Help me understand why the "K" is used in KDE application naming, aside from the obvious "K"DE. I HATE IT! I'm new to Linux, really like it, and am trying to like KDE. Unfortunately, the stupid K usage drives me nuts. The reason is this - the morons in the ku klux klan use the K for their stupid "secret" language. They replace the first letter of various words with the letter K just like KDE. I'm sorry, I just can't get this out of my head. Whenever I see an application with the K in the front I want to kpuke!
Thanks for listening,

It's pretty much like Apple with their iNames, Google/Gnome [gG]Names etc. One benefit could be to quickly identify KDE applications - many users want their applications to integrate well with their desktop environment and/or avoid mixing GTK+ and Qt apps.

However, this has started to change somewhat in KDE4: we have Dolphin, Plasma, Nepomuk, Akonadi and System Settings, just to name a few examples.

When KDE started a lot of the applications got names with a K in them. It was funny and it made it easy to see which applications are well integrated into the whole KDE desktop and are part of the KDE eco-system.
I'm sorry that it reminds you of something else. That is unfortunate but nothing we can do something about for those applications already having a name with a K.
It may however make you happy to hear that we are moving away from this naming scheme in KDE 4 with names like Plasma, Okular, Parley and so on.
In the end you are free to use whichever program you want. If the name bothers you too much there are a lot of other programs out there which you can also run inside KDE that do not have a K in their name.

The truth is that it really isn't a convention(or at least it isn't anymore) Plasma and Dolphin are examples of new names without the K. I guess the usage stems from the fact that calling everything kde this and kde that is too long so they just prepended a K to everything(I could be really wrong on this one though).

I wish kmail was just mail, but it could clash with some other project somewhere in the unix world called mail. It bugs me a little also but i've gotten used to it.

The project started in europe so I doubt that there is any awareness of the Klu Klux Klan connection.

The fact is also that KDE does not have central control over the naming of KDE applications. That is up to the developers of those applications I believe, so I doubt all the applications will change any time soon.

I hope you can make peace with it and maybe KDE can give you a more positive connotation for the letter K in the future.

I have several reasons why also don't like this KTradition :

1. This sounds weirdly. Maybe in English it is ok - you pronounce it 'key office'. but in other languages (for example in Russian) it sounds like stuttering. It creates a feeling of stumbling and this feeling is associated with the program (e.g. KWord - ackward).

2. This stubborn tradition (which little people understand) conflicts with idea of innovative desktop. I am glad that Plasma, Dolphin and other programs don't follow this tradition, but other still do.

anoneemouse wrote:The truth is that it really isn't a convention(or at least it isn't anymore)

One of the recent project with this knaming konvention is KDialogue. So it still exists.
I think getting rid of K in KOffice 2 would be a good idea, especially as KOffice 2 was started form scratch and still doesn't have all the features of KOffice 1.

3. Non-KDE users (especially GNOME users) hate this tradition and are mocking on it. They imagine that this tradition is just for showing how different KDE is. The same do many Linux users - they want to use Linux just because it's different. For example GNOME users sometimes are against innovations because in a way these innovations where taken from Windows 7, which they hate. And they don't like KDE4 because they think it is too similar to Windows Vista and Windows 7 - just because of this. But KDE4 took the courage and promotes innovation - and that's great!
So, in short, this KTradition, breaks Linux community.

IMHO.

blindvic wrote:One of the recent project with this knaming konvention is KDialogue. So it still exists.

Actually, this comes from the KDE classes from the KDE API (the original name was even more C++ oriented), that are all prefixed with a K (like Qt's classes are prefixed with a Q).

Non-KDE users (especially GNOME users) hate this tradition and are mocking on it.

But GNOME-devs have their own "g"-tradition

blindvic wrote:I think getting rid of K in KOffice 2 would be a good idea, especially as KOffice 2 was started form scratch and still doesn't have all the features of KOffice 1.

I'm not sure that would be a good idea. "Office 2" is such a generic name that it doesn't really say anything. People might think you're referring to OpenOffice 2.x, or worse: a really ancient version of Microsoft Office. KOffice, to continue with that example, is a well-known name so I don't think a name-change would be a good idea.

It may not be necessary to prefix everything with a K, but I do think it's a good idea to make sure the name reflects which environment it's designed for.

blindvic wrote:3. Non-KDE users (especially GNOME users) hate this tradition and are mocking on it. They imagine that this tradition is just for showing how different KDE is.

Maybe, but that goes both ways in that case. Gnome does it, Apple does it, Microsoft does it. Not to mention all those programs with Gnu in the name...like Gnumeric, Gnuplot, Gnuchess, to name a few. It's hardly unique to KDE, and thus I don't think it breaks the Linux community in two or more factions.

Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if the complaints about the K-naming is sometimes just to have an excuse to complain. I haven't seen that in this thread, but I have seen it before. Not to mention that if you decide which apps to use or try because of its name, or a tradition of how to name things, you miss out on a lot of good apps. In Linux or otherwise.

SeaJey wrote:

Non-KDE users (especially GNOME users) hate this tradition and are mocking on it.

But GNOME-devs have their own "g"-tradition

Well some of them are trying to copy the idea . But i think there much less gapps than kapps. Maybe lots of them just don't have imagination to create a good name fo their app?

einar wrote:

blindvic wrote:One of the recent project with this knaming konvention is KDialogue. So it still exists.

Actually, this comes from the KDE classes from the KDE API (the original name was even more C++ oriented), that are all prefixed with a K (like Qt's classes are prefixed with a Q).

OK. Got it. But i am sure there other recent kapps.

Kryten2X4B wrote:I'm not sure that would be a good idea. "Office 2" is such a generic name that it doesn't really say anything. People might think you're referring to OpenOffice 2.x, or worse: a really ancient version of Microsoft Office. KOffice, to continue with that example, is a well-known name so I don't think a name-change would be a good idea.

It may not be necessary to prefix everything with a K, but I do think it's a good idea to make sure the name reflects which environment it's designed for.

Well, getting rid of K - I meant some other name for the office suite.

Conclusion: i showed my thoughts, you - your thoughts. There are disadvantages and advantages / reasons for knaming. Anyway, i think this topic is worth discussing - let's make KDE4 and Linux better!

I love the naming convention, because it's so kunning! People find it objectionable because it's so easy to give things a K name, but that's the beauty of it. Whoever came up with it really managed to hack the language for maximum efficiency. You're not going to find a simpler way to identify applications as belonging to the K Desktop environment, and you're not going to find a letter so suited for a distinctive naming convention. K is a lot more useful in the regard than G, which is why Gnome has to resort to "Gnome" half the time. I enjoy typing "konsole" into a run application dialogue a lot more than I enjoy typing "gnome-terminal", which is about twice as long. In the english language, K is not a terribly popular konsonant, but it sounds like a popular konsonant. A truly popular consonant would be the antitsoundshesis of K for an easy naming konvention. If it was the C Desktop environment, and you wanted to name the console something distinctive, you'd give yourself a headache trying to figure it out, but with K, "it's a no brainer." And sure, it's korny, but when you see it, you know right away where it comes from, and where it belongs. The maximum data with the least effort.

Kryten2X4B wrote:Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if the complaints about the K-naming is sometimes just to have an excuse to complain.

in the future people will complain because KDE's "no K in names" tradition.

really, complaining because an app has a particular char in its name is childish, the author of the app picked that name because he/she wished it that way, be more considerate.