KDE/Vision/Drafts/A: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 12:50, 14 March 2016

This document is a vision for the future of KDE. It describes worthy goals we see today for the next few years directly ahead of us. It is a living document, and will change over the years.

An end-user focused, openly governed free software community

KDE is a community of free software enthusiasts that strives to provide graphical user interfaces and applications for end-users for all types of computers across the device spectrum: desktops PCs, laptops, tablet, smartphones, etc.

We believe that software should be free and respectful of the privacy of our users. Our values are stated in the KDE Manifesto.

To achieve our goals we work on:

A complete set of cross-platform end-user applications

We want to offer a complete set of end-user applications running on all major operating systems (Linux, OSX, Windows, Android, etc.). This way we enable end-users to manage their "digital life" using free software no matter on which operating system. The set of applications covers internet, office, communication, multimedia, games and many other. They provide the familiar and consistent KDE user experience while fully integrating into the host operating system. This is reached by following common guidelines and using common technologies.

A modern desktop environment for UNIX operating systems

We provide a classical desktop environment for computers and devices running Linux or any other UNIX-compatible operating system (as known from KDE 3 and Plasma). It delivers a polished user experience, is easy to use and flexible. It contains the essentials of a desktop and basic applications like a file manager and a web browser, etc..

A user interface for mobile/embedded Linux systems

We want KDE to offer the most advanced "desktop" for "mobile Linux", like tablets, smartphones or embedded systems.

A cross-platform Software Development Kit

We support the development of end-user desktop and applications by developing reusable software frameworks. We build on top of the cross-platform Qt framework and provide an extensive set of add-on libraries and components to do the tasks above. Our libraries are cross-platform, stable, and provide source and binary compatibility guarantees. They are licensed under Free Software licenses which allow commercial use.

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-So, were would we like to see KDE in 5 years, i.e. 2020 ?
+This document is a vision for the future of KDE.
+It describes worthy goals we see today for the next few years directly ahead of us.
+It is a living document, and will change over the years.
 === An end-user focused, openly governed free software community ===
 KDE is a community of free software enthusiasts that strives to  provide graphical user interfaces and applications for end-users for all types of computers across the device spectrum: desktops PCs, laptops, tablet, smartphones, etc.
-We believe that software should be free and respectful of the privacy of our users. Our users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Our software uses latest encryption algorithms, and comes without any backdoors, hidden monitoring, or data collection.
+We believe that software should be free and respectful of the privacy of our users. Our values are stated in the [http://manifesto.kde.org KDE Manifesto].
 ''To achieve our goals we work on:''
+==== A complete set of cross-platform end-user applications ====
+We want to offer a complete set of end-user applications running on all major operating systems (Linux, OSX, Windows, Android, etc.). This way we enable end-users to manage their "digital life" using free software no matter on which operating system. The set of applications covers internet, office, communication, multimedia, games and many other.
+They provide the familiar and consistent KDE user experience while fully integrating into the host operating system.
+This is reached by following common guidelines and using common technologies.
 ==== A modern desktop environment for UNIX operating systems ====
-We provide a classical desktop environment for computers and devices running Linux or any other UNIX-compatible operating system, as known from KDE 3 and Plasma. It delivers a polished user experience. It is easy to use and flexible. It contains the essentials of a desktop and basic applications like a file manager and a web browser.
+We provide a classical desktop environment for computers and devices running Linux or any other UNIX-compatible operating system (as known from KDE 3 and Plasma). It delivers a polished user experience, is easy to use and flexible. It contains the essentials of a desktop and basic applications like a file manager and a web browser, etc..
-==== A user interface for mobile/embedded Linux systems (or leave that out ?) ====
+==== A user interface for mobile/embedded Linux systems ====
 We want KDE to offer the most advanced "desktop" for "mobile Linux", like tablets, smartphones or embedded systems.
-* not sure about this one. No such platform currently really exists.  (Alex N)
-* Should this include stuff like TVs, in-car/plane-entertainment systems, technical/industrial user interfaces ? Or just things like RPi ?
-* Should this target mainly the hacker community ? Or also commercial use ? (Alex N)
-* [http://www.gsmarena.com/mozillas_firefox_os_is_officially_dead_at_least_for_smartphones-news-15407.php Firefox OS is dead for mobile], no need to mention it (J. Staniek)
-* How about "A modern free desktop available on all widely used form factors"? This would make it clear that KDE is not PC focused, but also that we are not necessarily running behind crazy dreams like being a platform next to Android. (Mirko)
-==== A complete set of cross-platform end-user applications ====
-We want to offer a complete set of end-user applications running on all major operating systems (Linux, OSX, Windows, Android, etc.). This way we enable end-users to manage their "digital life" using free software no matter on which operating system. The set of applications covers internet, office, communication, multimedia, games and many other.
-These provide the familiar and consistent KDE user experience while fully integrating into the host operating system.
-Consistency and integration between applications is reached by following common guidelines and using common technologies.
-* This also means users should not have to install a system similar to cygwin, but the KDE applications should feel like normal applications for each platform.  (Alex N)
-* Should we mention/target also iOS and Windows Phone ? (Alex N) IMO, it should be an option, but the effort should be community driven (as in, those who do the work decide). (Mirko)
 ==== A cross-platform Software Development Kit ====
-We support the development of end-user desktop and applications by developing reusable software frameworks. We build on top of the cross-platform Qt framework and provide an extensive set of add-on libraries and components to do the tasks above. These libraries are cross-platform, stable, and provide source and binary compatibility guarantees. They are licensed under Free Software licenses which allow commercial use.
+We support the development of end-user desktop and applications by developing reusable software frameworks. We build on top of the cross-platform Qt framework and provide an extensive set of add-on libraries and components to do the tasks above. Our libraries are cross-platform, stable, and provide source and binary compatibility guarantees. They are licensed under Free Software licenses which allow commercial use.
-We also provide a state of the art programmer's editor and integrated development environment.