trying to push water uphill holding only a mop.

• KHTML/Webkit (OSNews)Never one to pass up some dirty laundry, OSNews covers planetKDE better than many other online news sources. They are one of the few sites that appears to take an active interest in developer blog posts, rather than simply skimming off the top of the dot.
• Akademy Awards (The H) Coverage of the Akademy Awards spread far and wide very quickly over the internet. Peter Penz, did you know you're famous? Try searching for yourself on Google News.
• Akgregator Mentioned (ghacks)
• Maemo to use Qt Well, this story is everywhere, and pretty much always mentions KDE. Google News shows that this popped up in dozens of places in English alone. Good press for the Trolls. Interestingly, KDE is usually mentioned as the prime example of something written in Qt in many of these articles. It's interesting that KDE's reknown gives a frame of reference to talking about Qt for many audiences.
• Nokia Android Rumours One of the better examples of Qt being introduced with KDE as a frame of reference.
• Timeline (Press Release) This one is not interesting for what it's advertising, so much as how it does it. It's a product based on Subversion, which is introduced in the article with respect to KDE, since KDE is more well known that Subversion.

  It appears that KDE's use of SVN is worthy of commercial press releases.

• Koala will be 'a definitive shift' for Ubuntu Linux (Tech Radar) Okay, this one is fun, the article is about Ubuntu, but in the opening, Shuttleworth is introduces as "first patron of KDE" as this will aparently give the audience a frame of reference. More interesting though is the comment:

  "Please stop mentioning that title until Kubuntu is treated as an equal and no the red headed stepchild of the Bubuntu family."

• KDE 4 on Ubuntu Well, one user was suitably impressed with KDE 4 after installing it on Ubuntu to become a convert. "The result was very pretty, quite slick. I even noticed an improvement in screen refresh speed when switching desktops in Virtual Box (notably Gnome-terminal always seemed a bit slow to repaint and Konsole feels a bit snappier)."
• Symbian Article Again, the content isn't as important as one of the comments: "Case in point: kde 4 and amarok. These two (and myriad other kde apps) lost quite a substantial userbase when they were reinvented from smart brunette heels to rather dumb but beautiful blondes (no offense to blondes meant, really). Yes, they're getting back on track but the symbian foundation may not have that chance."

  Insulting metaphor notwithstanding, this comment appears to be by one of our typical "KDE 4 detractors", but shows signs of promise. The user claims "we're getting back on track", and I know a lot of that has to do with the code quality of KDE 4.2.x, as can be seen by the number of distro shipping it. (Slackware!)

Conclusion: KDE is a blonde, but used to be a brunette, but due to trick of the light is also redheaded. And here I thought blue was the colour :P.

That's all folks. Comment on anything you think would be useful as feedback to the marketing and promo folks, or email kde-promo@kde.org. If this media digest is useful to the KDE project as a whole, let me know and I will take the pulse more often. Cheers.