Gesendet: Montag, 03. Juni 2019 um 11:59 Uhr Von: "Simon Lees" <sflees@suse.de> An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
On 03/06/2019 18:05, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
Hi,
I am myself afraid of this email, because this is about the basis of the community, distributions, plans for foundation etc... Any change in regards to all things outlined here will be controversial and will have huge influence on the future of openSUSE as a whole. Take this very seriously, but also don't take it too seriously because it doesn't change the way community operates, but instead how it ends up being represented.
As mentioned in my talk week ago, I would like to change the openSUSE logo to break it off of SUSE branding, however as Richard rightfully pointed out, the suggestion should also mention changing the name of community and distributions, to remove the `SUSE` part of `openSUSE`, on top of a few other issues that are unrelated to foundation talks. [1,2]
We do need to tackle this now, considering we are going through vital parts of the talks of the Foundation, and both trademarks are planned to be transferred at some point, but it might be best to start off the foundation with the name and logo that isn't necessarily tied to SUSE brand for easier legal proceedings between SUSE and the project, depending on the community outlook on the ideas.
openSUSE logo issues: * older version of SUSE logo, which is similar enough to be confusing, also will require agreement between future openSUSE Foundation and SUSE to use the logo * colour is too bright and light to stand out well on light backgrounds [3] * button variant looks the same as SUSE logo buttons, with the only exception being colour (and SUSE tends to use similar green for buttons they haven't updated in a long time)
For current proposals, and to propose more visit: https://github.com/openSUSE/branding/issues/93
openSUSE name issues: * contains `SUSE`, which will require agreement between future openSUSE Foundation and SUSE to use the name (we will need this anyway, because we will support older releases, but at least there would be some exit strategy when everything goes south built into the name of the foundation) * we are endlessly complaining about wrong capitalization (and will for the rest of time), even SUSE has it easier with "only" SuSE, SuSe and Suse [4] * FSF complains about `open`, although that works with openness of the collaboration, more than `free` or `libre` would (not to mention that we do have non-free repos) [5]
There has obviously been a lot of suggestions here, from various contributors, stuff like `Viridian Foundation` works quite well for the purposes of the naming, because it references SUSE, while not being directly tied to SUSE name (although it might be too generic and hard to type).
More important than the name itself however is to decide if we want to change the logo and/or the name at all, or we want to leave everything as is. If we do decide for a change there we will be able to choose the name and the logo through a vote, I or some other designer will just have to design and fix up logos proposed by the community for the vote (like it was previously done with the YaST mascot/logo, which looked crude before the redesign, but was a great community idea). [6]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAgkMlCZiP4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ [3] https://contrast-ratio.com/#%2373ba25-on-white [4] https://i.imgur.com/ySr4JAA.png [5] https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#openSUSE [6] https://github.com/yast/yast-theme/commit/1cdb9e9c2545ba1604f8bdf88864e9ae9b...
From my point of view, there a number of benefits of renaming the openSUSE Project, especially when considering the announced-at-oSC intention to form an "openSUSE Foundation" to be a standalone legal entity representing the project.
For any such entity to be fully autonomously functional, it will need to have at least some control/ownership/rights to it's own name & trademark.
openSUSE's current name makes such things rather complicated. Trademarks are only enforceable if they're considered unique.
Right now, we operate under a situation where both SUSE and openSUSE are owned by SUSE, therefore are considered 'unique'.
This has some practical side effects - for example, with domain names. SUSE can't allow broad reuse of their mark without risking the enforceability of their primary SUSE trademark, therefore SUSE effectively have to register and own every possible *opensuse*.* domain that the Project or any of our ancillary communities use, in order to protect their overarching SUSE Trademark.
SUSE does a great job of making such domains available for openSUSE's use under the current circumstances, but this occasionally leads to situations that are awkward and uncomfortable for all involved. For example, the openSUSE Indonesia community had to transfer the domain they registered to run their local community sites/mirrors to the control of SUSE, which no one really wanted to do and was logistically problematic given the details of how Indonesia's domain registry works.
Figuring out how/whether the future Foundation could own/control any openSUSE domains is an open topic.
Talking speculatively, based on casual conversations and no legal advice (yet), my personal expectation is that if the Project decides to keep operating under the name "openSUSE", then there is no way the Project will ever own the Trademark around the Project. While I'm confident SUSE will do all it can to support openSUSE in this area, we will all likely be limited in what we can do in the areas of naming, trademarks, sub-projects, domains, etc, as a result.
Renaming the Project on the other hand would allow openSUSE to form it's foundation under that new name. Given the amicable and cooperative nature of our transition towards this 'less dependant' governance model, I can foresee a situation where, if the Project decides to rename, we operate under both the new and the old name for a period to avoid a too disruptive switch over from "openSUSE" to "whatever" - this worked pretty smoothly back in the days of SUSE Linux 10.0/10.1 which were produced "by openSUSE" for example.
So despite the challenges and disruption that any rename could cause, I do see the benefits, especially around the trickier parts of the upcoming Foundation negotiations.
That said, my view is only one. if the community is abhorrently against the idea of renaming, that's good to know, and the Board will factor in the feedback into our negotiations with SUSE as we work towards forming the Foundation.
Either way, we really need to have a good understanding of what the community at large feel on this topic. If we don't have the discussion now, it will likely be too late once legal entities and agreements between SUSE & openSUSE are formalised.
So whatever your views, please sound off in this thread, even if your view is already echoed by others.
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
Again keeping it short, No, the board has been given quite some guarantee we will be able to continue to use openSUSE as long as we need / want. If that was to ever change and we no longer could i'd be all for creating a "fork" to a new name based off, "openSUSE is changing its name because it's working relationship with SUSE has come to the point were we feel we can no longer share the same name". This would generate more then enough press that whatever we change to will become instantly recognised, it would equally create enough bad press for SUSE that they would consider whether the choice is wise. But until that point comes hopefully it never does i'm all for keeping the existing name it is known and represents everything the project is so well
I want to agree with Simon's reasons to keep the openSUSE name. I want to add that we are one of most well known Linux / open source projects. Everybody identifies us with this name and the chameleon. We can modernize our logo. But it should have a green, because most people are giving us the name of a green community. Founding a foundation is a bad reason to change the name. There are other open source projects with a foundation (ownCloud as an example) who are sharing their name with a company. Why should we do that then? That would damage our image and that of SUSE, too. Best regards, Sarah -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org