 Hello everyone, welcome to the final installment of the retrospective interviews for KD goals with me is Alex. Hello. How are you? Hi Adam, how are you? I'm great. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Sure My name is Alex Paul. I am from Barcelona and I have been developing KD for the better of the last 15 years I have been working in KD also professionally through blue systems, but then I've also been doing it a bunch beyond. I am from Barcelona and I am also the KDV president which the KDV being the organization that helps the KD community and attain its goals And you're also the current champion for the apps goal, right? Yeah, that's correct. One of my tasks in KD nowadays is to lead the KD. KD is all about the apps goal. Can you tell us why apps are the focus for KD? Sure. I mean for me apps have always been very important. I joined KD through an app which was and is algebra but then it's also part of involvement that many of us have with KD. Apps are very direct towards what you do in your computers and I think that this is a very important aspect. It's also very important that well apps as a concept have been evolving a lot over the last decades and it was about time that we pushed it a little bit forward to and catch up with well how everyone else have been doing it. This goal was obviously by the way started and led originally by Jonathan and I only took over a little bit over a year ago or maybe not even a year ago. Yeah. And what changes have been made during the time you've been the champion for the goal? Well, like I said Jonathan started he did a whole lot of work on the website on app.satk.org making it much more direct directly available to the users to learn about all of the cool products that the KD community puts together. From my perspective I've tried to juggle a little bit both my hands of the KDV and and the KD goal leader to try to make sure that this happens in the best of the ways possible. So for example one of the things that we are doing and this is just starting right now is the the app source positions that we've just opened from the KDV. So if you want to work professionally developing better infrastructure for KDE for distributing its apps this is something that you can do right now. We can consider this as part of the KDE is all about the app's goal. Although obviously it's coming from two slightly different fronts. Something else that we've been doing has been working with the Linux Upsummit. I have been organizing the the conference and working with several no members to put together this this event that helps us putting common a lot of the concepts that are always floating for apps in Linux and it's it's not trivial. Yeah, this has been a good amount of work as well. And then finally I've been trying to work with the different sub-communities doing apps to make sure that they can do what they want to do sometimes with better success than others, but that would be like the Windows team, the Mac Android teams as well as the people doing Flatpak and SnowCraft. Yeah, you mentioned the position for the different app stores. I guess we'll see the fruits of that initiative in some time. Are there any other things that we can look forward to? Regarding the app's goal? I mean with app's goal or not, Katie will be putting forward amazing apps. Many of them that I'm sure that a lot of you will be using on a daily basis and this is always something to look forward to. Big part of the reason all the Katie is all about the apps is that we need that infrastructure that is not in the forefront, that is not direct to what you experience every day. So I'm not gonna tell you, you will get all of these features. What I can tell you is that we are working towards making it possible for everyone to get their Katie apps in the best of conditions possible. Speaking about the goals initiative and goal champions in general, can you tell me in your opinion what makes a good goal champion? So maybe a way to answer this question is to think a little bit why we started doing the goals in the first place. The goals are a good way for people within Katie to coordinate at a horizontal level. Otherwise, and up until then Katie had generally only coordinated at per project level, there was the plasma team, there was the Katie Edu team, if you want or even like more specific, like the Chigong pre-team or Krita, etc. This works fine, this works well because it has a very specific product in mind and furthers it. But then there's a lot of shared problems that we get to address or that we can't address had we have tried to address through this goal. Or through all of the goals, for example, the Weyland goal could think about how does it affect the Krita people, how it affects the Chigong pre-people, how it affects the Katie Edu people, and then put the biggest prioritizing different aspects and solve the most important ones. And thus making the wall a little bit better for us in that aspect. The same applies to us and to consistency, etc. Therefore, Katie Gold Leader needs to be someone who is interested in talking to the different teams and seeing what their problems are, their concerns are. And putting all of this together and then coordinate with the other people who have the technical ability to solve these problems and put them at ease. It doesn't necessarily need to be somebody who can solve the problems themselves. In fact, it wouldn't be a goal, then it would be an Haleish goal, right? I mean, I do have my own goals, but if we're talking about the Katie goals, it's about how to make it possible for the people in Katie to solve the problems that all of us would have collectively. A good goal leader needs to be someone who can talk to others, prioritize tasks and manage them into solutions. So it doesn't have to be the best programmer in the world or the best designer? No, hopefully the best developer in the world and the best designer will be part of the goal team to help the goal further. And we have amazing designers, we have amazing developers in Katie who can help you do that, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so you outlined maybe what's a good goal champion, but overall what sort of themes would be good ideas for goals, what makes a good goal. I'm asking because very soon the process of selecting the new goals begins and maybe people are thinking about submitting their own ideas and can you share your thoughts about what sort of things or what kind of goals should be submitted? Looking back, I think that goals, the most successful goals that I can think of have been good in two different fronts, one in getting new people involved and give them an outlook of how to interact with Katie and expose them to it. And on the other hand, like I was saying, solving problems that are structural somehow and need addressing at a horizontal level. Interesting topics are maybe personas of our products that we're not covering right now, like a product saying let's care about people with specific accessibility needs or even more specific, right? Like let's improve Katie software for blind people or let's improve Katie software for helicopters or let's improve Katie software in cars, right? Something that makes us all look in a certain direction but not at a very specific problem just in a general direction so that we can go all in parallel towards the same goal. I think that this is the most important part. Okay, so basically to look at use cases for specific type of users, is that what you're saying? Type of users or generally use cases, right? Like you can be Adam and care about Katie software in a car or maybe you're blind, right? It's not different kinds of users, it's just different situations or perspectives, problems to tackle. Currently Adam is interested in having lots of apps on the Steam Deck. Well, Adam must be very happy then. Yeah, and yeah, of course, Steam Deck running Katie has the discover store available. The app's goal is important also in that way, a different device to be used for consuming Katie software. Not only Katie software of course but anything from there. Yeah, for sure. And for example, the Steam Deck case is probably a success story of us by looking in a certain direction all together. We were working on some in some ways things that as soon as the Steam Deck arrived, they just started piggybacking on what we were working on, right? Like when we started putting our software in FlatHub, we didn't know that a big company like Valve would say and let's start using FlatHub right now. But all of a sudden all of this work was as valuable as ever just because a ton of more users are starting to use it and enjoying it. So maybe a good defined and well run goal might lead to a big thing such as the Steam Deck for the community. Not promising anything but basically why not? Sure, that's the kind of thing you have to say. But it's all a matter of understanding our users and in practice all of the users that are coming through the Steam Deck product are users who would have been very interested in a lot of other things that we've been doing as well, right? So it's not the chance that we were thinking about apps for example. Do you think a good goal topic would be something that a person just thinks it's important for them? Just for them and it so happens that it's also important to a lot of other people. So they're just looking at their own experience and the needs and use cases. It all depends on how well people can extrapolate their own problems and understand how they affect the general user base, right? For example, whenever somebody tries or requests to join Katie and ask us how do I start? The thing I generally tell them is just find somebody that is bothering you and address it and then find something else, right? Like you could also say let's solve somebody else's problem, but then this also has the issue that you cannot really care that much about it. Whereas if it's something that you really needed, you really wanted, it's something that you will be more interested in tackling and spending your own time to address it. That said, if you are bothered by having a button at the top right corner in Krita or whatever, then that's probably not worth a goal, right? That it's just a pet peeve or call it what you wish needs to be something that people can empathize with. And in practice that's back to the reason why we need to vote for the goals, right? It needs to be something that people decide to care for all together. And my last question is you already mentioned that you've been the gold champion for this goal only for about a year since Jonathan was the champion previously. But maybe even in this shorter time you have some experience and some tips for people that might think about becoming the next champions. I think that embarking on a goal is not all that different than embarking on a different endeavor. If anything, it offers a possibility for somebody with a less technical perspective to take leadership on an area without, well, straight away. Tips would be think about the user, think about what it feels for them like to use any of our software and think about how we would be in a better world if. After a solution is put in place. From there, if you're in an open mind and willing to work with others, I think that there's not much that can get in your way of having a successful goal. Talking to others, seeing how they feel about your idea, sure, a good thing. Looking at aspects of the community as it is set up right now, seeing what people are working on and saying, well, if we did a lot more of this, it would be in a much better position. That would be something that I'm sure a lot of people would get them excited if it's framed properly. And it can bring a lot of smiles to our users. Thank you very much for the tips and also thank you for the interview. That was the last question. Thanks for your time and I guess see you later. Yeah, thanks for the chat, Adam. It's been a pleasure. See ya. Bye.