Let´s make KDE default in openSUSE

I just learned that openSUSE is opening up more and more for the community. They even have a public website http://features.opensuse.org where everybody can suggest features and changes and the community can vote.

Somebody told me that about 75% of all openSUSE users use KDE as a desktop but KDE is not the default.

So why not fill in a feature request and see what the community wants?

I decided to try it.

Please vote for this feature request: https://features.opensuse.org/306967

The interesting thing is that this makes sense for 75% of the openSUSE users and also for openSUSE.

The benefits for openSUSE are:

- It is confusing for new Linux users if they have to decide between KDE and GNOME during the installation. New users don´t know either of them. So it is easier for beginners if there is a default. openSUSE has more KDE users than GNOME users so it is logical to make KDE the default.

- Unique Selling Point. It is important for openSUSE to provide something that Ubuntu and Fedora don´t provide. It would be beneficial for openSUSE to be the only big KDE distribution.

- This could attract more developers because KDE developers need a nice distribution to develop on.

- This would increase the popularity of openSUSE in the KDE user community. The negative impact on the GNOME community is not that bad because Ubuntu is the most popular GNOME distribution.

openSUSE should, of course, also ship and support GNOME. So experienced users can choose. But new users should have KDE as default.

What do you think?

GCDS part two: Social Desktop / Earning Money with freedesktop

So after 4 more days of interesting talks, great parties, BoF Session and inspiring conversations I like this conference even more than last weekend.

Like every year I´m deeply impressed by the fact that so many expert from different areas, project and countries come together and build a fantastic and free desktop.

My talks about the "Social Desktop" and "Eaning money with free software" went well I got a lot of great feedback.

You can get the slides here:

http://www.socialdesktop.org/socialdesktop-gcds.pdf

http://www.socialdesktop.org/earningmoney-gcds.pdf

GCDS part one: Open-PC

Akademy here in Gran Canaria is fantastic. The sea, the sun and the conference center are great. But the most important aspect are the great people of course. It´s always so much fun to meet old friends and make new ones. What I especially like are the great discussions about strategic and technical

topics and how we can make the Linux and KDE Desktop even more successful.

Yesterday I gave my first presentation here which was a lightning talk about the Open-PC project. You can finde the slides here:

http://open-pc.com/open-pc-gcds.pdf

The Open-PC is a crazy idea. I had a lot of discussions about the need for a really good configured, easy to use and affordable Linux PC. A lot of people are not happy with the current Linux Netbooks, Notebooks and Desktops.

I really think we need and we can deliver something better.

The idea is that we as a community vote what we kind of hardware we want to have in such a PC. We decide which software we want to see on such a product. We develop the logo, building up the brand, building the software image and we run the web store. Than we look for hardware vendors to build and sell our PC.

A part of the income goes back to the free software project.

After more thinking and talking to people I realized that the idea isn´t that crazy and unrealistic.

I talked to the boss of a hardware manufacturer and he likes the idea. He is willing to become our first partner. So i decided to start and announce this project officially here in Gran Canaria.

I´m really optimistic that we can launch a great product this fall.

I´m looking forward to your feedback.

Together we can create an innovative and successful Linux PC