The Reverse Acronym Game: KDE*

So folks, it has come to my attention through various conversations with people involved with open source, but not KDE, that we have an image problem. The problem is that KDE has outgrown its name. It used to be Kool, but now it's just K. It used to be Desktop, but it's outgrowing that metaphor. So all we have left is the Environment.

So rather than calling ourselves the KD Environment, we need to sit and think about this for a while.

The other problem we have is that the KDE community is growing and branching to include a lot more than just a "Desktop/Development Environment" as was the original acronym's definition. We now include applications for other platforms, and a whole lot more.

So do we just call our organization "KDE" and refuse to define the acronym anymore? Well, companies have successfully converted to using just an acronym in the past: see IBM, for a good example. They've been using just their acronym for ages now to refer to the entirety of their operations, even in cases where it isn't at all related to business machines.

So what we should be doing is calling KDE the organization, and not the product. KDE is not a Desktop Environment, it's a community that produces an Application Suite, a Developer Platform, a Unix Workspace Environment, a set of open standards (via freedesktop.org for example), a series of related applications called ExtraGear, and more.

So perhaps we shall drop the Desktop Environment portion of the acronym altogether and be known simply as KDE. But, if you're like me, you want to have more fun with this idea.

Let's begin the first round of the Reverse Acronym Bazaar! Open comments for new definitions that suit the letters KDE. Who knows, maybe one will stick.

<troy> we should come up with a new reverse acronym for KDE... like the K Development Entourage or something silly like that which refers to the community rather than the product :)
<aseigo> troy: KDE Destroys Everything .. no. too negative. ;)

*note: this exercise is just for fun at this point. KDE is not (yet) officially changing it's definition or anything.