So I've been thinking recently about KDE's overall marketing strategy, and I think that I've got a handle on my own vision of KDE Marketing, which is malleable and adjustable to accommodate varying strategies. I won't spam the whole planet with the details, since it might be lengthy, and only a few people will care enough to read the whole thing. This strategy is what I will be focusing on with my work within KDE over the next while, that is, if I don't get too distracted by the allure of coding :) ( Read On )

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.

So it's kind of funny to see how well Wade is pushing this gearhead term, which I think is a brilliant idea for KDE. It's starting to spread though, slowly, like a virus. I seen it popping up already a few times on #kde, and just today I found it in a sebas's email signature. So I figured I'd do the same and start to spread it around in this fashion. I think it works wonderfully in any context you would use the word hacker with respect to KDE: IE: hacker's conference --> gearhead's conference. But it can also be used to refer to KDE users... it is rather annoying to say "KDE User" each time you need to self-identify, but saying "Gearhead" might be enough, assuming it becomes used frequently enough.

As I was telling sebas, it feels like I'm involved in some sort of political propaganda campaign with this thing. Kind of get that tingly feeling like I'm in one some conspiracy that I get when reading books about liberal revolution, such as my personal favourite: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. I recommend reading it for anyone interested.

Cheers folks.