Hi. So today i stumbled on an interesting topic on the opensuse
forums, and there was a link to ms Zvezdana's and mr Ken's lecture in
Dubrovnik. I took the time to watch it and i have a couple of concerns
i would like to raise here. If anyone can respond, i'd be more than
grateful. Here's the copy of the post:
Not speaking from the designer's point of view, as i am not one. But
from what i see, and i hope i'm wrong, as i don't want to spread fud.
But suggesting the guidelines is one thing (i was pretty excited there
as i'm looking for opensuse to have a more uniformed look and feel)
and the other when he was talking about rebranding and brand diluting
(or however it's spelled). What I see there is a SUSE employee (and a
former Canonical employee) talking about how the similar brands aren't
a good thing, and he mentions it would be better even if opensuse was
called geeko linux, f.ex. I don't know if anyone from suse is with us
here on the boards, but i felt some sort of a negative attitude
towards the brand similarities. To cut things short, I got the feeling
(which may be incorrect) that suse is feeling that opensuse with it's
brand is having a negative impact on suse's corporate brand, and it
would like it changed, but that they're taking a really small step by
step to ensure they don't **** off the community, like Canonical does
all the time, because they don't soften it up first. Now he says
something, beating around the bush, that he would like to rebrand the
whole community project, but he never specifically states why (only
the diluting aspect, which i don't know what it is and why it damages
any of the projects).
Now, it all sounds to me like he thinks it should be done the way RH
did it - Red Hat vs Fedora. Distinctly different branding. But then
the problem occurs because that should have been done way back on day
one.
Now to make my personal point. I'm not stating anything, just
expressing my interpretation and concern.
1) I wouldn't like opensuse to be rebranded because i'm emotionally
attached to the brand and the geeko, so instead of the whole project
rebranding, i'd like some kickass graphics in the guidelines provided.
But that's just me.
2) If i'm correct about my intuition, I'd like someone from suse to
step out, and say exactly why should the brand be changed. I think
that if the reasons are valid, the community wouldn't object much, and
it couldn't be perceived as suse meddling with the community. It's in
all of our best interest to suse to expand and be successful.
If it's just my imagination working here, then I'd be more than happy
for someone to say it's a non issue, because the thing i fear the most
is the slow manipulation of the community. If the terms are clear,
there can't be objections, but slowly trying to steer the vessel
somewhere you wan't it by slow manipulation is really not good nor
clever, and we'll have a Canonical/Ubuntu scenario in our camp.
Anyway, not trying to spread fud or ignite a flamewar, so if it's a
non issue, feel free to ignore it.
I'll be posting this to the mailing list also, as i'm interested in a
response from someone.
Regards.
---
That's about it. I thank you for your time.
--
Nenad Latinović
nenad(a)latinovic.info
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