On Thu, 13 Jul 2006, Martin Schlander wrote:

Torsdag 13 juli 2006 13:49 skrev houghi:

...

Great news. Not so much the name, but taking away the confusion.

You think this will end confusion?

- Many of us have been trying to explain to people that the distro is SUSE Linux for the last 10 months. These people are going to be confused.

- Many people have been running SUSE Linux for years, but don't follow the news - they're going to be confused when they go to the store and the retail box says "openSUSE".

I agree totally. I am not sure what to say about this news.

- I already anticipate a lot of people being confused about non-oss being available on the openSUSE dvd (assuming that'll still be the case on 10.2). And we'll still have to do a lot of explaining. Most people will expect that "open" means pure open source.

- There's a huge infrastructure of forums, websites, irc-channels etc. that will be obsoleted and have to change their names. Probably some of those won't change their domain name - that will cause confusion too.

- On the short term any name change will cause confusion - after all most people know that SUSE Linux is the correct name.

I think this is an other marketing ployee. I really prefered the SUSE Linux name. Now I am not sure what to think. I think this may cause more problems than it solves.

Besides this namechange makes me feel like SLED/S is the "real" SUSE - and SL/openSUSE is lowest priority (kind of the same feeling I had when the package management changes were forced through after feature freeze), I expect a lot of other people will also see this as a sign of SL getting lower priority - which can harm the distro.

Also hereby a lot of the history that SUSE name had is lost. The name is also too long. In other words - I don't like it.

Furthermore the namechange will steal attention from the community project. People will think openSUSE is just the name of the distro - and noone will know or care about the project.

ALL the people I know who actually use SUSE would have preferred to keep that name. All the people I know who likes openSUSE don't know what it's about - and don't use SUSE Linux.

All in all I think this decision is made 100% for the benefit of SLED/S - with little or no consideration for the many, many loyal and active SUSE Linux users.

Current mood: Don't know whether to cry or break something.

+2

To be fair I do see some benefits: - Maybe now we can have everything on one server - unlike both ftp.opensuse.org and ftp.suse.com

- A lot of people seem to like the name - hence it's been so damn hard trying to explain to these goofballs it's not the name of the distro. However I believe most of these people liked the name because they thought that openSUSE was non-Novell and 100% non-oss - and something different than SUSE Linux - and for some reason they liked that idea.

I just hope this is not a signal that our beloved SUSE Linux is becoming a lower priority. I found it very consistent from bottom to top. Now I am not really sure. I was able to start companies off with SUSE Linux and move them to SLES. Now I am afraid this is going to confuse them and make it harder to get customer to move up from openSUSE Linux to SLES. Having everything the same name made for a consistency. Well we will have to wait and see if this helps or hinders the cause. -- Boyd Gerber ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory-help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 10:27:38PM +0200, Martin Schlander wrote:

Torsdag 13 juli 2006 13:49 skrev houghi:

...

Great news. Not so much the name, but taking away the confusion.

You think this will end confusion?

No. It will lessen the confusion.

- Many of us have been trying to explain to people that the distro is SUSE Linux for the last 10 months. These people are going to be confused.

The fact that we needed to explain should be a HUGE hint of how confusing it was. The majority of users still can't get it right.

- Many people have been running SUSE Linux for years, but don't follow the news - they're going to be confused when they go to the store and the retail box says "openSUSE".

No, they won't. If they have been running SUSE for years, they will have at least heard the name openSUSE and the link with SUSE and Novell. What you sugest is the same as saying people might be confused about the Novell logo on SUSE.

- I already anticipate a lot of people being confused about non-oss being available on the openSUSE dvd (assuming that'll still be the case on 10.2). And we'll still have to do a lot of explaining. Most people will expect that "open" means pure open source.

Well, if such confusion would exist, we would have heard a LOT about it right now, as that is how the system already works in 10.1. The few pwople who are realy concerned by the complete openness or not of a distro will not buy it because it says open in the name.

- There's a huge infrastructure of forums, websites, irc-channels etc. that will be obsoleted and have to change their names. Probably some of those won't change their domain name - that will cause confusion too.

Ever heard of re-directions?

- On the short term any name change will cause confusion - after all most people know that SUSE Linux is the correct name.

It won't be the correct name after 10.2 Beta 3. And don't you remember the days that is was called S.u.S.E, or SuSE or just SUSE instead of SUSE Linux?

Besides this namechange makes me feel like SLED/S is the "real" SUSE - and SL/openSUSE is lowest priority (kind of the same feeling I had when the package management changes were forced through after feature freeze), I expect a lot of other people will also see this as a sign of SL getting lower priority - which can harm the distro.

The fact that people see this difference is already happening. I hear people taling about buying SLED instead of downloading 10.1 for whatever reason. I can not understand why that is a bad thing. Giving money to the people who develope openSUSE can not be a bad thing. I just hope that all of that extra money flows back to the developers. :-)

Also hereby a lot of the history that SUSE name had is lost. The name is also too long. In other words - I don't like it.

Ah, now we are at the real issue. You don't like it. Well, I don't like it either, yet it is the best option in this situation.

Furthermore the namechange will steal attention from the community project. People will think openSUSE is just the name of the distro - and noone will know or care about the project.

I doubt it. I think it will draw MORE attention to the site and therefore more people will be learning about openSUSE. Then it is up to us (not Novell) to make it interesting enough for people to hang on. On that note, I hope Firefox and other browsers will point to openSUSE by default intead of Novell.com

ALL the people I know who actually use SUSE would have preferred to keep that name. All the people I know who likes openSUSE don't know what it's about - and don't use SUSE Linux.

ALL the people I know who use SUSE AND the people I see posting prefere openSUSE. All the other people are confused by the two names gfor what they think is the same thing.

All in all I think this decision is made 100% for the benefit of SLED/S - with little or no consideration for the many, many loyal and active SUSE Linux users.

I again fail to see how this should be a bad thing. More money means ongoing developement for openSUSE.

Current mood: Don't know whether to cry or break something.

For me the cuurent mode is a hangover, but that has nothing to do with SUSE or openSUSE. On that matter I am happy.

To be fair I do see some benefits: - Maybe now we can have everything on one server - unlike both ftp.opensuse.org and ftp.suse.com

Also, yes.

- A lot of people seem to like the name - hence it's been so damn hard trying to explain to these goofballs it's not the name of the distro.

Why would all these goofballs need this explanation? If you need explaining something that abovious over and over again, then perhaps the goofballs are on to something. At first I also thought openSUSE was the name of the new distro and you can look it up how often I went into discussion that the distro was NOT openSUSE but SUSE.

However I believe most of these people liked the name because they thought that openSUSE was non-Novell and 100% non-oss - and something different than SUSE Linux - and for some reason they liked that idea.

So you rather have people believe something that is not true? My prefered choice would have been that openSUSE was never used and that it would have been SuSE (note even SUSE Linux) for the rest of time. That has not happend and no matter how I dream in my sleep about this, we must deal with reality. The reality is that there is a lot of confusion between SUSE Linux, SUSE and openSUSE. That means to find a solution to remove that confusion. What we tried and failed with is explaing it to peope over and over and over again. Giving it the name of openSUSE was and is the best option as was already sugested with 10.0, I believe). Don't look back, look forward. -- houghi Please do not toppost http://houghi.org You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, Usenet --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory-help@opensuse.org