[opensuse-marketing] Project Naming in General
G'day all, Just a couple of general thoughts about project naming, since OBS got a mention and I'm presently confused about Bretzn.... Weird spelling, capitalization and punctuation. As a writer, it's a pain in the neck! I understand that people want to create a unique, memorable name, and use the typeface to create a brand, but this is counter-productive if it's too easy for others to get it wrong. So people need to think about how others might spell the name and will they care - will we get an email from a dozen people on a development team when we write 'EzyApp' instead of 'Ezy-APP'.? For example, Linux Format, an excellent publication, had every instance of openSUSE spelled with a capital 'O'. When I raised this recently on the forum - about openSUSE always being correct - I was told it was a petty, meaningless thing to worry about; and that years of English grammar outweighed branding, and they'd put a capital at the start of the sentence, thanks anyway. (I should add those were comments from readers, not magazine representatives). It needs mental effort (and sometimes a check on the wiki) to write the correct format or risk 'getting it wrong' - we should make it easy for people to get it right. Google mostly ignores punctuation, but that's also unhelpful in other ways. A search for edu li-f-e didn't have openSUSE anywhere in sight. Using one-word names that are used for something else makes a google search very useless! Sure, we then stick 'openSUSE' in front of it and hopefully come up with the project we are looking for. Anyway, Edu Li-F-E is one that I'd really like to see changed to something simpler and 'cleaner' looking in print. With most of our existing projects I think they are too established to change, but as new things are being developed, I hope we might encourage people to think about these aspects too - not only something unique, but also straightforward and easy to 'get right'. Capitals at the start of words, or at the start of word abbreviations is reasonably easy - eg, AppStore as in ApplicationStore - and all caps, such as KDE is easy. Insisting on lower case at the start of a word can be problematic, though with iPod you'd think people would be used to it - and varied use of caps and lower case is difficult. Any sort of punctuation is a pain, because you have to remember it as a 'dash', and sometimes you need escape codes and sometimes it can have other meanings... overall, bad idea. While I think of it - Maybe if you're German, maybe Bretzn isn't a good choice, but it's at least straightforward and memorable to me as an English speaker, and it gives me a bunch of openSUSE/Bretzn google hits straight up. Win! Anyway, I know we have more pressing matters right now with 11.4 on the way, but I just wanted to share those thoughts! cheers, Helen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday, February 01, 2011 10:22:21 pm Helen wrote:
Anyway, I know we have more pressing matters right now with 11.4 on the way, but I just wanted to share those thoughts!
Yes and no. Names are in marketing very important, specially if you don't have Apple advertising budget, so choosing right names, not too original, nor too generic, is important. Li-f-e being good example of attempt to put too much in the one word. openSUSE is now established, but OpenSUSE would fare better. I recall someones attempt to explain small "o", as not to be similar to plethora of other open stuff. Now after 5 years is not easy to change and people, in the meantime, learned how to treat iXyz. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
Le 02/02/2011 05:22, Helen a écrit :
Anyway, I know we have more pressing matters right now with 11.4 on the way, but I just wanted to share those thoughts!
I was very pleased to read this... thanks jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://pizzanetti.fr -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 08:29:22 jdd wrote:
Le 02/02/2011 05:22, Helen a écrit :
Anyway, I know we have more pressing matters right now with 11.4 on the way, but I just wanted to share those thoughts!
I was very pleased to read this... thanks
jdd
Same here. Helen, you're very much right on all accounts. I'd also love to change EDU- Li-f-fe or whatever it is (if I was just a little worse with names I'd start to forget my own). Indeed 11.4 has most priority but as soon as it is out I'd love to send the edu team a mail asking if they would be OK with a name change. We'd have to help them rewrite some website texts (but that might be good anyway). I don't think they would heavily object if we have good arguments! Cheers, Jos
participants (4)
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Helen
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jdd
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Jos Poortvliet
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Rajko M.