[opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
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... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 8:01 AM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
Hi,
I am myself afraid of this email, because this is about the basis of the community, distributions, plans for foundation etc...
Unlike I usually do, I will keep it short.
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.
I wouldn't change the name. I wouldn't destroy a brand just because is similar to SUSE. In fact, I believe the distance between SUSE (the company) and openSUSE (the project) is properly represented by the distance between both names/words (different enough but with 50% of shared DNA/letters). I'm all for changing the logo. Both logos are basically identical and the openSUSE logo needs to be adapted to the present times. Whether SUSE decides to modernize their logo or not is not our business, but I think openSUSE needs to do so. Cheers. -- Ancor González Sosa YaST Team at SUSE Linux GmbH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 18:03, Ancor Gonzalez Sosa wrote:
On 6/3/19 8:01 AM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
Hi,
I am myself afraid of this email, because this is about the basis of the community, distributions, plans for foundation etc...
Unlike I usually do, I will keep it short.
I'm also going to keep it short and agree with everything Ancor said here
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.
I wouldn't change the name. I wouldn't destroy a brand just because is similar to SUSE. In fact, I believe the distance between SUSE (the company) and openSUSE (the project) is properly represented by the distance between both names/words (different enough but with 50% of shared DNA/letters).
I'll add a little to this in that since the "Leap" + "Tumbleweed" + "openSUSE" came about the openSUSE brand has finally started to gain a much broader traction across area's of the world where it previously hasn't been strong (Australia being one example) it would be a shame to throw all that away now by changing names just as we are becoming better known. Beyond the obvious ties to SUSE I really like the use of "open" in our name, open has become such a fundamental part of our community its not just that we are open source, everything we do is open, we are open to anyone doing anything even proposing changing names etc :-).
I'm all for changing the logo. Both logos are basically identical and the openSUSE logo needs to be adapted to the present times. Whether SUSE decides to modernize their logo or not is not our business, but I think openSUSE needs to do so. One of the interesting things is SUSE has already modernized there's to some extent (by changing to a color designers can work with)
-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Op maandag 3 juni 2019 10:33:12 CEST schreef Ancor Gonzalez Sosa:
On 6/3/19 8:01 AM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
Hi,
I am myself afraid of this email, because this is about the basis of the community, distributions, plans for foundation etc...
Unlike I usually do, I will keep it short.
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.
I wouldn't change the name. I wouldn't destroy a brand just because is similar to SUSE. In fact, I believe the distance between SUSE (the company) and openSUSE (the project) is properly represented by the distance between both names/words (different enough but with 50% of shared DNA/letters).
I'm all for changing the logo. Both logos are basically identical and the openSUSE logo needs to be adapted to the present times. Whether SUSE decides to modernize their logo or not is not our business, but I think openSUSE needs to do so.
Cheers. Personally, I'm with Anchor here. On both matters. Albeit, that I could see and openSUSE Foundation, where the distro names would be reduced from openSUSE Leap -> Leap and openSUSE Tumbleweed -> Tumbleweed.
Having said that, I also think all this should be a community decision. And we may need some time discussing our options / ideas / opinions. About capitalization: This is different in various languages, journalistic writing rules etc. F.e. dutch rules prescribe capitalization at the beginning of a sentence, some EN speaking countries do as well. Had to find out myself two years ago when co-writing an article in the dutch c't. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Dne pondělí 3. června 2019 10:33:12 CEST, Ancor Gonzalez Sosa napsal(a):
On 6/3/19 8:01 AM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
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.
I wouldn't change the name. I wouldn't destroy a brand just because is similar to SUSE. In fact, I believe the distance between SUSE (the company) and openSUSE (the project) is properly represented by the distance between both names/words (different enough but with 50% of shared DNA/letters). I'm all for changing the logo. Both logos are basically identical and the openSUSE logo needs to be adapted to the present times. Whether SUSE decides to modernize their logo or not is not our business, but I think openSUSE needs to do so.
I fully agree here. -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
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? Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 10.35, Richard Brown wrote: ...
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?
I hate to change the name, but I do see your points and thus agree to the change. With some grief or sorrow. Maybe if we could use both for "ever"... (for some value of "ever" ;-)) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)
Richard Brown wrote:
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?
I say no. As long as we remain tightly coupled to SUSE, there is nothing gained by changing. If anything, it would only add confusion. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.2°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello fellow Chameleons, as understandable as the arguments are, I am against a rename. OpenSUSE is technologically tied to SUSE, so the name shows this quite well. I don't see a problem with brand name problems here. SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name. As it has been said already, SUSE is an old company with a good reputation and a long history. This also reflects what openSUSE is and in the field openSUSE is known for it's professional attitude especially because it is based on hard tested commercial server software. I feel my self as a chameleon, and I "identify" as green linux user, done that since my first SUSE 5.3. Renaming away from SUSE would destroy a lot of things. my two cents, Cheers, Bernd Am Mo., 3. Juni 2019 um 11:25 Uhr schrieb Per Jessen <per@computer.org>:
Richard Brown wrote:
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?
I say no. As long as we remain tightly coupled to SUSE, there is nothing gained by changing. If anything, it would only add confusion.
-- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.2°C)
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:34, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
While this is true, as openSUSE transitions to having it's own legal entity, you should consider the possibility that such a grant of trademark use could have significantly limiting strings attached. Even without a legal entity, openSUSE already operates with significant constraints around the use of its name, which you can see in our Trademark Policy [1] and the examples I gave in my post. If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without significant additional restrictions atop of the status quo. And when considering situations like that we've had with openSUSE Indonesia, and other regional openSUSE groups already, this is an area where any additional restrictions are likely to cause significant additional pain for the community. Such additional restrictions might be acceptable to the community as a whole as a cost of keeping the name, but it should be an informed decision, not fed by wishful thinking that are unlikely to be legally viable (even if emotionally I'm convinced we'd all like things to be as liberal as possible, SUSE and openSUSE). It's also worth considering that a huge amount of the Board's time is currently spend dealing with requests to use the openSUSE Trademarks, requiring what feels often like endless discussions and negotiations between interested parties and SUSE. We often can't share many of these details in our public minutes, but there have been times when the Board have had little time to deal with anything else, to the detriment of the Project as a whole. Having the Project operating under it's own mark would bring an additional benefit of significantly liberating the Board to take care of other matters with their limited voluntary time. [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Trademark_guidelines -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 19:15, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:34, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
While this is true, as openSUSE transitions to having it's own legal entity, you should consider the possibility that such a grant of trademark use could have significantly limiting strings attached.
Even without a legal entity, openSUSE already operates with significant constraints around the use of its name, which you can see in our Trademark Policy [1] and the examples I gave in my post.
If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without significant additional restrictions atop of the status quo. And when considering situations like that we've had with openSUSE Indonesia, and other regional openSUSE groups already, this is an area where any additional restrictions are likely to cause significant additional pain for the community. Maybe we should wait and here what if any restrictions these will be, so far in our discussions the board has not been made aware of anything
It's also worth considering that a huge amount of the Board's time is currently spend dealing with requests to use the openSUSE Trademarks, requiring what feels often like endless discussions and negotiations between interested parties and SUSE. We often can't share many of these details in our public minutes, but there have been times when the Board have had little time to deal with anything else, to the detriment of the Project as a whole.
This has not been a major issue in the last year, and even so we will still have just the same issues with the new name plus maybe more as we may not be as able to depend on SUSE's legal team to defend any issues like they currently do with openSUSE on numerous occasions. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le 03/06/2019 à 11:45, Richard Brown a écrit :
If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without
may be it's possible to name the foundation as "chameleon foundation" (no SUSE in the name) or any similar trick and keep for the moment openSUSE as the distro name. or should we? Leap and Tumbleweed are now suse related for anybody jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 6:43 PM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:
Le 03/06/2019 à 11:45, Richard Brown a écrit :
If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without
may be it's possible to name the foundation as "chameleon foundation" (no SUSE in the name) or any similar trick and keep for the moment openSUSE as the distro name. or should we? Leap and Tumbleweed are now suse related for anybody
The initial email mentioned Viridian, after the viridian green (derived from latin for green too). Overall I do believe if any change, it should be in the direction of green/chameleon association and not direction of Boaty McBoatface ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Dne pondělí 3. června 2019 11:45:58 CEST, Richard Brown napsal(a):
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:34, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
While this is true, as openSUSE transitions to having it's own legal entity, you should consider the possibility that such a grant of trademark use could have significantly limiting strings attached. Even without a legal entity, openSUSE already operates with significant constraints around the use of its name, which you can see in our Trademark Policy [1] and the examples I gave in my post. If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without significant additional restrictions atop of the status quo. And when considering situations like that we've had with openSUSE Indonesia, and other regional openSUSE groups already, this is an area where any additional restrictions are likely to cause significant additional pain for the community. Such additional restrictions might be acceptable to the community as a whole as a cost of keeping the name, but it should be an informed decision, not fed by wishful thinking that are unlikely to be legally viable (even if emotionally I'm convinced we'd all like things to be as liberal as possible, SUSE and openSUSE).
I don't do the adminstrative job, but IMHO this is acceptable price. If You have foundation, You also need to take care about the trademark and so on, don't You?
It's also worth considering that a huge amount of the Board's time is currently spend dealing with requests to use the openSUSE Trademarks, requiring what feels often like endless discussions and negotiations between interested parties and SUSE. We often can't share many of these details in our public minutes, but there have been times when the Board have had little time to deal with anything else, to the detriment of the Project as a whole. Having the Project operating under it's own mark would bring an additional benefit of significantly liberating the Board to take care of other matters with their limited voluntary time.
I'm not "insider" here, so I probably miss something, but I don't see this. The Board would also handle all the request. Or not?
[1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Trademark_guidelines
Vojtěch Zeisek
Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
On wto, Jun 4, 2019 at 10:38 AM, Vojtěch Zeisek <vojtech.zeisek@opensuse.org> wrote:
Dne pondělí 3. června 2019 11:45:58 CEST, Richard Brown napsal(a):
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:34, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
While this is true, as openSUSE transitions to having it's own legal entity, you should consider the possibility that such a grant of trademark use could have significantly limiting strings attached. Even without a legal entity, openSUSE already operates with significant constraints around the use of its name, which you can see in our Trademark Policy [1] and the examples I gave in my post. If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without significant additional restrictions atop of the status quo. And when considering situations like that we've had with openSUSE Indonesia, and other regional openSUSE groups already, this is an area where any additional restrictions are likely to cause significant additional pain for the community. Such additional restrictions might be acceptable to the community as a whole as a cost of keeping the name, but it should be an informed decision, not fed by wishful thinking that are unlikely to be legally viable (even if emotionally I'm convinced we'd all like things to be as liberal as possible, SUSE and openSUSE).
I don't do the adminstrative job, but IMHO this is acceptable price. If You have foundation, You also need to take care about the trademark and so on, don't You?
It's also worth considering that a huge amount of the Board's time is currently spend dealing with requests to use the openSUSE Trademarks, requiring what feels often like endless discussions and negotiations between interested parties and SUSE. We often can't share many of these details in our public minutes, but there have been times when the Board have had little time to deal with anything else, to the detriment of the Project as a whole. Having the Project operating under it's own mark would bring an additional benefit of significantly liberating the Board to take care of other matters with their limited voluntary time.
I'm not "insider" here, so I probably miss something, but I don't see this. The Board would also handle all the request. Or not?
Correct, although with board having power over the trademark, there wouldn't be any need to discuss those matters with another body entirely, which makes the process more efficient. As it is currently, the board has to discuss trademark issues with SUSE before allowing or disallowing usage of the trademark by the third party, and as written, the time of the board is limited as well, they have their lifes, not to mention that SUSE operates only within business hours ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:33 AM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello fellow Chameleons,
as understandable as the arguments are, I am against a rename. OpenSUSE is technologically tied to SUSE, so the name shows this quite well. I don't see a problem with brand name problems here. SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
It's **openSUSE** with a lowercase `o`, always ;) And I feel like I mentioned that in the first email... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Stasiek, I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-) Cheers, Bernd Am Mo., 3. Juni 2019 um 12:34 Uhr schrieb Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org>:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:33 AM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello fellow Chameleons,
as understandable as the arguments are, I am against a rename. OpenSUSE is technologically tied to SUSE, so the name shows this quite well. I don't see a problem with brand name problems here. SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.
It's **openSUSE** with a lowercase `o`, always ;)
And I feel like I mentioned that in the first email...
LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world
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-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)
It's a brand name, it should always start with a lowercase, like in the trademark. I mean, we have been trying our best to explain this to everybody, but it's not feasible, which is why it's one of the reasons under the name change idea... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi again, I've just looked the rules up for this (at least for the german language) and I've learned now that custom names indeed keep their custom writing! openSUSE it is! Bernd Am Mo., 3. Juni 2019 um 12:43 Uhr schrieb Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org>:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)
It's a brand name, it should always start with a lowercase, like in the trademark.
I mean, we have been trying our best to explain this to everybody, but it's not feasible, which is why it's one of the reasons under the name change idea...
LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world
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On 03/06/2019 20:12, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)
It's a brand name, it should always start with a lowercase, like in the trademark.
I mean, we have been trying our best to explain this to everybody, but it's not feasible, which is why it's one of the reasons under the name change idea...
But then we loose the fun of seeing how many different ways people get it wrong, and remember we should always have alot of fun :-) -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Also it is kind of is our own GNU/Linux thing, right? ;-) Besides that I still would be happy with a name change. The move from SUSE Linux to openSUSE Linux was fine, many projects did it like that. Also it would be a tremendous effort. Shouldn't we use the spare resources in a better way? Bernd Am Mo., 3. Juni 2019 um 12:51 Uhr schrieb Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de>:
On 03/06/2019 20:12, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)
It's a brand name, it should always start with a lowercase, like in the trademark.
I mean, we have been trying our best to explain this to everybody, but it's not feasible, which is why it's one of the reasons under the name change idea...
But then we loose the fun of seeing how many different ways people get it wrong, and remember we should always have alot of fun :-)
--
Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net
Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
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Hi Simon & LCP, To make it more fun, check https://www.suse.com/products/server and scroll down the page. ;-) Or just check the attached screenshot. On that note, I'm getting back to reading emails since June & compiling the arguments. Regards, Ish Sookun On 6/3/19 2:50 PM, Simon Lees wrote:
On 03/06/2019 20:12, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stasiek,
I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)
It's a brand name, it should always start with a lowercase, like in the trademark.
I mean, we have been trying our best to explain this to everybody, but it's not feasible, which is why it's one of the reasons under the name change idea...
But then we loose the fun of seeing how many different ways people get it wrong, and remember we should always have alot of fun :-)
On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 9:15 PM, Ish Sookun <ish.sookun@lasentinelle.mu> wrote:
Hi Simon & LCP,
To make it more fun, check https://www.suse.com/products/server and scroll down the page. ;-)
Or just check the attached screenshot.
On that note, I'm getting back to reading emails since June & compiling the arguments.
Between this and SUSE getting their own colour wrong, and using a shade that is way too similar to openSUSE Green for any branding to be able to work, it's draining to see how much this still happens. I have been pointing this kind of stuff out for as long as I have been contributing to openSUSE and I doubt I will have a chance to take a break anytime soon by the looks of it. I know it might be rare, but I really care about branding of openSUSE and subprojects, so they are marketable to any degree. This is certainly NOT how we get there. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed 2019-10-16, Ish Sookun wrote:
To make it more fun, check https://www.suse.com/products/server and scroll down the page. ;-)
Ouch. We'll get this fixed via SUSE marketing. (Thanks AJ for beating me to raising it.) On Wed 2019-10-16, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
I know it might be rare, but I really care about branding of openSUSE
Thanks for doing that! For the record, I also care. Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.) Gerald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
What, giving up on the Sysiphus fight? ;-) The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e". So, it's just a small step and it won't have any measurable impact. Regards, vinz.
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <vinz@vinzv.de> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
What, giving up on the Sysiphus fight? ;-)
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
So, it's just a small step and it won't have any measurable impact.
It would remove the openSUSE issue and keep the SUSE issue ;) I would be shocked if SUSE made that mistake in that case, but there is the whole internet out there. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <vinz@vinzv.de> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
What, giving up on the Sysiphus fight? ;-)
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
So, it's just a small step and it won't have any measurable impact.
It would remove the openSUSE issue and keep the SUSE issue ;)
I would be shocked if SUSE made that mistake in that case, but there is the whole internet out there.
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization... -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Neal Gompa <ngompa13@gmail.com> hat am 17. Oktober 2019 um 15:03 geschrieben: At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...
I never ran into this with Vi... *sneaks out* Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 17/10/2019 15.03, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <vinz@vinzv.de> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
What, giving up on the Sysiphus fight? ;-)
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
So, it's just a small step and it won't have any measurable impact.
It would remove the openSUSE issue and keep the SUSE issue ;)
I would be shocked if SUSE made that mistake in that case, but there is the whole internet out there.
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...
How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
"Carlos E. R." <robin.listas@telefonica.net> hat am 18. Oktober 2019 um 19:31 geschrieben:
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...
How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right.
Trademark guidelines are paper tigers as long as they are not either obvious or being enforced. I don't see where this would lead to any results besides that someone (presumeably the board) has more work to do. That aside tech press won't care for enforced notations. And even worse threatening them could lead to some unwanted backlash - with good reason. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 17/10/2019 15.03, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <vinz@vinzv.de> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
What, giving up on the Sysiphus fight? ;-)
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
So, it's just a small step and it won't have any measurable impact.
It would remove the openSUSE issue and keep the SUSE issue ;)
I would be shocked if SUSE made that mistake in that case, but there is the whole internet out there.
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...
How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right. No use. I investigated this some years ago, it would mean implementing local
Op vrijdag 18 oktober 2019 19:31:59 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.: style rules from (unofficial) guidelines. In some countries one writes a brand name at the beginning of a sentence the exact way, in others one writes a capital no matter whether it's a brand name / trade mark or some other word. So, when I published an article, there was no chance they would change the OpenSUSE spelling at the beginning of a sentence to openSUSE. This in NL. But, this is getting off topic -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 18/10/2019 21.38, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:
Op vrijdag 18 oktober 2019 19:31:59 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.:
On 17/10/2019 15.03, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...
How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right. No use. I investigated this some years ago, it would mean implementing local style rules from (unofficial) guidelines. In some countries one writes a brand name at the beginning of a sentence the exact way, in others one writes a capital no matter whether it's a brand name / trade mark or some other word.
So, when I published an article, there was no chance they would change the OpenSUSE spelling at the beginning of a sentence to openSUSE. This in NL. But, this is getting off topic
Offtopic or not, it is the first time in years I get an answer, so thank you both :-) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 19/10/19 7:22 am, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 18/10/2019 21.38, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:
Op vrijdag 18 oktober 2019 19:31:59 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.:
On 17/10/2019 15.03, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <> wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization... How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right. No use. I investigated this some years ago, it would mean implementing local style rules from (unofficial) guidelines. In some countries one writes a brand name at the beginning of a sentence the exact way, in others one writes a capital no matter whether it's a brand name / trade mark or some other word.
So, when I published an article, there was no chance they would change the OpenSUSE spelling at the beginning of a sentence to openSUSE. This in NL. But, this is getting off topic Offtopic or not, it is the first time in years I get an answer, so thank you both :-)
Don't forget to print them out and frame them . BC -- Adolescence n: Stage between puberty and adultery. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 19/10/2019 03.17, Basil Chupin wrote:
On 19/10/19 7:22 am, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 18/10/2019 21.38, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:
Op vrijdag 18 oktober 2019 19:31:59 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.:
On 17/10/2019 15.03, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:01 AM Stasiek Michalski <> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:40 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke <> wrote: > Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb > Gerald Pfeifer:
At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization... How about fixing the word processors? Surely we are not the only ones with this trouble. Add a trademark category that must be spelled exactly right. No use. I investigated this some years ago, it would mean implementing local style rules from (unofficial) guidelines. In some countries one writes a brand name at the beginning of a sentence the exact way, in others one writes a capital no matter whether it's a brand name / trade mark or some other word.
So, when I published an article, there was no chance they would change the OpenSUSE spelling at the beginning of a sentence to openSUSE. This in NL. But, this is getting off topic Offtopic or not, it is the first time in years I get an answer, so thank you both :-)
Don't forget to print them out and frame them .
Oh, I have stored them in my important mail library, section LO and openSuSE ;-D - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iF0EARECAB0WIQQZEb51mJKK1KpcU/W1MxgcbY1H1QUCXbLxtQAKCRC1MxgcbY1H 1SVpAJ4zJfF2EIczxykkUoJoKe39d8KhVwCffOk/RIU/7c1YIAPuHoeUraDfots= =3pN1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi,
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
Following that I want to give you a very recent example. German "Linux Magazin" covered the name change voting today and mention the wrong spelling issues as well; => https://www.linux-magazin.de/news/opensuse-stellt-namenswechsel-zur-wahl/ (German: "Außerdem werde der Namen oft falsch geschrieben." = English: "In addition, the name is often misspelled.") Being around for 25 years now one would expect them to know openSUSE. And yet they make the mistake themselves - in the very same article! Having a logo image with correct spelling right beside the text!! => https://i.imgur.com/oAogMfH.png I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. Regards, vinz.
On 10/24/19 1:28 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name.
Or we just give a damn if people are screwed by their word processors. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 13:39:35 CEST schrieb Stephan Kulow:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. Or we just give a damn if people are screwed by their word processors.
Nah... what next? Red colored Geekos? Regards, vinz.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Thu, 2019-10-24 at 13:59 +0200, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 13:39:35 CEST schrieb Stephan Kulow:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. Or we just give a damn if people are screwed by their word processors.
Nah... what next? Red colored Geekos?
Well, it _is_ a chameleon. I've always found it ironic that the chameleon, Geeko, is consistently the same green. ;-) - - James -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEg/RjZ+RraZBnLRN4GzlRiGxEkCMFAl2xzeoACgkQGzlRiGxE kCOfywgAotXH4LpYMrFk/MRhXMd5hXsL/RpBHWqi1E9raC52rHGtpn/jVGJDAZ4J eDaVATTqWJ+rujRZtjXXdb6PQQXnuVcwWXjtKWLEnNfrpeUaToEde7X5yGvZKXEx 6x6ioY0I5LZLnvJHPC2WKPwYvxu1U5tlRYERGdh2h1pNhrIsPZ4qQ1CyoMpJam7i IQsYs0isTYKtPFdKGYPc8oQ+inyTyRhWZOgx5IlKm0JZnpTW0lFx6prSTIJloUNn moVLQpe88cwiVOaReJCaFQ2w+Lv3BOnXhE/3DR6/QLxudMtbxonVAXTY6Ltwu7Zf hNUXy4eSg3B0GTRwiPkPey1qjTwZ6g== =Kzz7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 18:14:40 CEST schrieb James Mason:
Well, it _is_ a chameleon. I've always found it ironic that the chameleon, Geeko, is consistently the same green.
- James
If you do some web search and/or have a look a printed material you'll recognize that it hardly is always the *same* green. ;-) Regards, vinz.
On 10/25/19 7:41 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 18:14:40 CEST schrieb James Mason:
Well, it _is_ a chameleon. I've always found it ironic that the chameleon, Geeko, is consistently the same green.
- James
If you do some web search and/or have a look a printed material you'll recognize that it hardly is always the *same* green. ;-)
According to our trademark policy, the full size logo should always be the same ugly shade of green (#73ba25), if its not especially in a web context which doen't have the slight variations you can get from printers it almost certainly means someone screwed up. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Artwork_brand#Logo -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
On 10/26/19 1:29 AM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Freitag, 25. Oktober 2019, 14:06:28 CEST schrieb Simon Lees:
should
Subjunctive. There you go. ;)
Well in this case "should" really means "must" but its a "should" because It wouldn't supprise me if people screw it up (if we find cases we will ask them nicely to fix it or swap to using the head logo which allows more flexibility) -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
Am 24.10.19 um 13:28 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
Hi,
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
Following that I want to give you a very recent example.
German "Linux Magazin" covered the name change voting today and mention the wrong spelling issues as well; => https://www.linux-magazin.de/news/opensuse-stellt-namenswechsel-zur-wahl/
(German: "Außerdem werde der Namen oft falsch geschrieben." = English: "In addition, the name is often misspelled.")
I talked to a well known heise news author about the issue and he told me: "you know what? We just don't care anymore. We write OpenSUSE and be done. Who knows when they'll change the spelling again. It's not like our readers would not understand what we are writing about" I can relate to this somehow.
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. The problem is, we cannot change the name every time someone misspells it ;-)
How about this: we just don't make a big fuzz about it and go on with more important things? -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 3:20 PM, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 24.10.19 um 13:28 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
Hi,
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
Following that I want to give you a very recent example.
German "Linux Magazin" covered the name change voting today and mention the wrong spelling issues as well; => https://www.linux-magazin.de/news/opensuse-stellt-namenswechsel-zur-wahl/
(German: "Außerdem werde der Namen oft falsch geschrieben." = English: "In addition, the name is often misspelled.")
I talked to a well known heise news author about the issue and he told me:
"you know what? We just don't care anymore. We write OpenSUSE and be done. Who knows when they'll change the spelling again. It's not like our readers would not understand what we are writing about"
I can relate to this somehow.
This has been the only spelling since 2005. SUSE did change their spelling multiple times tho, I feel we got confused again ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 24.10.19 um 15:22 schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 3:20 PM, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 24.10.19 um 13:28 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
Hi,
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
Following that I want to give you a very recent example.
German "Linux Magazin" covered the name change voting today and mention the wrong spelling issues as well; => https://www.linux-magazin.de/news/opensuse-stellt-namenswechsel-zur-wahl/
(German: "Außerdem werde der Namen oft falsch geschrieben." = English: "In addition, the name is often misspelled.")
I talked to a well known heise news author about the issue and he told me:
"you know what? We just don't care anymore. We write OpenSUSE and be done. Who knows when they'll change the spelling again. It's not like our readers would not understand what we are writing about"
I can relate to this somehow.
This has been the only spelling since 2005. SUSE did change their spelling multiple times tho, I feel we got confused again ;)
S.u.S.E Linux SUSE Linux openSUSE Linux (?) openSUSE This guy I mentioned is around since S.u.S.E. times. For him the spelling changes all the time. He does no longer care. I can understand that. -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 3:39 PM, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 24.10.19 um 15:22 schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 3:20 PM, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 24.10.19 um 13:28 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
Hi,
The wide masses did not care for the lowercase O for years now. And they won't care it's successor. Plus: changing the O still leaves us with "OpenSuSe", "OpenSuse" and "Open Suse" - or even "Open S.u.S.e".
Following that I want to give you a very recent example.
German "Linux Magazin" covered the name change voting today and mention the wrong spelling issues as well; => https://www.linux-magazin.de/news/opensuse-stellt-namenswechsel-zur-wahl/
(German: "Außerdem werde der Namen oft falsch geschrieben." = English: "In addition, the name is often misspelled.")
I talked to a well known heise news author about the issue and he told me:
"you know what? We just don't care anymore. We write OpenSUSE and be done. Who knows when they'll change the spelling again. It's not like our readers would not understand what we are writing about"
I can relate to this somehow.
This has been the only spelling since 2005. SUSE did change their spelling multiple times tho, I feel we got confused again ;)
S.u.S.E Linux SUSE Linux openSUSE Linux (?) openSUSE
openSUSE the name predates openSUSE the Linux distribution actually, openSUSE.org was a project for SUSE Linux 10 and 10.1, before openSUSE 10.2 was named after the website. Also keep in mind there was SuSE Linux between S.u.S.E. Linux and SUSE Linux, just if you weren't confused enough yet. That's also where names like YaST got their capitalization, to keep up with SuSE.
This guy I mentioned is around since S.u.S.E. times. For him the spelling changes all the time. He does no longer care. I can understand that.
Nobody should need to care, why we have a name that causes us this amount of branding trouble is a mystery to me though. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu 2019-10-24, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
Nobody should need to care, why we have a name that causes us this amount of branding trouble is a mystery to me though.
That would be an easier and stronger argument if we could turn back time (paraphrasing Cher). Given where we are today, I'll argue that losing an established brand emotionally, practically (think search engines, shirts, and loads of other aspects), and recognition-wise is not an evidently clear win. And that does not even take all the work that Henne pointed out into account, nor the boatloads of money required (which we do not have funding for from all I can tell). Personally, I care a lot about branding (GCC vs gcc or SUSE vs SuSE or lately openSUSE vs OpenSuse being pet peeves of mine), but it's also a question of where to lean: pragma or dogma. Gerald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 16:43:04 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
And that does not even take all the work that Henne pointed out into account, nor the boatloads of money required (which we do not have funding for from all I can tell).
Personally, I care a lot about branding (GCC vs gcc or SUSE vs SuSE or lately openSUSE vs OpenSuse being pet peeves of mine), but it's also a question of where to lean: pragma or dogma.
And on the other side it's a chance to get more distinct from SUSE. Not being thrown into the same pot is worth the work, as I pointed out earlier. But I guess we're running in circles here and most things have already been said. Regards, vinz.
Le 24/10/2019 à 16:43, Gerald Pfeifer a écrit :
On Thu 2019-10-24, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
Nobody should need to care, why we have a name that causes us this amount of branding trouble is a mystery to me though.
Given where we are today, I'll argue that losing an established brand emotionally,
as only of openSUSE capitalization, why not let people write it like they want? Only take care of our own communication. Same for any other name we could have who care to rename VI? jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 24/10/2019 15:39, Stefan Seyfried wrote:
S.u.S.E Linux SUSE Linux openSUSE Linux (?) openSUSE
This guy I mentioned is around since S.u.S.E. times. For him the spelling changes all the time. He does no longer care. I can understand that.
Me too :) I'm using it since S.u.S.E Linux 4.3, so -- checking wikipedia for dates -- since 1996 :) And up until recently even SUSE tools had the mixed capitalization, like SuSEfirewall2 :) Bye, CzP -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2019-10-24 at 16:10 +0200, Peter Czanik wrote:
On 24/10/2019 15:39, Stefan Seyfried wrote:
S.u.S.E Linux SUSE Linux openSUSE Linux (?) openSUSE
This guy I mentioned is around since S.u.S.E. times. For him the spelling changes all the time. He does no longer care. I can understand that.
Me too :) I'm using it since S.u.S.E Linux 4.3, so -- checking wikipedia for dates -- since 1996 :)
And up until recently even SUSE tools had the mixed capitalization, like SuSEfirewall2 :)
I love that mixed capitalization, and I'm sad to see it go. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iHoEARECADoWIQQZEb51mJKK1KpcU/W1MxgcbY1H1QUCXbL2aRwccm9iaW4ubGlz dGFzQHRlbGVmb25pY2EubmV0AAoJELUzGBxtjUfVXEIAniyscTC0xQR9MeZsgmqF 2vMx8KLMAJ4kiTcwkx3Rj1MKaT/yDQDMvpDF+g== =QUkV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2019-10-24T15:39:52, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
This guy I mentioned is around since S.u.S.E. times. For him the spelling changes all the time. He does no longer care. I can understand that.
I'm pretty sure that's not an argument in favor of changing names once more. Also, someone who can't keep up with a change that was introduced 1,5 decades ago probably should seek to retire. -- SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) "Architects should open possibilities and not determine everything." (Ueli Zbinden) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 15:20:03 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. The problem is, we cannot change the name every time someone misspells it
I get that but have quite a different point of view on such details. If tech press does not care for correct name spelling - where else do the have loose standards for their writings? And to extend that: If even we don't care for the correctly written name of our project, who else will?
How about this: we just don't make a big fuzz about it and go on with more important things?
I won't keep you back from that. ;-) Regards, vinz.
Am 24.10.19 um 15:52 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke:
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 15:20:03 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. The problem is, we cannot change the name every time someone misspells it
I get that but have quite a different point of view on such details. If tech press does not care for correct name spelling - where else do the have loose standards for their writings?
Right. So the fix is: don't read Heise articles - but don't change the name to make the impression even correct. Greetings, Stephan -- Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things. Kenneth Branagh -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2019-10-24 at 15:52 +0200, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 15:20:03 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried:
I don't want to blame or shame them anyhow. It just emphasizes the spelling problems "openSUSE" has and will have in the future without changing the name. The problem is, we cannot change the name every time someone misspells it
I get that but have quite a different point of view on such details. If tech press does not care for correct name spelling - where else do the have loose standards for their writings?
I'l take on that ;-) How can we blame them, if we are not able in the openSUSE distribution to ship spellers that corrects the wrong spelling to the correct one? Applies to any trademark spelling. Yes, I have been told that this is impossible to get. But still... - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iHoEARECADoWIQQZEb51mJKK1KpcU/W1MxgcbY1H1QUCXbL3hhwccm9iaW4ubGlz dGFzQHRlbGVmb25pY2EubmV0AAoJELUzGBxtjUfV7dwAn01GhegQjLXnBR+DTu0y P+5YaU/SAJ4iJLJ8vdYumCRid5UICe/2dSqMEw== =t0jj -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 17/10/2019 11.47, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
On Wed 2019-10-16, Ish Sookun wrote:
To make it more fun, check https://www.suse.com/products/server and scroll down the page. ;-)
Ouch. We'll get this fixed via SUSE marketing.
It's fixed now.
(Thanks AJ for beating me to raising it.)
On Wed 2019-10-16, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
I know it might be rare, but I really care about branding of openSUSE
Thanks for doing that! For the record, I also care.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, tweaking the branding to avoid the lowercase O is something to consider? Is that thinkable? Not a proposal, merely a question. (Still not trivial, but a lot less effort and disruption than changing a name -- we have adjusted the SUSE logo some five years ago, for example, and that went relatively smoothly.)
Thinkable for sure ;) Yes, that would work for me and make life indeed easier. But openSUSE has enough quirks already, so OpenSUSE will only help in a few cases, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@suse.com Twitter: jaegerandi SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D 90409 Nürnberg (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) GF: Felix Imendörffer GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 N�����r��y隊Z)z{.��k�7��맲��r��z�^�ˬz��N�(�֜��^� ޭ隊Z)z{.��k�7���0�����Ǩ�
Am Mon, 03 Jun 2019 11:25:42 +0200 schrieb Per Jessen <per@computer.org>:
I say no. As long as we remain tightly coupled to SUSE, there is nothing gained by changing. If anything, it would only add confusion.
In my experience with end users (read: customers) contact there already is confusion. There is talk about SUSE but openSUSE is meant, even more tech-savvy people tend to do that. And it's really hard to get this "out of the people". Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Vinzenz Vietzke <vinz@vinzv.de> [06-03-19 10:12]:
Am Mon, 03 Jun 2019 11:25:42 +0200 schrieb Per Jessen <per@computer.org>:
I say no. As long as we remain tightly coupled to SUSE, there is nothing gained by changing. If anything, it would only add confusion.
In my experience with end users (read: customers) contact there already is confusion. There is talk about SUSE but openSUSE is meant, even more tech-savvy people tend to do that. And it's really hard to get this "out of the people".
yes, and as long as the users who began prior to openSUSE, that reference will continue. but it is a good reference. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Mon, 3 Jun 2019 10:16:47 -0400 schrieb Patrick Shanahan <paka@opensuse.org>:
In my experience with end users (read: customers) contact there already
is confusion. There is talk about SUSE but openSUSE is meant, even more tech-savvy people tend to do that. And it's really hard to get this "out of the people".
yes, and as long as the users who began prior to openSUSE, that reference will continue. but it is a good reference.
Sure, nothing wrong with it - but it's inaccurate. So if we're complaining about OpenSuse, OpenSUSE, or any other form of writing we should complain about this referencing as well. Of course this all is nothing crucial and it's not the core reason to change the name. But it's papercuts that we could ge rid of. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 4:21 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Mon, 3 Jun 2019 10:16:47 -0400 schrieb Patrick Shanahan <paka@opensuse.org>:
In my experience with end users (read: customers) contact there already
is confusion. There is talk about SUSE but openSUSE is meant, even more tech-savvy people tend to do that. And it's really hard to get this "out of the people".
yes, and as long as the users who began prior to openSUSE, that reference will continue. but it is a good reference.
Sure, nothing wrong with it - but it's inaccurate. So if we're complaining about OpenSuse, OpenSUSE, or any other form of writing we should complain about this referencing as well.
Of course this all is nothing crucial and it's not the core reason to change the name. But it's papercuts that we could ge rid of.
And you're seriously suggesting that people will be less confused if openSUSE changes its name? People who don't differ between an unpaid distribution and an enterprise distribution because there is an open before one of them? I don't think so. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Mon, 3 Jun 2019 16:34:16 +0200 schrieb Stephan Kulow <coolo@suse.de>:
Of course this all is nothing crucial and it's not the core reason to change the name. But it's papercuts that we could ge rid of.
And you're seriously suggesting that people will be less confused if openSUSE changes its name? People who don't differ between an unpaid distribution and an enterprise distribution because there is an open before one of them?
Yes, seriously. People *are* aware of the differences between SUSE/openSUSE. They're just lazy and shorten it. Just like "Fedora Project" get's it's "project" lost. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
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 Cheers -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
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
On 6/3/19 11:59 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
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 agree. Despite the practical reasons given by Richard, I feel changing the name is fixing something that is not broken. It's a disruptive change that could send a message of bad relationship or a loss of trust between SUSE and openSUSE. No matter how you word the public announcement, most people will get it as a breakup. The potential of hurting the public image of SUSE and openSUSE overweights the practical reasons by far, in my opinion. I have seen many open source projects changing their names over the years, and I don't think any of those name changes have boosted or improved the corresponding project in any significant way. Cheers. -- Ancor González Sosa YaST Team at SUSE Linux GmbH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Montag, 3. Juni 2019, 13:20:44 CEST schrieb Ancor Gonzalez Sosa:
On 6/3/19 11:59 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
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 agree. Despite the practical reasons given by Richard, I feel changing the name is fixing something that is not broken.
+1
It's a disruptive change that could send a message of bad relationship or a loss of trust between SUSE and openSUSE. No matter how you word the public announcement, most people will get it as a breakup.
The potential of hurting the public image of SUSE and openSUSE overweights the practical reasons by far, in my opinion.
Changing the brand (not only the name) is a process that requires a massive and well conducted communication plan. Companies spend millions in this - I would rather see this money spend on development (assuming we have it, which I know is not the case) - the perception of the new brand in the market is not guaranteed.
I have seen many open source projects changing their names over the years, and I don't think any of those name changes have boosted or improved the corresponding project in any significant way.
As others have pointed out, SUSE is the oldest distro in the market, so the brand is well known. That has always a negative side ('some 15 years ago I had a graphic card that was not working with SUSE' and other gossip) as people have a certain image in mind. We as a community feel very different about that - good relationships and fun on what we do, using the best toolchain in the market. The question 'What does openSUSE stands for' has to be defined first (board started the discussion already internally). I see the legal implications Richard pointed out, I see as well that some major computer mags in Germany are constantly ignoring openSUSE (instead enthusiastically reporting about 'fresh new distros' every couple of weeks, just to notice that development has stopped some more month later...), but I still feel the brand perception of openSUSE in general is positive and reliable. So..redesign yes, rebranding no My 2c Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 11:59 AM, Simon Lees wrote:
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 agree. Despite the practical reasons given by Richard, I feel changing the name is fixing something that is not broken.
It's a disruptive change that could send a message of bad relationship or a loss of trust between SUSE and openSUSE. No matter how you word the public announcement, most people will get it as a breakup.
The potential of hurting the public image of SUSE and openSUSE overweights the practical reasons by far, in my opinion.
I have seen many open source projects changing their names over the years, and I don't think any of those name changes have boosted or improved the corresponding project in any significant way.
Cheers. Yep. I'd even go a step further: I'd like to somehow see the relationship with SUSE, that we all at oSC19 seem to agree upon should continue, represented in
Op maandag 3 juni 2019 13:20:44 CEST schreef Ancor Gonzalez Sosa: the name of the foundation / project. This relationship is also part of our marketing strategy, i.e. Leap / SLE's shared code base a.o.t. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 1:59 PM, Knurpht-openSUSE <knurpht@opensuse.org> wrote:
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
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
On 6/3/19 11:59 AM, Simon Lees wrote: point 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 agree. Despite the practical reasons given by Richard, I feel changing the name is fixing something that is not broken.
It's a disruptive change that could send a message of bad relationship or a loss of trust between SUSE and openSUSE. No matter how you word the public announcement, most people will get it as a breakup.
The potential of hurting the public image of SUSE and openSUSE overweights the practical reasons by far, in my opinion.
I have seen many open source projects changing their names over the years, and I don't think any of those name changes have boosted or improved the corresponding project in any significant way.
Cheers. Yep. I'd even go a step further: I'd like to somehow see the relationship with SUSE, that we all at oSC19 seem to agree upon should continue, represented in
Op maandag 3 juni 2019 13:20:44 CEST schreef Ancor Gonzalez Sosa: the name of the foundation / project. This relationship is also part of our marketing strategy, i.e. Leap / SLE's shared code base a.o.t.
Then I don't really see how Tumbleweed fits into that strategy, it's an upstream, sure, but if the plan is to disassociate Leap and Tumbleweed from openSUSE, then what does openSUSE have to do with SLE or SUSE? If we are going to do our best to disassociate the brands, I don't see why not go all the way and keep the most important parts similar enough to not be mistaken for another thing :D Green and chameleon, green and chameleon, green and chameleon... that's geeko That's more than RH and Fedora which are associated only in the type of hat ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, given the thread already got quite long and many points are explained already I'd like to pick this one out representing it's occurrences in other peoples mails:
I'd like to somehow see the relationship with SUSE, that we all at oSC19 seem to agree upon should continue, represented in the name of the foundation / project.
Though I second the desire to express the relationship somehow I don't see the need to keep "SUSE" in the name to show these affiliation. See Fedora vs. Red Hat where this is and never was an issue. In the end it's a matter of clear and to the point communication. Fedora is commonly referred as "the community project" of Red Hat, even after 15 years being around. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 23:28, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Hi,
given the thread already got quite long and many points are explained already I'd like to pick this one out representing it's occurrences in other peoples mails:
I'd like to somehow see the relationship with SUSE, that we all at oSC19 seem to agree upon should continue, represented in the name of the foundation / project.
Though I second the desire to express the relationship somehow I don't see the need to keep "SUSE" in the name to show these affiliation. See Fedora vs. Red Hat where this is and never was an issue. In the end it's a matter of clear and to the point communication. Fedora is commonly referred as "the community project" of Red Hat, even after 15 years being around.
If we were starting the project from scratch I think this argument would have more merit, but just as fedora / Redhat has spent many years getting there message out we have spent many years getting the message out about the relationship between openSUSE and SUSE. I don't think now is a good time to change that message and need to spend the next 10 years selling the fact that "Project X" is now SUSE's openSUSE counterpart so sure while SUSE doesn't need to be in the name changing that now is undoing years of hard work. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Montag, 3. Juni 2019, 23:56:43 CEST schrieb Simon Lees:
If we were starting the project from scratch I think this argument would have more merit, but just as fedora / Redhat has spent many years getting there message out we have spent many years getting the message out about the relationship between openSUSE and SUSE. I don't think now is a good time to change that message and need to spend the next 10 years selling the fact that "Project X" is now SUSE's openSUSE counterpart so sure while SUSE doesn't need to be in the name changing that now is undoing years of hard work.
what he says. cheers MH -- Mathias Homann Senior Systems Engineer, IT Consultant. IT Trainer Mathias.Homann@openSUSE.org http://www.tuxonline.tech gpg key fingerprint: 8029 2240 F4DD 7776 E7D2 C042 6B8E 029E 13F2 C102
Dne pondělí 3. června 2019 11:59:45 CEST, Simon Lees napsal(a):
On 03/06/2019 18:05, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote: 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?
Shortly, no, despite all Richard's good arguments, no, I don't see it beneficial.
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 fully agree here. I see the tight bound between openSUSE and SUSE as very beneficial. As explained elsewhere, the change would require huge amount of work and IMHO we already do have a lot of work to do, so I don't think the change is worth of the work needed. -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 at 11:05, Vojtěch Zeisek <vojtech.zeisek@opensuse.org> wrote:
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 fully agree here. I see the tight bound between openSUSE and SUSE as very beneficial. As explained elsewhere, the change would require huge amount of work and IMHO we already do have a lot of work to do, so I don't think the change is worth of the work needed.
:) I'm sympathetic & respectful to your point of view, and will certainly back it with my full energies if the eventual vote shows it as the majority view. But, I do feel compelled to point out that both options, renaming or sticking with "openSUSE" have significant costs. For example, right now openSUSE has granted the right to use our trademark to various merchandise suppliers, sticker producers, hardware OEMs (eg. Tuxedo Computers who sell openSUSE laptops), and of course various regional groups of the openSUSE Project. If the Project keeps its name as "openSUSE", then I would expect additional terms and conditions on the openSUSE Trademarks to be imposed as a result of the creation of the Foundation. These terms and conditions will likely limit/risk the projects ability to grant similar permissions in the future and possibly put those existing arrangements at risk. The consequences of such a course of events could dramatically limit openSUSE's ability to market itself compared to our current arrangements - and Marketing is an area which I think everyone would say we should be expanding upon, not limiting ourselves. I dont want to be a doomsayer, this dark future I paint is admittedly a worst case, but it's a worst case backed and imposed by the nature of international trademark law. I'm confident that both SUSE & openSUSE will want to do all that we can to mitigate those negative aspects of any decision. But figuring that out, discussing with lawyers, researching laws, drafting policies, getting those policies approved by the companies & communities involved, will ALSO be a huge amount of work. Unlike the consequences of renaming which can be spread around, it's work which will likely be highly concentrated on the shoulders of a few volunteers, who's wellbeing and enthusiasm I will be greatly concerned about if we find ourselves going down that road. So, everyone please, don't fool yourselves into thinking there is one 'easier' option out of the two presented here. As a Project we've got a lot of work to do either way. Which is why this debate is so healthy and productive to have - as a community we've got to pick the poison we're happiest to drink ;) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Gesendet: Dienstag, 04. Juni 2019 um 11:28 Uhr Von: "Richard Brown" <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> An: "Vojtěch Zeisek" <vojtech.zeisek@opensuse.org>, opensuse-project <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 at 11:05, Vojtěch Zeisek <vojtech.zeisek@opensuse.org> wrote:
So, everyone please, don't fool yourselves into thinking there is one 'easier' option out of the two presented here.
In the best case, we are allowed to keep our name and SUSE wants to continue the cooperation with all the benefits. The Board is allowed to make all important decisions then. ownCloud has used the openSUSE project as a role model with the openSUSE Board and the community. The only difference should be, that partners can buy one position in the ownCloud Board. Their problem is, that most Contributors are ownCloud employees. They want to improve their rules for the community.
As a Project we've got a lot of work to do either way. Which is why this debate is so healthy and productive to have - as a community we've got to pick the poison we're happiest to drink ;)
That's true. It would be interesting to hear/ see the opinion from SUSE side. In addition, openSUSE has been founded by Community Members (some of them exist now). It would be interesting to know their feedback about such ideas (and by others who contributed during this time).
Best regards, Sarah -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 04.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
Hi,
In the best case, we are allowed to keep our name and SUSE wants to continue the cooperation with all the benefits. The Board is allowed to make all important decisions then.
ownCloud has used the openSUSE project as a role model with the openSUSE Board and the community. The only difference should be, that partners can buy one position in the ownCloud Board. Their problem is, that most Contributors are ownCloud employees.
I am not sure these statements are true. And also I would not call the ownCloud Foundation a great success so far. Unfortunately. regards, Klaas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi all, Am 04.06.19 um 18:38 schrieb Klaas Freitag:
Am 04.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
Hi,
In the best case, we are allowed to keep our name and SUSE wants to continue the cooperation with all the benefits. The Board is allowed to make all important decisions then.
ownCloud has used the openSUSE project as a role model with the openSUSE Board and the community. The only difference should be, that partners can buy one position in the ownCloud Board. Their problem is, that most Contributors are ownCloud employees.
I am not sure these statements are true. And also I would not call the ownCloud Foundation a great success so far. Unfortunately. from what I see so far, the role-model did not work out best for ownCloud maybe. But I guess to trust Klaas here is not the worst idea.
But for the other fact Sarah stated out - that we are a world-famous and best-known Linux distribution - I would like you to consider the facts on this and really ask - is the openSUSE brand a well-known, worldwide brand? Or is it just SUSE and we are the copycat/free rider along their fame and marketing department? [1] Yes, the brand openSUSE is well-known in the openSUSE community. But changing a name should be quite fast known by everybody in the community. In the outside-world - the brand openSUSE is barely visible - from what you can see from the posted statistics. Compared to our "brand-competitors" if you would like to call them so - like Ubuntu (market leader) Debian (stable second) and Fedora (even better than us). Only speaking about, visibility and market-share (which you can measure from Google Trends) not talking about code quality or technical details. So if you think of changing a name, make it a BIG press release - and maybe this will start people looking into openSUSE and actually move the community forward by adding new people and even more visibility ;). See it as a chance, not as a burden. If we find a cool and catchy name for this project, I would vote for taking this opportunity to solve all those legal issues and use the drives which comes from this media coverage ;). [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?hl=de&tz=-120&date=today+12... Cheers, -- Thorsten Bro <tbro@opensuse.org> - Member of openSUSE Heroes - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Heroes - Member of openSUSE VideoTeam - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Video -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tuesday, 4 June 2019 19:11:54 CEST Thorsten Bro | openSUSE Heroes wrote:
Hi all,
Am 04.06.19 um 18:38 schrieb Klaas Freitag:
Am 04.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Sarah Julia Kriesch:
Hi,
In the best case, we are allowed to keep our name and SUSE wants to continue the cooperation with all the benefits. The Board is allowed to make all important decisions then.
ownCloud has used the openSUSE project as a role model with the openSUSE Board and the community. The only difference should be, that partners can buy one position in the ownCloud Board. Their problem is, that most Contributors are ownCloud employees.> I am not sure these statements are true. And also I would not call the ownCloud Foundation a great success so far. Unfortunately.
from what I see so far, the role-model did not work out best for ownCloud maybe. But I guess to trust Klaas here is not the worst idea.
But for the other fact Sarah stated out - that we are a world-famous and best-known Linux distribution - I would like you to consider the facts on this and really ask - is the openSUSE brand a well-known, worldwide brand? Or is it just SUSE and we are the copycat/free rider along their fame and marketing department? [1]
Yes, the brand openSUSE is well-known in the openSUSE community. But changing a name should be quite fast known by everybody in the community.
In the outside-world - the brand openSUSE is barely visible - from what you can see from the posted statistics. Compared to our "brand-competitors" if you would like to call them so - like Ubuntu (market leader) Debian (stable second) and Fedora (even better than us). Only speaking about, visibility and market-share (which you can measure from Google Trends) not talking about code quality or technical details.
So if you think of changing a name, make it a BIG press release - and maybe this will start people looking into openSUSE and actually move the community forward by adding new people and even more visibility ;).
See it as a chance, not as a burden. If we find a cool and catchy name for this project, I would vote for taking this opportunity to solve all those legal issues and use the drives which comes from this media coverage ;).
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?hl=de&tz=-120&date=today+12... +12-m,today+12-m,today+12-m&geo=,,,&q=%2Fm%2F02pxwz1,%2Fm%2F02996,Ubuntu,%2F m%2F079d8p&sni=3
Cheers,
Hi everyone! I closely followed this topic and already posted on github and in the openSUSE Facebook group about my own opinion. I want to have that seen here, too, so that those of you not following the github discussion or the group on Facebook don't miss what I think about the topic. I know it's a highly controversial topic and we shouldn't miss on the risks of a brand change. But we shouldn't miss on the chances coming with it either. So here is what I think: Keeping the name openSUSE would be a legal issue because the logo and name include those of SUSE. This simply leads to copyright and trademark issues. A potential foundation - which is a very good idea to have btw - would in it's pure existence be dependent on SUSE granting the right to use the name and branding / trademarks etc. So the best way I see is - if the openSUSE community really wants to be able to easily act like one on a legal basis - we will need to change the name and the branding. But I don't think that this does us or the distro(s) any harm as well as I don't care about a name change at all. Sure, it is a risk and it would be sad to give up on a name we got used to. But in the end it's just a name and I always thought that other distributions have names that sound better and look better and have more beautiful logos, too. I am using openSUSE not because of it's name or logo or brand - I do use it because I think that we have one of the most advanced linux distros out there as well as one of the best communities. So, we need to find a fitting name and brand that much like CentOS is unique but still is able to establish some healthy connection to our roots in SUSE. And I think that CentOS is an excellent example on how to have a unique branding that has nothing to do with the Red Hat roots, but still maintaining and establishing a good reputation for being a free and open Red Hat alternative delivering a stable and pleasant Red Hat Enterprise experience. I am therefore convinced that we might benefit from a unique brand that maybe even isn't directly connected or referencing SUSE, green, a chameleon etc. I even had an idea. How about naming the foundation "Leap Foundation". Leap is tied and connected to openSUSE and therefore to SUSE, but still unique and earned some good reputation for being an excellent enterprise class operating system. We might then think about a renaming of Tumbleweed. But to be honest I never liked the name anyways. My suggestion would be to call it "Leap Infinity" or "Leap infin8" or something alike. Think about it. What ever happens to the naming though, I really love the idea of a backing foundation behind the openSUSE community. Just my 2 cents. Have a great day, all and kind regards Pierre -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Pierre Böckmann composed on 2019-06-05 10:23 (UTC+0200):
...in the end it's just a name and I always thought that other distributions have names that sound better and look better and have more beautiful logos, too. I am using openSUSE not because of it's name or logo or brand...
My sentiments too, though I'm barely off the fence on the subject of naming. I don't like name changes at all, but neither do I like polysyllabic names. Sometimes a name change is warranted. The Goldstar brand's reputation for ugly, cheap, and early failure come to mind, ending up as today's LG brand. I agree foundation creation is an opportune time to break free of legal strings and newcomer confusion. There seem to remain people who avoid openSUSE because of the ancient Novell/Microsoft connection. The SuSE, SUSE, openSUSE OpenSuSE, S.U.S.E., opensuse, Opensuse muck is not "a" name to be proud of, nor are shades of green that belong to nutrient starved vegetation, blood-starved dying body parts, or (unenlightened) darkness. I suggest the colors of royalty, and a name suggesting power, one that suggests its well over two decades heritage is rich. A cutesy little Gecko doesn't suggest power or competence to me, and probably same for the skilled distro hunters we'd like to welcome to our ranks. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/4/19 5:28 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 at 11:05, Vojtěch Zeisek <vojtech.zeisek@opensuse.org> wrote:
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 fully agree here. I see the tight bound between openSUSE and SUSE as very beneficial. As explained elsewhere, the change would require huge amount of work and IMHO we already do have a lot of work to do, so I don't think the change is worth of the work needed.
:) I'm sympathetic & respectful to your point of view, and will certainly back it with my full energies if the eventual vote shows it as the majority view.
But, I do feel compelled to point out that both options, renaming or sticking with "openSUSE" have significant costs.
For example, right now openSUSE has granted the right to use our trademark to various merchandise suppliers, sticker producers, hardware OEMs (eg. Tuxedo Computers who sell openSUSE laptops), and of course various regional groups of the openSUSE Project.
If the Project keeps its name as "openSUSE", then I would expect additional terms and conditions on the openSUSE Trademarks to be imposed as a result of the creation of the Foundation. These terms and conditions will likely limit/risk the projects ability to grant similar permissions in the future and possibly put those existing arrangements at risk.
The consequences of such a course of events could dramatically limit openSUSE's ability to market itself compared to our current arrangements - and Marketing is an area which I think everyone would say we should be expanding upon, not limiting ourselves.
I dont want to be a doomsayer, this dark future I paint is admittedly a worst case, but it's a worst case backed and imposed by the nature of international trademark law. I'm confident that both SUSE & openSUSE will want to do all that we can to mitigate those negative aspects of any decision. But figuring that out, discussing with lawyers, researching laws, drafting policies, getting those policies approved by the companies & communities involved, will ALSO be a huge amount of work.
Unlike the consequences of renaming which can be spread around, it's work which will likely be highly concentrated on the shoulders of a few volunteers, who's wellbeing and enthusiasm I will be greatly concerned about if we find ourselves going down that road.
So, everyone please, don't fool yourselves into thinking there is one 'easier' option out of the two presented here.
I agree either way there is a lot of work. I still would consider a complete re-branding effort to be more taxing than dealing with possibly handling additional clauses on the use of trademark issues. Given that the trademark issue is being pushed very strongly I am getting the feeling that the foundation push is really more about control of the mark then being able to receive donations in a structured way that makes those that want to donate feel comfortable with where the donations are going. Later, Robert
As a Project we've got a lot of work to do either way. Which is why this debate is so healthy and productive to have - as a community we've got to pick the poison we're happiest to drink ;)
-- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> [06-03-19 04:38]: [...]
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
I do not. I really was upset when it was changed from SuSE and again SUSE, but understand the need to move to openSUSE. I believe the effort needed to resolve all the necessary issues is much better expended on further development of our distribution. and Leap and Tumbleweed should remain distinctive sub "brand" names for openSUSE. and for writing, one should never change a proper name, it is "openSUSE", whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or standing alone. and that should stand for *any* language or alphabet. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 13.53, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
- Richard Brown <> [06-03-19 04:38]: [...]
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
I do not.
I really was upset when it was changed from SuSE and again SUSE, but understand the need to move to openSUSE. I believe the effort needed to resolve all the necessary issues is much better expended on further development of our distribution. and Leap and Tumbleweed should remain distinctive sub "brand" names for openSUSE.
and for writing, one should never change a proper name, it is "openSUSE", whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or standing alone. and that should stand for *any* language or alphabet.
LibreOffice (for example) changes it automatically to OpenSUSE. No one has been able to convince upstream to change this behaviour. Thunderbird says the above OpenSUSE is not correct, but does not offer openSUSE as the correct one, despite being in the dictionary in the correct form. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)
Le 03/06/2019 à 13:53, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
and for writing, one should never change a proper name, it is "openSUSE", whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or standing alone. and that should stand for *any* language or alphabet.
but many software do automatic capitalization :-( jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
* jdd@dodin.org <jdd@dodin.org> [06-03-19 12:55]:
Le 03/06/2019 à 13:53, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
and for writing, one should never change a proper name, it is "openSUSE", whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or standing alone. and that should stand for *any* language or alphabet.
but many software do automatic capitalization :-(
so you may not be able to rely on automagick, but must make your own corrections. you are able, this *is* linux. or just continue to use faulty software and be wrong. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 19.38, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
- jdd@dodin.org <jdd@dodin.org> [06-03-19 12:55]:
Le 03/06/2019 à 13:53, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :
and for writing, one should never change a proper name, it is "openSUSE", whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence or standing alone. and that should stand for *any* language or alphabet.
but many software do automatic capitalization :-(
so you may not be able to rely on automagick, but must make your own corrections. you are able, this *is* linux.
Nope. Some software correct it back.
or just continue to use faulty software and be wrong.
Like libreoffice calc? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)
On 6/3/19 3:53 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
I really was upset when it was changed from SuSE and again SUSE, but understand the need to move to openSUSE. I believe the effort needed to resolve all the necessary issues is much better expended on further development of our distribution. and Leap and Tumbleweed should remain distinctive sub "brand" names for openSUSE.
How about having a foundation name different as the distro name and we get to keep openSUSE? Something like: +--------------------+ | Example Foundation | +---------+----------+ | | v +-----+----+ | openSUSE | +----+-----+ | v--------+----------v +------+ +------------+ | Leap | | Tumbleweed | +------+ +------+-----+ | | v------+-----v +-------+ +---------+ | Kubic | | MicroOS | +-------+ +---------+ We might not address the limitations expressed in previous emails regarding usage of the SUSE wording, but we could have user groups, local associations, domain names registered under "Example Foundation" without requiring SUSE permission. It would solve the inconvenience of getting sponsorship & funding which currently has to go through SUSE. Local user groups & associations would perhaps still be required to agree to a terms of use for the "openSUSE" wording. Regards, Ish Sookun N�����r��y隊Z)z{.��k�7��맲��r��z�^�ˬz��N�(�֜��^� ޭ隊Z)z{.��k�7���0�����Ǩ�
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Wednesday, June 5, 2019 5:31 PM, Ish Sookun <ish.sookun@lasentinelle.mu> wrote:
On 6/3/19 3:53 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
I really was upset when it was changed from SuSE and again SUSE, but understand the need to move to openSUSE. I believe the effort needed to resolve all the necessary issues is much better expended on further development of our distribution. and Leap and Tumbleweed should remain distinctive sub "brand" names for openSUSE.
How about having a foundation name different as the distro name and we get to keep openSUSE? Something like:
+--------------------+ | Example Foundation | +---------+----------+ | | v +-----+----+ | openSUSE | +----+-----+ | v--------+----------v +------+ +------------+ | Leap | | Tumbleweed | +------+ +------+-----+ | | v------+-----v +-------+ +---------+ | Kubic | | MicroOS | +-------+ +---------+
How about just giving a new name to the foundation loosely tied to the existing brand (e.g. Squamata Foundation) and just dropping the "openSUSE" without replacement. The distributions do have names already. So basically "openSUSE Tumbleweed" becomes "Tumbleweed" and "openSUSE Leap" becomes "Leap" with highly visible release names (maybe different lizards) like Debian's and Ubuntu's releases. In my opinion this would be beneficial to marketing. Everybody cares about "Disco Dingo", but "15.2" sounds quite boring. Dropping the "openSUSE" has the following benefits: * Seemingly cutting ties to a Novell/Microsoft Deal/"Corporate Overlord" past without creating "SUSE is abandonning openSUSE" FUD. * Tumbleweed and Leap are recognizable brands with very different audiences, they don't need an umbrella name (like Fedora and CentOS don't have one either). * Not being called anything *SUSE* might help making Packman (or at least some of the packman packages) more official, which would help making it more easy to install them (Ubuntu-easy, not the existing "easier than before, but still not really noob-friendly). Mageia for example got rid of the PLF repo, when they were no longer Mandrake/Mandriva branded. +---------------------+ | Squamata Foundation | +---------+-----------+ | | v | v--------+----------v +------+ +------------+ | Leap | | Tumbleweed | +------+ +------+-----+ | | v------+-----v +-------+ +---------+ | Kubic | | MicroOS | +-------+ +---------+
We might not address the limitations expressed in previous emails regarding usage of the SUSE wording, but we could have user groups, local associations, domain names registered under "Example Foundation" without requiring SUSE permission. It would solve the inconvenience of getting sponsorship & funding which currently has to go through SUSE.
Local user groups & associations would perhaps still be required to agree to a terms of use for the "openSUSE" wording.
Regards,
Ish Sookun Nry隊Z)z{.k7맲rz^ˬzN(֜^ ޭ隊Z)z{.k70Ǩ
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Gesendet: Mittwoch, 05. Juni 2019 um 18:28 Uhr Von: "Xaver Hellauer" <xaver@hellauer.bayern> An: "opensuse-project@opensuse.org" <opensuse-project@opensuse.org> Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Wednesday, June 5, 2019 5:31 PM, Ish Sookun <ish.sookun@lasentinelle.mu> wrote:
On 6/3/19 3:53 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
I really was upset when it was changed from SuSE and again SUSE, but understand the need to move to openSUSE. I believe the effort needed to resolve all the necessary issues is much better expended on further development of our distribution. and Leap and Tumbleweed should remain distinctive sub "brand" names for openSUSE.
How about having a foundation name different as the distro name and we get to keep openSUSE? Something like:
+--------------------+ | Example Foundation | +---------+----------+ | | v +-----+----+ | openSUSE | +----+-----+ | v--------+----------v +------+ +------------+ | Leap | | Tumbleweed | +------+ +------+-----+ | | v------+-----v +-------+ +---------+ | Kubic | | MicroOS | +-------+ +---------+
How about just giving a new name to the foundation loosely tied to the existing brand (e.g. Squamata Foundation) and just dropping the "openSUSE" without replacement. The distributions do have names already. So basically "openSUSE Tumbleweed" becomes "Tumbleweed" and "openSUSE Leap" becomes "Leap" with highly visible release names (maybe different lizards) like Debian's and Ubuntu's releases. In my opinion this would be beneficial to marketing. Everybody cares about "Disco Dingo", but "15.2" sounds quite boring. Dropping the "openSUSE" has the following benefits:
Seemingly cutting ties to a Novell/Microsoft Deal/"Corporate Overlord" past without creating "SUSE is abandonning openSUSE" FUD.
Tumbleweed and Leap are recognizable brands with very different audiences, they don't need an umbrella name (like Fedora and CentOS don't have one either).
Not being called anything *SUSE* might help making Packman (or at least some of the packman packages) more official, which would help making it more easy to install them (Ubuntu-easy, not the existing "easier than before, but still not really noob-friendly). Mageia for example got rid of the PLF repo, when they were no longer Mandrake/Mandriva branded.
+---------------------+ | Squamata Foundation | +---------+-----------+ | | v | v--------+----------v +------+ +------------+ | Leap | | Tumbleweed | +------+ +------+-----+ | | v------+-----v +-------+ +---------+ | Kubic | | MicroOS | +-------+ +---------+
That's a nice idea. But our main goal "financial goal" is not really compatible with letting openSUSE away. That has the reason that we need new sponsors. Many companies want to sponsor us as "openSUSE" and nothing else. The problem is that they are not allowed to do that in our situation now. How should we receive such sponsoring offers again with such a change of the name? We have to wait many years again until receiving such offers. You can watch the difference of budget at open source events at different booths of Linux distributions.
We might not address the limitations expressed in previous emails regarding usage of the SUSE wording, but we could have user groups, local associations, domain names registered under "Example Foundation" without requiring SUSE permission. It would solve the inconvenience of getting sponsorship & funding which currently has to go through SUSE.
Local user groups & associations would perhaps still be required to agree to a terms of use for the "openSUSE" wording.
Regards,
Ish Sookun Nry隊Z)z{.k7맲rz^ˬzN(֜^ ޭ隊Z)z{.k70Ǩ
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
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On 6/3/19 4:35 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> wrote:
<snip> 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?
I think the answer, as with everything, is it depends ;) If the questions I am about to ask have already been answered then please forgive my ignorance and point me in the right direction. I believe the decision of the name change is logically closely coupled to the reason the Foundation idea is being pursued again. Way back when the idea of a foundation was first pursuit it was primarily driven by the idea that the project should be as independent as possible from the primary corporate sponsor to achieve isolation from whatever happens in the corporate world. Since that time SUSE has gone through a number of corporate transitions and as a community I'd say we haven't really been negatively effected, from my point of view. But if the goal of the foundation is to "be independent" then that would suggest a name/branding/logo i.e. pretty much everything change. Personally I am not a big fan but if the foundation's goal is to create independence from SUSE, then IMHO that's the way it has to be. If, on the other hand, the goal of forming a foundation is primarily to establish a legal entity such that other sponsors have a place to send money without writing a check to SUSE and thus getting the impression that they bolster SUSE's bottom line. Then a name change is not going to be beneficial, IMHO. So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now? Thanks, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
The Board is working on a briefing document to explain such things, but the need for us all to rest a bit after the exhausting Board Meeting/oSC combination has meant that this discussion has leapt onto these lists before that document has been finalised. The Board will produce this document as soon as it can; in my case, I do need to spend a few work days on my regular work, so I cant promise exactly when I'll be able to contribute much to that drafting effort. Meanwhile though, thanks to the amazing work of the Video team, there is a solid recording of the discussion the Board started on this topic at oSC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ&t=1s It does a good job of explaining why a Foundation is being pursued and in what form. In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to watch the video. - The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money - This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE - Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung) - I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence" Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as the most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic. One likely sticky topic around the Foundation will be that of the Trademarks, a number of the reasons I've already mentioned in this thread..hence why I think the naming discussion is a good one to have now. And despite my personal preferences, I will gladly embrace whatever the community decides. Either way it will help shape the structure of the Foundation as it comes together. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Op maandag 3 juni 2019 16:17:46 CEST schreef Richard Brown:
And despite my personal preferences, I will gladly embrace whatever the community decides. Either way it will help shape the structure of the Foundation as it comes together. That's a good summary of my feelings / thoughts in the discussion. Furhermore me too still is contemplating all of the F2F Board meeting and the talks I had on oSC19.
-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
The Board is working on a briefing document to explain such things, but the need for us all to rest a bit after the exhausting Board Meeting/oSC combination has meant that this discussion has leapt onto these lists before that document has been finalised.
The Board will produce this document as soon as it can; in my case, I do need to spend a few work days on my regular work, so I cant promise exactly when I'll be able to contribute much to that drafting effort.
Meanwhile though, thanks to the amazing work of the Video team, there is a solid recording of the discussion the Board started on this topic at oSC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ&t=1s
It does a good job of explaining why a Foundation is being pursued and in what form.
Thanks for the link.
In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to watch the video.
- The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money
- This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE
- Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung)
- I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence"
Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as the most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic.
With this as goals I think sticking with the existing name and branding would properly continue to express the relationship and the trademark issues should be able to be overcome in a way that reaches a workable level without being a burden on everyone. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
W dniu 03.06.2019 o 18:39, Robert Schweikert pisze:
On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to watch the video.
- The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money
- This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE - Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung)
- I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence"
Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as the most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic.
With this as goals I think sticking with the existing name and branding would properly continue to express the relationship and the trademark issues should be able to be overcome in a way that reaches a workable level without being a burden on everyone.
Later, Robert
Thank you for your spot-on question. So far in this whole discussion, I find this argument most convincing.
On 04/06/2019 02:09, Robert Schweikert wrote:
Hi,
On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
The Board is working on a briefing document to explain such things, but the need for us all to rest a bit after the exhausting Board Meeting/oSC combination has meant that this discussion has leapt onto these lists before that document has been finalised.
The Board will produce this document as soon as it can; in my case, I do need to spend a few work days on my regular work, so I cant promise exactly when I'll be able to contribute much to that drafting effort.
Meanwhile though, thanks to the amazing work of the Video team, there is a solid recording of the discussion the Board started on this topic at oSC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ&t=1s
It does a good job of explaining why a Foundation is being pursued and in what form.
Thanks for the link.
In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to watch the video.
- The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money
- This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE - Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung)
- I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence"
Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as the most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic.
With this as goals I think sticking with the existing name and branding would properly continue to express the relationship and the trademark issues should be able to be overcome in a way that reaches a workable level without being a burden on everyone.
Yes I think this is the important point, if there is widespread support for a change of name now is the right time to have that discussion but at the same time no one is saying that we need to or really should change the name in order to make the foundation proposal work. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Gesendet: Dienstag, 04. Juni 2019 um 00:38 Uhr Von: "Simon Lees" <sflees@suse.de> An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
On 04/06/2019 02:09, Robert Schweikert wrote:
Hi,
On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is there a statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
The Board is working on a briefing document to explain such things, but the need for us all to rest a bit after the exhausting Board Meeting/oSC combination has meant that this discussion has leapt onto these lists before that document has been finalised.
The Board will produce this document as soon as it can; in my case, I do need to spend a few work days on my regular work, so I cant promise exactly when I'll be able to contribute much to that drafting effort.
Meanwhile though, thanks to the amazing work of the Video team, there is a solid recording of the discussion the Board started on this topic at oSC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ&t=1s
It does a good job of explaining why a Foundation is being pursued and in what form.
Thanks for the link.
In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to watch the video.
- The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money
- This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE - Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung)
- I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence"
Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as the most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic.
With this as goals I think sticking with the existing name and branding would properly continue to express the relationship and the trademark issues should be able to be overcome in a way that reaches a workable level without being a burden on everyone.
Yes I think this is the important point, if there is widespread support for a change of name now is the right time to have that discussion but at the same time no one is saying that we need to or really should change the name in order to make the foundation proposal work.
We should think about what would happen, if we were change the community name and what exists. If we change to the suggested chameleon foundation, we can mixed up with the Gecko Linux (which is based on us). We should watch all these risks and what can happen with such a change. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On wto, Jun 4, 2019 at 9:48 AM, Sarah Julia Kriesch <ada.lovelace@gmx.de> wrote:
Gesendet: Dienstag, 04. Juni 2019 um 00:38 Uhr Von: "Simon Lees" <sflees@suse.de> An: opensuse-project@opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion
Hi,
On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 15:55, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
So the underlying question, and with that back to my intro. Is
statement by the board or others as to the underlying reasons why a foundation is being pursuit (again)? And why now?
The Board is working on a briefing document to explain such
but the need for us all to rest a bit after the exhausting Board Meeting/oSC combination has meant that this discussion has leapt onto these lists before that document has been finalised.
The Board will produce this document as soon as it can; in my case, I do need to spend a few work days on my regular work, so I cant
exactly when I'll be able to contribute much to that drafting effort.
Meanwhile though, thanks to the amazing work of the Video team,
is a solid recording of the discussion the Board started on this topic at oSC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZmc4CXzFQ&t=1s
It does a good job of explaining why a Foundation is being
in what form.
Thanks for the link.
In a few short bulletpoints for those who cant be bothered to
watch
the video.
- The Primary motivation is to enable the openSUSE Project to be able to receive, spend, and sign it's own contracts/sponsorships/money
- This should be _in addition to_, not _in replacement of_ the exceptionally positive and good working relationship openSUSE has with SUSE
- Both the Board and SUSE are keen on using this opportunity to codify the nature of that close working relationship into the by-laws/charter of the Foundation (likely to be a German Stiftung)
- I personally refer to this effort and openSUSE seeking "less dependence" on SUSE, not "independence"
Hopefully you can see how the above tenants have learned the lessons of previous efforts and I would describe this current effort as
most amicable, mutually respectful, and uniquely "openSUSE/SUSEian", with the vast majority so far seeming to agree with the broad strokes of the topic.
With this as goals I think sticking with the existing name and branding would properly continue to express the relationship and the
On 04/06/2019 02:09, Robert Schweikert wrote: there a things, promise there pursued and the trademark
issues should be able to be overcome in a way that reaches a workable level without being a burden on everyone.
Yes I think this is the important point, if there is widespread support for a change of name now is the right time to have that discussion but at the same time no one is saying that we need to or really should change the name in order to make the foundation proposal work.
We should think about what would happen, if we were change the community name and what exists. If we change to the suggested chameleon foundation, we can mixed up with the Gecko Linux (which is based on us). We should watch all these risks and what can happen with such a change.
Gecko Linux is abandoned, and Chameleon Foundation is way too generic, something like Trioceros would work better, because it is directly associated with chameleons, while not being too generic, but certainly isn't perfect, too hard to type and remember. Anyway, there is an issue for suggesting names: https://github.com/openSUSE/branding/issues/112 but please, don't suggest stuff that consists of OS, Linux etc; openSUSE does more than distro stuff :D LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 2:35 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
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?
I feel there is a LOT of brand equity in openSUSE. Changing the name will require a LONG time to rebuild that equity. And the field of Linux distros/projects is already very cluttered with unrecognizable names, some misleading names, that come and go. The rapid coming-and-going names cause mistrust and disinterest. I think we should keep the openSUSE name: for stability, for long-term recognition of what we stand for, and for continued capitalization on what is known and trusted. I recognize the potential of the opportunity here. This is a time that might not come again in quite so favorable circumstances, to launch a new brand and to stand unique. But I personally don't see the potential benefit(s) outperforming the strengths and permanence of remaining openSUSE. That's my contribution to the discussion, for whatever it's worth.
On Mon, 03 Jun 2019 10:35:03 +0200, Richard Brown wrote:
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
Short answer: Yes, mostly for reasons you've described already. But one area that adds to my agreement that it's time for a change: In our forums and social media spaces, we regularly are identified as "SUSE" and people ask questions about SLE that have nothing to do with the project. There's significant confusion for people who have purchased the enterprise products that they can ask for (and receive) help and information about SUSE Linux Enterprise on the openSUSE forums, the openSUSE Facebook page, and the openSUSE Facebook group. It's not a daily occurrence, but it's not an infrequent occurrence. Changing the name to not include SUSE will make the delineation extremely clear. I've had people *argue* with me, as someone who admins the forums and manages the FB presence, about whether or not it's appropriate for them to ask SUSE Linux Enterprise questions in those venues when I've directed them to an official SUSE support (or sales) venue. I'm nice about it, but if someone wants to ask for pricing information about SLE, the openSUSE social media venues are not the right place to be - and I point them to SUSE Sales. Often that leads to "why is nobody answering the SUSE sales chat? And why won't you just give me an answer?", which looks bad for everyone. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 3/6/19 6:35 pm, 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?
NO, absolutely NO. BC -- "If it weren't for electricity we'd be all watching television by candlelight." George Gobel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Jun 03, 2019 at 10:35:03AM +0200, Richard Brown wrote:
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?
Absolutely no. Ciao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 03.06.19 um 10:35 schrieb Richard Brown:
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
No. -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday, 3 June 2019 10:35 Richard Brown wrote:
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?
My view is: no in general, strong no to any change dropping "SUSE" from the name. Come on, we already ditched "Linux", if we ditch "SUSE" too, what will be left? :-) OK, seriously now. While I do understand that renaming openSUSE to something not containing "SUSE" would make certain administrative tasks easier, I don't think it would be worth the harm it would do on general perception of the distribution. In my eyes, the connection to SUSE was always something that made the distribution interesting, what made it stand out in the ever growing list of nameless "Yet Another Linux Distribution"'s (and that was long before I joined SUSE). Recently we made that connection even stronger with Leap but dropping "SUSE" from the name would inevitably be seen as a step in the opposite direction. The fact that actual technical disconnection of openSUSE from SUSE would be unfeasible for years (if ever) doesn't change anything. The perception and irrational factors are way more important than we would like. You may use Fedora as an example of successful rename but I believe the position of Fedora is much weaker than the position of old RHL used to be. I don't claim it's only because of the rename (the raise of Ubuntu is surely to blame) but I believe the name is part of the problem and I believe it did harm its position. And one more thing to consider: IIRC the impuls for renaming came from Red Hat which makes the situation completely different from ours. As for logo change, I don't think it's needed either but I don't really mind. I would certainly appreciate a decent shade of green (i.e. exact opposite of recent SUSE branding changes). Michal Kubecek -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, Am 05.06.19 um 14:32 schrieb Michal Kubecek:
On Monday, 3 June 2019 10:35 Richard Brown wrote:
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?
My view is: no in general, strong no to any change dropping "SUSE" from the name. Come on, we already ditched "Linux", if we ditch "SUSE" too, what will be left? :-)
OK, seriously now. While I do understand that renaming openSUSE to something not containing "SUSE" would make certain administrative tasks easier, I don't think it would be worth the harm it would do on general perception of the distribution.
In my eyes, the connection to SUSE was always something that made the distribution interesting, what made it stand out in the ever growing list of nameless "Yet Another Linux Distribution"'s (and that was long before I joined SUSE). Recently we made that connection even stronger with Leap but dropping "SUSE" from the name would inevitably be seen as a step in the opposite direction. The fact that actual technical disconnection of openSUSE from SUSE would be unfeasible for years (if ever) doesn't change anything. The perception and irrational factors are way more important than we would like.
You may use Fedora as an example of successful rename but I believe the position of Fedora is much weaker than the position of old RHL used to be. I don't claim it's only because of the rename (the raise of Ubuntu is surely to blame) but I believe the name is part of the problem and I believe it did harm its position. And one more thing to consider: IIRC the impuls for renaming came from Red Hat which makes the situation completely different from ours.
As for logo change, I don't think it's needed either but I don't really mind. I would certainly appreciate a decent shade of green (i.e. exact opposite of recent SUSE branding changes).
usually I stay pretty silent about those kind of discussions especially typical "metoo" posts but in this very case I want to raise my opinion and have to say that I agree 100% with what Michal mentioned before with the addition that I also would discard any ideas of significant logo change. So at least one cannot say later that people didn't give their feedback. That being said I'm currently not affected by any formal issues the current setup creates for certain groups. So if it's absolutely unreasonable to keep the actual setup then this opinion probably does not matter. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 12:35 PM, Richard Brown wrote:
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?
No matter how much I'd like openSUSE to stay close to its roots by keeping the SUSE part, I feel that the arguments to be less dependent on SUSE and gain more infrastructure control weigh more. I am in favor of both the logo & project name change. Regards, Ish Sookun -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Op woensdag 5 juni 2019 15:46:18 CEST schreef Ish Sookun:
On 6/3/19 12:35 PM, Richard Brown wrote:
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?
No matter how much I'd like openSUSE to stay close to its roots by keeping the SUSE part, I feel that the arguments to be less dependent on SUSE and gain more infrastructure control weigh more. I am in favor of both the logo & project name change.
Regards,
Ish Sookun Here's where I am too. One of the things I love about these community discussions is that reading other people's input sometimes makes me change my mind, makes me aware of the emotional part in my reasoning. "openSUSE is my home" f.e. But it's not the name, it's the community, the project which are in my heart. And that is not bound to it's name. My feeling part of that community, attempting to contribute to the project somehow did not change when openSUSE was started.
Atm I think that we do need to go for a long term solution, hence include what may happen f.e. when SUSE's owners bring it to some Stock Exchange. It's shareholders on such an occasion might simply split it into parts to sell, parts to kill. A different name, own trademarks thus would also directly relate to financial indepence/less dependence. The relationship with SUSE is something I would like to keep, and one of the things I could imagine is to include a paragraph in the Foundation's charter that describes that, incl. a mutual agreement to confirm that relationship once a year or something like that. A reminder: let's please have this discussion as community members amongst eachother. It's about the future of the project and community, and I sincerely believe that we all want what's best for both, in the long term. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/5/19 6:28 PM, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:
Here's where I am too. One of the things I love about these community discussions is that reading other people's input sometimes makes me change my mind, makes me aware of the emotional part in my reasoning. "openSUSE is my home" f.e.
Indeed, reading through the various emails and reasons for & against, I am having a mixed feeling here. I think it might also be too early for a vote and we should give members more time for discussion. On that note I am volunteering for the election setup on Helios for whenever it is happening :) Regards, Ish Sookun -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday 2019-06-03 10:35, Richard Brown wrote:
From my point of view, there a number of benefits of renaming the openSUSE Project [...] Trademarks are only enforceable if they're considered unique.
Pipe dream: Have the foundation own the trademark and sublicense it to SUSE Linux GmbH. Probably won't work, but at least the thought was expressed.
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
("its", please.) .. I would not mind a name change. The real long-timers already incurred a name change, so to speak, from SUSE to openSUSE, and, in a limited sense, again from openSUSE to Leap. One need not agree with the board, but judging from the Oak-vs-Leap decision at the time, they seem quite mindful as to what they decide. It is the one place where I feel representative democracy works. The project's focus is technical ("best platform for developers" or so I remember someone from, I think, a Czech member), so the hope is that the project will be judged by that and not so much by its name. (Think "What's in a name?" / "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".) The *SUSE distributions have, over time, grown some "misnormers" in specific areas, which lend itself to a potential new mascot (if such should be needed in the course of actions): - the SUSE mascot "Geeko", a chameleon, oddly makes a reference with its name to quite a different suborder of reptilia: geckos. - the isolinux/grub bootloader implementation on the openSUSE ISOs features the filename "kroete.dat", German for the class of frog/toad amphibia, so not even chameleon/gecko reptilia. All I'd ask for is keeping some element, such as the chameleon, the gecko, the secret amphibic identity, or the letter "S", that'd be great; furthermore, a must-have is the primary colour "green" (in one of its many shades anyway). [As for Stasiek's contrast concern, #000000 works better with #73ba25 than #ffffff does, says that contrast-ratio.com website ;-) ] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 5:39 PM Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@inai.de> wrote:
On Monday 2019-06-03 10:35, Richard Brown wrote:
From my point of view, there a number of benefits of renaming the openSUSE Project [...] Trademarks are only enforceable if they're considered unique.
Pipe dream: Have the foundation own the trademark and sublicense it to SUSE Linux GmbH. Probably won't work, but at least the thought was expressed.
This is actually probably the only workable way to keep the openSUSE name. I mentioned this several levels upthread, though I forgot to cite examples in which this is done. As Stasiek and Richard know, I also mentioned this at oSC, though it was also outright dismissed then too. An example in which this has been done recently is actually with the Ziff Davis name and trademark. The Ziff Davis name, for a brief time, was actually maintained by a brand entity and was licensed to Ziff Davis Media and Ziff Davis Enterprise, two different companies with two different sets of websites. The two companies had originally been one company, and they'd split in two. ZDE failed, and was sold, so the ZDE name is no longer in use, but this had been a system used before. Another example in which this occurs is in American telecommunications, where the Cellular ONE brand and name is actually used by multiple companies that aren't related to each other other than licensing the brand. There are a few cellular service providers who do business with this brand name even though they hold no ancestry or relation to the company who owns the brand.
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
("its", please.)
.. I would not mind a name change. The real long-timers already incurred a name change, so to speak, from SUSE to openSUSE, and, in a limited sense, again from openSUSE to Leap. One need not agree with the board, but judging from the Oak-vs-Leap decision at the time, they seem quite mindful as to what they decide. It is the one place where I feel representative democracy works.
The project's focus is technical ("best platform for developers" or so I remember someone from, I think, a Czech member), so the hope is that the project will be judged by that and not so much by its name. (Think "What's in a name?" / "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".)
The *SUSE distributions have, over time, grown some "misnormers" in specific areas, which lend itself to a potential new mascot (if such should be needed in the course of actions):
the SUSE mascot "Geeko", a chameleon, oddly makes a reference with its name to quite a different suborder of reptilia: geckos.
the isolinux/grub bootloader implementation on the openSUSE ISOs features the filename "kroete.dat", German for the class of frog/toad amphibia, so not even chameleon/gecko reptilia.
All I'd ask for is keeping some element, such as the chameleon, the gecko, the secret amphibic identity, or the letter "S", that'd be great; furthermore, a must-have is the primary colour "green" (in one of its many shades anyway).
[As for Stasiek's contrast concern, #000000 works better with #73ba25 than #ffffff does, says that contrast-ratio.com website ;-) ]
Man... SUSE's identity confusion goes deeper than I had thought! It's funny that slightly tweaking from a chameleon to a gecko would actually add so much harmony to the brand... -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi guys,
Em 3 de jun de 2019, à(s) 05:35, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
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?
IMHO, definitely not… now. It takes time to build a brand, and openSUSE is a very good one. The points in favor that I read on this thread, again IMHO, do not seem to justify the cons. I remember when Leap 15.0 was proposed. The very controversial numbering system (from 42.3 to 15.0) was proposed to keep openSUSE in line with SLE. Now, one year later, there is a discussion to change the name which will completely break this “alignment”. Everything will be very confusing (again) to the users who are not reading this thread. My suggestion: give the Foundation another name (Gecko foundation, Lizard foundation, Green foundation, whatever…), keep the openSUSE name for the distribution, and change the logo if necessary. When we reach a point that the points in favor of name changing are clearly more interesting than the cons, then just drop openSUSE in favor of Tumbleweed and Leap. Best regards, Ronan Arraes -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 at 18:32, Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
IMHO, definitely not… now.
It takes time to build a brand, and openSUSE is a very good one. The points in favor that I read on this thread, again IMHO, do not seem to justify the cons.
I remember when Leap 15.0 was proposed. The very controversial numbering system (from 42.3 to 15.0) was proposed to keep openSUSE in line with SLE. Now, one year later, there is a discussion to change the name which will completely break this “alignment”. Everything will be very confusing (again) to the users who are not reading this thread.
My suggestion: give the Foundation another name (Gecko foundation, Lizard foundation, Green foundation, whatever…), keep the openSUSE name for the distribution, and change the logo if necessary.
When we reach a point that the points in favor of name changing are clearly more interesting than the cons, then just drop openSUSE in favor of Tumbleweed and Leap.
Best regards,
Ronan Arraes
Consider the following with your proposal - The main point of forming the Foundation is to ease fundraising, sponsorship, etc for the openSUSE Project. Having a Foundation under a name different than that of our primary output will hinder that problem - just like it does for "The Document Foundation" who have to compete for attention with other significant sponsors of Libreoffice despite the fact the TDF is _the_ primary community organisation behind Libreoffice. It seems to me that we should do everything we can to avoid the name of the Foundation being any different than the name of the rest of the Project. - If we continue using the name openSUSE in any way, manner, or form, SUSE will be duty bound to ensure that openSUSE does not conduct any actions which hurts its brand or trademark. This will mean that, alongside any agreement the Project has to use the name "openSUSE", there will be strings attached. Such restrictions could be in the form of the status quo - currently SUSE have a veto right over any actions in the openSUSE community, a power trusted into it's Chairman, me. This is a right I am on the record of being uncomfortable with, and thankfully have never needed to use, but I totally understand the need of it from a corporate perspective - openSUSE can't be allowed to go making deals that undermines SUSE's business, gives it a bad name in public, or otherwise makes things more complicated for either organisation. SUSE's Veto right also means that we have been able to forgo having long detailed lists of restrictions on what openSUSE can do. However, if SUSEs veto right is lost in the Project's transition to a Foundation (and that might be necessary to ensure the Foundation is seen as a clearly separate legal entity), I would expect SUSE will require a significant amount of detailed restrictions on the activities the Foundation will be able to conduct. Negotiating and finding a mutually satisfactory set of terms and conditions will take a lot of time and effort, and such restrictions will limit the scope and extent of the Foundation to receive sponsorships, money, services, etc. Both of the above points might be satisfactory to the community, but it should be realised that consequences of this decision will shape the nature and ability of the Foundation to operate once its established. I think we should do our best to avoid looking at this topic emotionally and instead choose which option is practically, on balance, best for the Project in the long term. Despite my repeated point-making on this thread, I actually have no strong preference either way..but I do wish to ensure that the community makes an informed choice. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 at 10:23, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> wrote:
- If we continue using the name openSUSE in any way, manner, or form, SUSE will be duty bound to ensure that openSUSE does not conduct any actions which hurts its brand or trademark. This will mean that, alongside any agreement the Project has to use the name "openSUSE", there will be strings attached. Such restrictions could be in the form of the status quo - currently SUSE have a veto right over any actions in the openSUSE community, a power trusted into it's Chairman, me. This is a right I am on the record of being uncomfortable with, and thankfully have never needed to use, but I totally understand the need of it from a corporate perspective - openSUSE can't be allowed to go making deals that undermines SUSE's business, gives it a bad name in public, or otherwise makes things more complicated for either organisation. SUSE's Veto right also means that we have been able to forgo having long detailed lists of restrictions on what openSUSE can do. However, if SUSEs veto right is lost in the Project's transition to a Foundation (and that might be necessary to ensure the Foundation is seen as a clearly separate legal entity), I would expect SUSE will require a significant amount of detailed restrictions on the activities the Foundation will be able to conduct. Negotiating and finding a mutually satisfactory set of terms and conditions will take a lot of time and effort, and such restrictions will limit the scope and extent of the Foundation to receive sponsorships, money, services, etc.
Also consider this (theoretical but based on past reality) example Imagine a company or umbrella foundation that wants to start some new open source project and wants to involve openSUSE in that effort. The project is starting up and wants to keep things private until the initial partnerships are established and can be launched properly as a cohesive new thing. Therefore initial discussions are likely to be done under the terms and conditions of non-disclosure agreements. Currently, any such NDA can only be signed by SUSE, as openSUSE's defacto legal entity. Even if SUSE were to sign the NDA on behalf of openSUSE, SUSE will in practice be accepting liability for the actions of openSUSE at large, which may expose SUSE to significant risk. Can SUSE trust the openSUSE community to upheld it's obligations to an NDA SUSE signed on its behalf? I think it's fair to expect SUSE to be a little nervous about such arrangements. Therefore its my experience that SUSE are only going to sign NDAs which are also in their business interest, which may not be aligned with the interest to the openSUSE community at large. I feel this means openSUSE potentially misses out on some of the more interesting aspects of the open source world when companies and larger open source federations are involved. If our Project forms a foundation, any only uses trademarks, that don't have "SUSE" in the name, then the Foundation will likely be in a much more free place to involve itself in such opportunities. If we continue to use the name "SUSE" in any significant way, the Project likely to retain at least some complications and/or limitations in this area, as SUSE will have grounds for ensuring their/our shared trademarks are only used in ways they are comfortable. Do I think such an arrangement would the end of the world? Nope Do I think it's possible we could find compromises that makes almost everyone happy? Absolutely But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :) Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 11.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Richard Brown:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
I'd suggest to start thinking about a name change for the project (not the foundation!, the foundation can be named whatever you want) once reports of such progress hindering events that happened to impact the future of the project because it was still named "openSUSE" have been seen in reality. Right now that feels to me like (lots of) "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt". And the more I read of it, the more I think "no fscking way am I going to support a name change". ;-) Have a lot of fun... -- Stefan Seyfried "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 at 14:11, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 11.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Richard Brown:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
I'd suggest to start thinking about a name change for the project (not the foundation!, the foundation can be named whatever you want) once reports of such progress hindering events that happened to impact the future of the project because it was still named "openSUSE" have been seen in reality.
Right now that feels to me like (lots of) "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt".
And the more I read of it, the more I think "no fscking way am I going to support a name change".
;-)
I understand your point of view. Hopefully you can understand that there is no way I will ever share the past examples of sponsorships, service arrangements, or other contracts that have already fallen apart due to the current "SUSE is not openSUSE" discrepancy, which will be no different if we have a "FOOFoundation is not openSUSE" discrepancy. Our conference organisers, other Board members, and myself, are not imagining this problem. We've all seen it. But we cant really do more than talk about it at a high level and ask you all to trust us..as the alternative would involve throwing sympathetic organisations who wanted to work closer with openSUSE under a bus by naming and shaming them. And that would be rather impolite ;) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/11/19 8:24 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 at 14:11, Stefan Seyfried <stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:
Am 11.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Richard Brown:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
I'd suggest to start thinking about a name change for the project (not the foundation!, the foundation can be named whatever you want) once reports of such progress hindering events that happened to impact the future of the project because it was still named "openSUSE" have been seen in reality.
Right now that feels to me like (lots of) "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt".
And the more I read of it, the more I think "no fscking way am I going to support a name change".
;-)
I understand your point of view.
Hopefully you can understand that there is no way I will ever share the past examples of sponsorships, service arrangements, or other contracts that have already fallen apart due to the current "SUSE is not openSUSE" discrepancy,
I think that should not be an expectation.
which will be no different if we have a "FOOFoundation is not openSUSE" discrepancy.
This is speculation. IANAL but one should be able to imaging a charter for the "FOOFoundation" to be written such that any concern about wher ethe money goes is elliviated. "The FOOFoundation exists for the sole purpose to support the activities of the openSUSE project ....." And yes this too is speculation as IANL and I certainly have no insight into what goes on in those companies that might want to sponsor openSUSE but have an issue with giving the money to a Foundation of another name. Later Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2019-06-11T14:24:09, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> wrote:
Hopefully you can understand that there is no way I will ever share the past examples of sponsorships, service arrangements, or other contracts that have already fallen apart due to the current "SUSE is not openSUSE" discrepancy, which will be no different if we have a "FOOFoundation is not openSUSE" discrepancy.
Looking at the implications of IP laws regarding copyrights, word marks, logos etc (as we're building up the Ceph Foundation's policy), and having seen some of that in the past, and even seeing how some FLOSS projects (try to) use the mark to monetize their projects etc, I'm not entirely ignorant of the challenges even if not well acquainted with the specific cases. Still. I believe *both* SUSE *and* openSUSE benefit from this relationship, and its visibility. Personally, as an employee (which make up a fair share of the openSUSE contributors, even if clearly not all and perhaps not even the majority!), it fills me with pride to be running "my" Open Source distribution. I'd be personally and emotionally dismayed if that were to change. Rebuilding the openSUSE brand would be costly for openSUSE. Very much so. Name changes confuse people. For a long, long time. openSUSE would lose the (hopefully positive) impact of "SUSE" on our perception. SUSE would lose significant community visibility. In short, my position can be summarized as "*anything* but a name change". If there are issues that you really believe are more significant than the certain huge negative impact, these need addressing, sure.
But we cant really do more than talk about it at a high level and ask you all to trust us..as the alternative would involve throwing sympathetic organisations who wanted to work closer with openSUSE under a bus by naming and shaming them.
I do trust you that this problem exists. I cannot, without knowing more details, agree that I believe the cost/benefit analysis would support changing the name. Because, even if what you experienced was certainly real, all those events happened anyway. Yes, as long as the marks are shared/derivative, guidelines must exist and be enforced. Not even because SUSE wants to, but because marks need to be protected lest they dilute and eventually no longer can stand. Even if the openSUSE-foundation-that-isn't-called-openSUSE-foundation had its very own marks, you'd have to do so and establish guidelines. e.g., not everyone could call their event "FOODistro Summit" without your approval either. Perhaps the real discussion is around the sub-licensing terms for the derivative marks. I understand those can't happen out entirely in the open for legal/contractual reasons, but are you truly saying that SUSE and openSUSE have not been able to work out a sufficiently flexible and light-weight (as far as it can be) agreement that meets your needs? Because then, as I'm trying to look into something similar-ish, I'd really like some internal pointers so we can bring this up when the Ceph Foundation shapes the Ceph marks guidelines ... Regards, Lars -- Architect SDS, Distinguished Engineer SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) "Architects should open possibilities and not determine everything." (Ueli Zbinden) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Em 13 de jun de 2019, à(s) 07:53, Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.com> escreveu:
Rebuilding the openSUSE brand would be costly for openSUSE. Very much so. Name changes confuse people. For a long, long time. openSUSE would lose the (hopefully positive) impact of "SUSE" on our perception.
SUSE would lose significant community visibility.
I confess I am very aligned with the position of Lars, but I also understand the legal problems it can arise by keeping SUSE in the name. I will try to propose something in the middle: It seems that the Foundation is happening. Let’s choose a name that will fit fine in a Linux distro, but as a foundation behind openSUSE Linux. Then, with the Foundation established and with all trustees or whatever they will be called, it can officially approach SUSE to try to make an arrangement about the use of the name / trademark openSUSE. Do you think this is possible? Because, after this, it will be crystal clear what we will win and what we will loose. Best regards, Ronan Arraes -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On czw, cze 13, 2019 at 11:14 PM, Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Em 13 de jun de 2019, à(s) 07:53, Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.com> escreveu:
Rebuilding the openSUSE brand would be costly for openSUSE. Very much so. Name changes confuse people. For a long, long time. openSUSE would lose the (hopefully positive) impact of "SUSE" on our perception.
SUSE would lose significant community visibility.
I confess I am very aligned with the position of Lars, but I also understand the legal problems it can arise by keeping SUSE in the name.
I will try to propose something in the middle:
It seems that the Foundation is happening. Let’s choose a name that will fit fine in a Linux distro, but as a foundation behind openSUSE Linux. Then, with the Foundation established and with all trustees or whatever they will be called, it can officially approach SUSE to try to make an arrangement about the use of the name / trademark openSUSE. Do you think this is possible? Because, after this, it will be crystal clear what we will win and what we will loose.
Eh, this is project name, not distribution name discussion. Distributions are already called Tumbleweed and Leap, and openSUSE is used with those just as a discriminator, because both Leap and Tumbleweed are very generic on their own and even then, I tried very hard to limit the amount of times we do mention openSUSE throughout the branding. Anyway, openSUSE Linux does not exist since 13.2, so 2014/2015, and it's not coming back... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello Geekos, Am 13.06.2019 23:21 schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
Eh, this is project name, not distribution name discussion. Distributions are already called Tumbleweed and Leap, and openSUSE is used with those just as a discriminator, because both Leap and Tumbleweed are very generic on their own
yes that's right. So first let's build the Geeko Foundation with a different name than openSUSE but with new logos. And in a next step let's think about to drop the name part openSUSE from the distros Leap, Tumbleweed etc. Have a lot of fun Christian Imhorst -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 2019-06-14T08:38:30, Christian Imhorst <datenteiler@opensuse.org> wrote:
yes that's right. So first let's build the Geeko Foundation with a different name than openSUSE but with new logos. And in a next step let's think about to drop the name part openSUSE from the distros Leap, Tumbleweed etc.
I am not a fan of the direction of moving away from calling openSUSE, well, openSUSE. Such a move would alienate me as both a user and developer (miniscule my actual contributions in code to Tumbleweed/Factory may be). -- SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) "Architects should open possibilities and not determine everything." (Ueli Zbinden) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pią, cze 14, 2019 at 5:57 PM, Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.com> wrote:
On 2019-06-14T08:38:30, Christian Imhorst <datenteiler@opensuse.org> wrote:
yes that's right. So first let's build the Geeko Foundation with a different name than openSUSE but with new logos. And in a next step let's think about to drop the name part openSUSE from the distros Leap, Tumbleweed etc.
I am not a fan of the direction of moving away from calling openSUSE, well, openSUSE. Such a move would alienate me as both a user and developer (miniscule my actual contributions in code to Tumbleweed/Factory may be).
openSUSE Project does way more than distributions, calling distributions openSUSE as more than a discriminator is an injustice to other software made by the openSUSE Project. Obviously unless we start saying openSUSE before every piece of software made by openSUSE: * openSUSE Open Build Service * openSUSE software.openSUSE.org * openSUSE OSEM * openSUSE Zypper * openSUSE libZypp * openSUSE Snapper * openSUSE YaST * openSUSE libstorage-ng * openSUSE etc. It just becomes a mouthful quick. If we do require that Tumbleweed, Kubic, MicroOS and Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast. Let me repeat this sentence with that rule in place: If we do require that openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Kubic, openSUSE MicroOS and openSUSE Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast. Redundant, isn't it? Mention openSUSE once within one of the first sentences in an article and you know what the article refers to anyway. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
W dniu 14.06.2019 o 18:57, Stasiek Michalski pisze:
On pią, cze 14, 2019 at 5:57 PM, Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.com> wrote:
On 2019-06-14T08:38:30, Christian Imhorst <datenteiler@opensuse.org> wrote:
yes that's right. So first let's build the Geeko Foundation with a different name than openSUSE but with new logos. And in a next step let's think about to drop the name part openSUSE from the distros Leap, Tumbleweed etc.
I am not a fan of the direction of moving away from calling openSUSE, well, openSUSE. Such a move would alienate me as both a user and developer (miniscule my actual contributions in code to Tumbleweed/Factory may be).
openSUSE Project does way more than distributions, calling distributions openSUSE as more than a discriminator is an injustice to other software made by the openSUSE Project. Obviously unless we start saying openSUSE before every piece of software made by openSUSE:
- openSUSE Open Build Service
- openSUSE software.openSUSE.org
- openSUSE OSEM
- openSUSE Zypper
- openSUSE libZypp
- openSUSE Snapper
- openSUSE YaST
- openSUSE libstorage-ng
- openSUSE etc. It just becomes a mouthful quick.
If we do require that Tumbleweed, Kubic, MicroOS and Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast.
Let me repeat this sentence with that rule in place:
If we do require that openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Kubic, openSUSE MicroOS and openSUSE Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast.
Redundant, isn't it? Mention openSUSE once within one of the first sentences in an article and you know what the article refers to anyway.
LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world
I agree that adding "openSUSE" to every project name might get annoying, but I always thought I was using distributions named "openSUSE Leap" and "openSUSE Tumbleweed". I'm not saying that we should now rename Kubic or MicroOS. I'm just adding my 2 cents about what my perception was.
Hi LCP,
Em 14 de jun de 2019, à(s) 13:57, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> escreveu:
If we do require that openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Kubic, openSUSE MicroOS and openSUSE Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast.
What is the point? Isn’t this similar to the discussion about GNU/Linux vs Linux?
Redundant, isn't it? Mention openSUSE once within one of the first sentences in an article and you know what the article refers to anyway.
Again, my proposal was to name the Foundation with a name we could also use in a Linux distro if necessary. The openSUSE project, as you called, will be under this Foundation. Hence, after the Foundation creation, its trustees can approach SUSE to discuss trademarks problems. After that, the Foundation will have very good arguments to keep or change the project name. Is there any problems in this approach? Regards, Ronan-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Friday, 14 June 2019 22:46 Ronan Chagas wrote:
Hi LCP,
Em 14 de jun de 2019, ?(s) 13:57, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> escreveu:
If we do require that openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Kubic, openSUSE MicroOS and openSUSE Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast.
What is the point? Isn?t this similar to the discussion about GNU/Linux vs Linux?
I would rather say "Apache" vs. "The Apache http server" (or whatever the official name is supposed to be) - except Apache Foundation doesn't seem to be so jealous of its flagship project. With "GNU/Linux" it's somene else who fighting the holy war for "proper name". Come on, we _do_ want people to answer the question "Which distribution are you using?" with "openSUSE". If we try to convince them to answer "Leap" and if we succeed, the response will most likely be "Hm, never heard about that one." Is it in our interest to pretend there are two distributions, "Tumbleweed" and "Leap", rather than two flavors of one "openSUSE"? Hell no, that's path to becoming one (two, actually) of the hundreds (thousands?) nameless distributions for handful of people. This is really getting out of hand... :-( Michal Kubecek -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Top posting because I'm not responding to a single post but is still relevant to the thread as a whole. I've had a chat with our friends at SUSE Legal about this topic, especially the possibility of the Foundation owning / controlling the trademark. While SUSE does not wish to formally rule anything out at this time, their opinion is that, if the openSUSE Project was to formally request that SUSE transfers ownership of the openSUSE trademarks to the Foundation, then SUSE would almost certainly have to decline that request. This is because it is highly unlikely any trademark law anywhere would be compatible with the idea of a legally separate organisation owning a trademark that contains another organisations trademark. One possibility open for consideration is the idea of licensing the openSUSE Marks to the Foundation. Such a thing will need to happen even if the Foundation forms under a different name but if we were to wish to continue using the openSUSE name in our distributions. It is possible that such a license could be exclusive and maybe non-revokable. But any such license will likely have to come with conditions, which could restrict Foundation from some activities which could be seen to be competition with SUSE's business of providing support for software. While there is further investigation required, it is not expected that any such restriction would impact openSUSE's current activities which include 3rd parties redistributing openSUSE in a commercial setting (Box sets, pre-installed on hardware, hosting). And it should go without saying, but for absolute clarity, there isn't a desire from SUSE to overly restrict the openSUSE community from being able to do what it wants. Whatever the community decides to request in regards to the Foundation, Trademarks, etc, there will be an extensive effort to find the most reasonable accommodating solution that works well for all involved. I think the discussion has reached a point where as a Project we should consider a straight 'Yes/No' vote for the question of "Should openSUSE continue to use the openSUSE name and trademarks?" If there are no objections I'll be reaching out to Stasiek and other volunteers to start the process of a formal member vote this week. And as I've had to play devils advocate and messenger repeatedly on this thread, I'm aware that people may be having difficulty interpreting my view on this topic. I will be voting "Yes" for the proposed question or any similarly worded referendum on this topic. I feel the best course forward would be for openSUSE to continue to use the name openSUSE, and I'm mostly comfortable with the Project's ability to stomach the consequences of such a decision. The only way I could see myself changing that opinion would be that, as we negotiation the details around the Foundation, if any legal/tax or other circumstances were to arise that would limit openSUSE's ability to be reused and redistributed at least as widely as it is today. But we can reopen such a topic if we find such a condition arising. Regards, Richard On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 at 08:05, Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@suse.cz> wrote:
On Friday, 14 June 2019 22:46 Ronan Chagas wrote:
Hi LCP,
Em 14 de jun de 2019, ?(s) 13:57, Stasiek Michalski <hellcp@opensuse.org> escreveu:
If we do require that openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Kubic, openSUSE MicroOS and openSUSE Leap do have `openSUSE` always attached to it, it will also get annoying fast.
What is the point? Isn?t this similar to the discussion about GNU/Linux vs Linux?
I would rather say "Apache" vs. "The Apache http server" (or whatever the official name is supposed to be) - except Apache Foundation doesn't seem to be so jealous of its flagship project. With "GNU/Linux" it's somene else who fighting the holy war for "proper name".
Come on, we _do_ want people to answer the question "Which distribution are you using?" with "openSUSE". If we try to convince them to answer "Leap" and if we succeed, the response will most likely be "Hm, never heard about that one." Is it in our interest to pretend there are two distributions, "Tumbleweed" and "Leap", rather than two flavors of one "openSUSE"? Hell no, that's path to becoming one (two, actually) of the hundreds (thousands?) nameless distributions for handful of people.
This is really getting out of hand... :-(
Michal Kubecek
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On Monday, 17 June 2019 11:59:40 CEST Richard Brown wrote:
While SUSE does not wish to formally rule anything out at this time, their opinion is that, if the openSUSE Project was to formally request that SUSE transfers ownership of the openSUSE trademarks to the Foundation, then SUSE would almost certainly have to decline that request. This is because it is highly unlikely any trademark law anywhere would be compatible with the idea of a legally separate organisation owning a trademark that contains another organisations trademark.
This comes as no surprise.
One possibility open for consideration is the idea of licensing the openSUSE Marks to the Foundation. Such a thing will need to happen even if the Foundation forms under a different name but if we were to wish to continue using the openSUSE name in our distributions. It is possible that such a license could be exclusive and maybe non-revokable. But any such license will likely have to come with conditions, which could restrict Foundation from some activities which could be seen to be competition with SUSE's business of providing support for software. While there is further investigation required, it is not expected that any such restriction would impact openSUSE's current activities which include 3rd parties redistributing openSUSE in a commercial setting (Box sets, pre-installed on hardware, hosting).
As far as the foundation is able to act freely within a fair scope of actions this is fine for me.
I think the discussion has reached a point where as a Project we should consider a straight 'Yes/No' vote for the question of "Should openSUSE continue to use the openSUSE name and trademarks?"
Wish I'd be a member already. Nonetheless, I think you guys will make a well considered and careful decision.
I will be voting "Yes" for the proposed question or any similarly worded referendum on this topic. I feel the best course forward would be for openSUSE to continue to use the name openSUSE, and I'm mostly comfortable with the Project's ability to stomach the consequences of such a decision.
The only way I could see myself changing that opinion would be that, as we negotiation the details around the Foundation, if any legal/tax or other circumstances were to arise that would limit openSUSE's ability to be reused and redistributed at least as widely as it is today.
But we can reopen such a topic if we find such a condition arising.
One open question left. If you already answered it, excuse me, I lost track of the conversation a bit. Is this YES a yes to use the openSUSE name and trademark for the foundation, too, or only for use with the distributions and we will still figure out a different name for the foundation? Kind regards Pierre -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 17/06/2019 19:47, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
Wish I'd be a member already. Nonetheless, I think you guys will make a well considered and careful decision.
If you meet the criteria there is still time (see the other thread I just started) -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 17/06/2019 19:29, Richard Brown wrote:
Top posting because I'm not responding to a single post but is still relevant to the thread as a whole.
I've had a chat with our friends at SUSE Legal about this topic, especially the possibility of the Foundation owning / controlling the trademark.
While SUSE does not wish to formally rule anything out at this time, their opinion is that, if the openSUSE Project was to formally request that SUSE transfers ownership of the openSUSE trademarks to the Foundation, then SUSE would almost certainly have to decline that request. This is because it is highly unlikely any trademark law anywhere would be compatible with the idea of a legally separate organisation owning a trademark that contains another organisations trademark.
One possibility open for consideration is the idea of licensing the openSUSE Marks to the Foundation. Such a thing will need to happen even if the Foundation forms under a different name but if we were to wish to continue using the openSUSE name in our distributions. It is possible that such a license could be exclusive and maybe non-revokable. But any such license will likely have to come with conditions, which could restrict Foundation from some activities which could be seen to be competition with SUSE's business of providing support for software. While there is further investigation required, it is not expected that any such restriction would impact openSUSE's current activities which include 3rd parties redistributing openSUSE in a commercial setting (Box sets, pre-installed on hardware, hosting).
And it should go without saying, but for absolute clarity, there isn't a desire from SUSE to overly restrict the openSUSE community from being able to do what it wants. Whatever the community decides to request in regards to the Foundation, Trademarks, etc, there will be an extensive effort to find the most reasonable accommodating solution that works well for all involved.
I think the discussion has reached a point where as a Project we should consider a straight 'Yes/No' vote for the question of "Should openSUSE continue to use the openSUSE name and trademarks?"
If there are no objections I'll be reaching out to Stasiek and other volunteers to start the process of a formal member vote this week.
Personally I'd rather wait slightly and just run one series of votes at the same time for this the, branding / logo changes and possibly an initial foundation concept vote (if there isn't broad support for continuing that discussion further). Unless there is good reason to get the name debate out and done now then defer the others until later (obviously the final foundation vote will need to happen much after this one because the name part will be kinda important. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Richard,
Em 11 de jun de 2019, à(s) 09:06, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
Indeed this was very informative. I was not thinking that deep. Well, now you gave me an understandable “case study". One question: openSUSE has a massive investment of SUSE, there are many SUSE employees that work with openSUSE. Do you think that when everything becomes a new Linux distro, managed by the new foundation, will SUSE eventually decrease the investment? I mean, in a long time frame, can we start to loose the support of such big company? Best regards, Ronan Arraes -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Richard,
Em 11 de jun de 2019, à(s) 09:06, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
Indeed this was very informative. I was not thinking that deep. Well, now you gave me an understandable “case study".
One question: openSUSE has a massive investment of SUSE, there are many SUSE employees that work with openSUSE. Do you think that when everything becomes a new Linux distro, managed by the new foundation, will SUSE eventually decrease the investment? I mean, in a long time frame, can we start to loose the support of such big company?
To put it bluntly, it wouldn't be the first time that SUSE has done something like that to openSUSE. This project has gone through a period in which SUSE barely invested anything into openSUSE and survived. I'm fairly confident we'd be okay if we had to weather another storm like that. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 at 19:41, Neal Gompa <ngompa13@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Richard,
Em 11 de jun de 2019, à(s) 09:06, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
Indeed this was very informative. I was not thinking that deep. Well, now you gave me an understandable “case study".
One question: openSUSE has a massive investment of SUSE, there are many SUSE employees that work with openSUSE. Do you think that when everything becomes a new Linux distro, managed by the new foundation, will SUSE eventually decrease the investment? I mean, in a long time frame, can we start to loose the support of such big company?
To put it bluntly, it wouldn't be the first time that SUSE has done something like that to openSUSE. This project has gone through a period in which SUSE barely invested anything into openSUSE and survived. I'm fairly confident we'd be okay if we had to weather another storm like that.
To put it nicer, SUSE currently builds all of their products based on the "Factory First" process which is publicly documented here as part of SUSEs OpenChain certification: https://opensource.suse.com/suse-open-source-policy https://www.suse.com/c/news/suse-secures-openchain-certification-meeting-the... Whatever we call the openSUSE Project and/or it's Foundation, I do not think this is liable to change, and in fact I think it's highly likely that the Foundations could codify some aspects of that relationship into it's charter. And (unlike the name/trademarks) I see no controversy in that - SUSE and openSUSE collectively deciding to formalise it's working relationship even while it may be diverging it's trademarks could be seen as a win-win to both organisations. Speculatively speaking of course.. Regards, Rich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/11/19 7:40 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Richard,
Em 11 de jun de 2019, à(s) 09:06, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
Indeed this was very informative. I was not thinking that deep. Well, now you gave me an understandable “case study".
One question: openSUSE has a massive investment of SUSE, there are many SUSE employees that work with openSUSE. Do you think that when everything becomes a new Linux distro, managed by the new foundation, will SUSE eventually decrease the investment? I mean, in a long time frame, can we start to loose the support of such big company?
To put it bluntly, it wouldn't be the first time that SUSE has done something like that to openSUSE. This project has gone through a period in which SUSE barely invested anything into openSUSE and survived. I'm fairly confident we'd be okay if we had to weather another storm like that.
I think you are underestimating the amount of resources (of all types) SUSE has put into openSUSE in all periods, even in those in which, as you wrote, "SUSE barely invested anything". To my eyes (being both a SUSE employee and a community contributor) the connection between openSUSE and SUSE is stronger and closer of what some people in this thread seem to believe. I seriously doubt any of both would survive without the other. Cheers. -- Ancor González Sosa YaST Team at SUSE Linux GmbH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/06/2019 17:32, Ancor Gonzalez Sosa wrote:
On 6/11/19 7:40 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Richard,
Em 11 de jun de 2019, à(s) 09:06, Richard Brown <RBrownCCB@opensuse.org> escreveu:
But I do think this example illustrates some of the factors we need to consider on this topic besides the emotive "but we like the current name" feeling :)
Indeed this was very informative. I was not thinking that deep. Well, now you gave me an understandable “case study".
One question: openSUSE has a massive investment of SUSE, there are many SUSE employees that work with openSUSE. Do you think that when everything becomes a new Linux distro, managed by the new foundation, will SUSE eventually decrease the investment? I mean, in a long time frame, can we start to loose the support of such big company?
To put it bluntly, it wouldn't be the first time that SUSE has done something like that to openSUSE. This project has gone through a period in which SUSE barely invested anything into openSUSE and survived. I'm fairly confident we'd be okay if we had to weather another storm like that.
I think you are underestimating the amount of resources (of all types) SUSE has put into openSUSE in all periods, even in those in which, as you wrote, "SUSE barely invested anything".
To my eyes (being both a SUSE employee and a community contributor) the connection between openSUSE and SUSE is stronger and closer of what some people in this thread seem to believe. I seriously doubt any of both would survive without the other.
Yeah as someone who also gets to see both sides, it would cost SUSE significantly more in staffing then they currently sponsor openSUSE just to create there next major release. Due to the amount of development work that goes into the SLE base system + reviews etc from community contributors, then you get to the packaging side were for some of the packages i'm responsible for in SLE see far more submissions from community members I co maintain with then myself, so thats more work i'd have to do. Then you get the fact that the stability of the next major SLE release is far better then it would be otherwise because it has been tested by a huge number of tumbleweed users and SLE 15-SP1 is a similar story with Leap 15.1. So quite simply at the moment there is no way that someone could write any sort of business case for SUSE to abandon openSUSE the benefits SUSE currently receives are far far more then the amount it invests. Unless this changes which I don't see happening there is practically no chance of SUSE leaving openSUSE. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 12 June 2019 10:02:55 CEST Ancor Gonzalez Sosa wrote:
I think you are underestimating the amount of resources (of all types) SUSE has put into openSUSE in all periods, even in those in which, as you wrote, "SUSE barely invested anything".
To my eyes (being both a SUSE employee and a community contributor) the connection between openSUSE and SUSE is stronger and closer of what some people in this thread seem to believe. I seriously doubt any of both would survive without the other.
I am not as involved as you are, Ancor, but I do have no doubt that both could survive without one another. Nonetheless that is nothing anyone would ever really want to aim for and I seriously doubt that a foundation of a different name than openSUSE does harm our connection. I already made that comparison but I will write it here again: You don't need to be married and have the same last name to be a couple. It even can help the relationship if each stays or gains some degree of independence. Forming a bond between those two brands then might be as valuable as sharing a brand. All that is speculation. And will be until the point where we have to define the rules of a newly formed relationship between the community backed by their own foundation and brand and SUSE as a company. This can define the degree of support and what SUSE will continue to contribute in resources etc. Well, all this given the fact that we as a community decide that we really want to make the step into that degree of independence. I am still in favor of this way but I wouldn't be sad if we decide to stay with the current brand. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/11/19 4:23 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jun 2019 at 18:32, Ronan Chagas <ronisbr@gmail.com> wrote:
Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?
IMHO, definitely not… now.
It takes time to build a brand, and openSUSE is a very good one. The points in favor that I read on this thread, again IMHO, do not seem to justify the cons.
I remember when Leap 15.0 was proposed. The very controversial numbering system (from 42.3 to 15.0) was proposed to keep openSUSE in line with SLE. Now, one year later, there is a discussion to change the name which will completely break this “alignment”. Everything will be very confusing (again) to the users who are not reading this thread.
My suggestion: give the Foundation another name (Gecko foundation, Lizard foundation, Green foundation, whatever…), keep the openSUSE name for the distribution, and change the logo if necessary.
When we reach a point that the points in favor of name changing are clearly more interesting than the cons, then just drop openSUSE in favor of Tumbleweed and Leap.
Best regards,
Ronan Arraes
Consider the following with your proposal
- The main point of forming the Foundation is to ease fundraising, sponsorship, etc for the openSUSE Project. Having a Foundation under a name different than that of our primary output will hinder that problem - just like it does for "The Document Foundation" who have to compete for attention with other significant sponsors of Libreoffice despite the fact the TDF is _the_ primary community organisation behind Libreoffice.
On the other hand the Linux Foundation is a very effective fundraiser for a plethora of projects that do not have "Linux" in the name. So there is anecdotal evidence for both sides of the coin.
It seems to me that we should do everything we can to avoid the name of the Foundation being any different than the name of the rest of the Project.
- If we continue using the name openSUSE in any way, manner, or form, SUSE will be duty bound to ensure that openSUSE does not conduct any actions which hurts its brand or trademark. This will mean that, alongside any agreement the Project has to use the name "openSUSE", there will be strings attached. Such restrictions could be in the form of the status quo - currently SUSE have a veto right over any actions in the openSUSE community, a power trusted into it's Chairman, me. This is a right I am on the record of being uncomfortable with, and thankfully have never needed to use, but I totally understand the need of it from a corporate perspective - openSUSE can't be allowed to go making deals that undermines SUSE's business, gives it a bad name in public, or otherwise makes things more complicated for either organisation. SUSE's Veto right also means that we have been able to forgo having long detailed lists of restrictions on what openSUSE can do. However, if SUSEs veto right is lost in the Project's transition to a Foundation (and that might be necessary to ensure the Foundation is seen as a clearly separate legal entity), I would expect SUSE will require a significant amount of detailed restrictions on the activities the Foundation will be able to conduct.
This is speculation.
Negotiating and finding a mutually satisfactory set of terms and conditions will take a lot of time and effort, and such restrictions will limit the scope and extent of the Foundation to receive sponsorships, money, services, etc.
Also speculation. But, while we are speculating. Would we expect SUSE to continue to sponsor the new Foundation/project if the new Foundation acts in a way that is not consistent with SUSE business interests?
Both of the above points might be satisfactory to the community, but it should be realised that consequences of this decision will shape the nature and ability of the Foundation to operate once its established. I think we should do our best to avoid looking at this topic emotionally and instead choose which option is practically, on balance, best for the Project in the long term.
Despite my repeated point-making on this thread, I actually have no strong preference either way..but I do wish to ensure that the community makes an informed choice.
-- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hello Geekos, sorry for my late reply. Am 03.06.2019 10:35 schrieb Richard Brown:
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?
After reading 130+ emails I have changed my mind on this topic after each e-mail I have read. Finally I think I support the idea to have a different name for the foundation - like e.g. "Geeko Foundation" - and to stay with openSUSE for Tumbleweed and Leap. I am afraid that renaming openSUSE would not be like Fedeora vs. RedHat. It would be more like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice where many people are confused and they don't know wich one to choose. And if one day SUSE don't want that we use openSUSE in our names anymore we can drop it and just use Tumbleweed and Leap. With this construction we can easily answer the question: "Who is in charge of openSUSE?" with "The openSUSE community, represented legally by the Geeko Foundation, because they like to call themselves Geekos". ;-) And I think that in the present age being in a very close relationship with an innovative Open Source company like SUSE is a huge benefit for openSUSE. We really should not change our brand without a need, when this has no benefit to the brand. Have a lot of fun, Christian Imhorst -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 11:28:25 +0200, Christian Imhorst wrote:
I am afraid that renaming openSUSE would not be like Fedeora vs. RedHat. It would be more like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice where many people are confused and they don't know wich one to choose.
Why would it be more like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice? If openSUSE changed its name to something else, the openSUSE name would not be in concurrent use with whatever came next. No confusion there. Maybe a period of "Chameleon Linux - formerly known as openSUSE" or something like that to bridge the names could be done. Rebranding is tricky (don't get me wrong), but in my mind, this would be clearer than Fedora vs. RedHat, because with that, the original name for the community distribution continued to be used by the enterprise products. Here, we already have confusion between "SUSE" and "openSUSE" - as I mentioned before, on various venues, I've had people respond very angrily when they've asked SLE questions in openSUSE venues and have been told they need to talk to SUSE and that the commercial products are not supported by the openSUSE community (nor are they sold by the community - seriously, I have people ask questions about SLE pricing on occasion who then get pissed off because the openSUSE project can't answer their question on Facebook). The closeness of the names *creates* confusion as it is because people think that because openSUSE contains SUSE, the two are completely interchangeable from a support and business perspective. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On czw, cze 13, 2019 at 9:19 PM, Jim Henderson <hendersj@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 11:28:25 +0200, Christian Imhorst wrote:
I am afraid that renaming openSUSE would not be like Fedeora vs. RedHat. It would be more like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice where many people are confused and they don't know wich one to choose.
Why would it be more like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice? If openSUSE changed its name to something else, the openSUSE name would not be in concurrent use with whatever came next.
The biggest issue with OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice is that the Apache has not really given up all the hope for their OpenOffice, the brand exists and new releases of OpenOffice still come out. This is significantly different from our situation, where we would hope after some time openSUSE name would stop existing entirely. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Stasiek Michalski píše v Po 03. 06. 2019 v 08:01 +0200:
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)
I will not add much for the discussion as Richard quite nicely explained why it would make sense to re-brand everything. OTOH indeed we would completely lose all the browine points we have right now with the openSUSE name. What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected. Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option). Cheers Tom
On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 08:47 +0000, Tomas Chvatal wrote:
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
+1 A vote for something big like this really should happen -- Marcel Kühlhorn Have a lot of fun!
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:00, Marcel Kühlhorn <tux93@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 08:47 +0000, Tomas Chvatal wrote:
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
+1
A vote for something big like this really should happen
Sure, but it's a lot of work requiring a lot of effort from a lot of volunteers that will likely take a great deal of time over a number of weeks. And those volunteers need to know their efforts are going to be worth it..so the discussion is more important than just agreeing with the (obvious) requirement to have voting at the end. So what is your view on the actual topic of renaming the Project? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi all, Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 11:03:02, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:00, Marcel Kühlhorn <tux93@opensuse.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 08:47 +0000, Tomas Chvatal wrote:
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
+1
A vote for something big like this really should happen
Sure, but it's a lot of work requiring a lot of effort from a lot of volunteers that will likely take a great deal of time over a number of weeks.
And those volunteers need to know their efforts are going to be worth it..so the discussion is more important than just agreeing with the (obvious) requirement to have voting at the end.
So what is your view on the actual topic of renaming the Project?
I feel as well that it can be a great opportunity to let the world know about the important changes going on amongst the project. But of course there will be a lot of technical issues to solve and it will require a *huge* work of communication. What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ? We must make a clear list of the benefits vs. the threats for the project. -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark. Using Sarah's example of the ownCloud situation as a reference. OwnCloud GmbH (the company) have Trademark guidelines based on our openSUSE ones. https://owncloud.org/trademark/ With the key difference being any discussions regarding exceptional use is decided by ownCloud GmbH - trademark@owncloud.com. (note the '.com', not 'org') In openSUSE's case, the first point of contact regarding any trademark discussions is the openSUSE Board (board@opensuse.org to be precise). The Board then take it onboard in the interests of the community, and negotiate with SUSE when required. This is quite unlike the ownCloud Foundation who seem to have absolutely no say, rights to grant use, or control over the ownCloud Trademark in any way manner or form. https://foundation.owncloud.org/#communitycontinuity The only rights the ownCloud Foundation have documented is a limited right to use the text version of "ownCloud", which could be elevated to full ownership of the trademark in the event of ownCloud GmbH no longer existing. So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud. The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo. The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case. They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 02:17:46, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark. [...]
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
Thank you for this input and the analysis of the ownCloud example. Maybe the ownCloud example is not the only possible solution. Is there no such thing as "trademark delegation", where SUSE still owns the name but delegate us the right to use as we please ? If not I think that it is the unique opportunity that this project will have to make such a big change (I'm talking about the name change here). That would be a pity to do a lot of work to set up a foundation in order to gain more independance and, in a few years, to be blocked in some projects we may have in the future "just" because of a trademark issue. As some participants to this thread said, a lot of people are confused (or keep on confusing themselves) between the names SUSE and openSUSE, some of them even think that "it is the same". Having our own, different name may help us to that regard. But changing the name will require a huge amount of work, in all the aspects of the project. Do we have the manpower it requires ? -- 'When there is no more room at school, the dumb will walk the Earth.' Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 2:07 PM Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 02:17:46, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark. [...]
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
Thank you for this input and the analysis of the ownCloud example. Maybe the ownCloud example is not the only possible solution. Is there no such thing as "trademark delegation", where SUSE still owns the name but delegate us the right to use as we please ?
Normally, such a scenario requires both SUSE and openSUSE to give up ownership of their names to a third entity, which licenses the names to both of them. For something like that to work, the "SUSE" name and branding would need to be owned either by the foundation or another entity jointly owned by the foundation and the company. That entity would then provide strong licenses to the branding to both SUSE and openSUSE, usually some kind of irrevocable, permissive license or something. That's probably the ideal scenario, but politically very difficult to implement, as it puts the trademarks (theoretically) out of the control of both SUSE and openSUSE. In practice, it probably would lead to some kind of joint administration of the trademarks at the foundation level or something of the sort. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 8:06 PM, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 02:17:46, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark. [...]
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
Thank you for this input and the analysis of the ownCloud example. Maybe the ownCloud example is not the only possible solution. Is there no such thing as "trademark delegation", where SUSE still owns the name but delegate us the right to use as we please ?
In __any__ case, be it with SUSE signing a contract with us for use SUSE part of openSUSE or letting us use openSUSE, but them still owning the trademark, if they go down, we go down with them. There is no way around this part. There is a chance of them giving us some sovereignty with signing a contract to use SUSE as part of the brand name, but it's a patch, not a fix, their branch changes too much: we need to remake the patch from scratch.
If not I think that it is the unique opportunity that this project will have to make such a big change (I'm talking about the name change here). That would be a pity to do a lot of work to set up a foundation in order to gain more independance and, in a few years, to be blocked in some projects we may have in the future "just" because of a trademark issue.
I would call this "the only" opportunity, we have very slim chance of getting name change in an established foundation, with established trademark, which will cost additional money, which foundation won't have out of nowhere. This kind of discussion really needs to happen before anything is set in stone.
As some participants to this thread said, a lot of people are confused (or keep on confusing themselves) between the names SUSE and openSUSE, some of them even think that "it is the same". Having our own, different name may help us to that regard.
But changing the name will require a huge amount of work, in all the aspects of the project. Do we have the manpower it requires ?
Change wouldn't have to be instant obviously, and nothing wouldn't need to be backported, because there is no point. After the codebase is dead, it's dead, so the most we would have to sign with SUSE would be an agreement to continue using the name until our current distributions (or the entire Leap 15 series) are EOL. That's ~2 years to rebrand (if we reach the conclusion quickly at least). Whatever the conclusion ends up being, I will just have more work to do in artwork/branding repositories, and I don't mind this at all (I will have to work on logos/colours/fonts etc anyway ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/06/2019 03:36, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher wrote:
Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 02:17:46, Richard Brown a écrit :
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark. [...]
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
Thank you for this input and the analysis of the ownCloud example. Maybe the ownCloud example is not the only possible solution. Is there no such thing as "trademark delegation", where SUSE still owns the name but delegate us the right to use as we please ?
This is exactly what is happening at the moment, and so far no one within SUSE has told the board it would likely need to change if we had a foundation. Currently SUSE owns the trademark and allows the openSUSE board to approve where it is used. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 21:47, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark.
Using Sarah's example of the ownCloud situation as a reference.
OwnCloud GmbH (the company) have Trademark guidelines based on our openSUSE ones. https://owncloud.org/trademark/
With the key difference being any discussions regarding exceptional use is decided by ownCloud GmbH - trademark@owncloud.com. (note the '.com', not 'org')
In openSUSE's case, the first point of contact regarding any trademark discussions is the openSUSE Board (board@opensuse.org to be precise). The Board then take it onboard in the interests of the community, and negotiate with SUSE when required.
This is quite unlike the ownCloud Foundation who seem to have absolutely no say, rights to grant use, or control over the ownCloud Trademark in any way manner or form.
https://foundation.owncloud.org/#communitycontinuity
The only rights the ownCloud Foundation have documented is a limited right to use the text version of "ownCloud", which could be elevated to full ownership of the trademark in the event of ownCloud GmbH no longer existing.
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
At the same time its a "Worst case" and currently we have no advice as to what any restrictions over the current status quo there would be for an openSUSE Foundation. It is probably something we really should get cleared up before voting on the name change so members have a clear idea of what they are / are not voting for. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 11:03 +0200, Richard Brown wrote:
Sure, but it's a lot of work requiring a lot of effort from a lot of volunteers that will likely take a great deal of time over a number of weeks.
And those volunteers need to know their efforts are going to be worth it..so the discussion is more important than just agreeing with the (obvious) requirement to have voting at the end.
So what is your view on the actual topic of renaming the Project?
To make it short: personally I'm in favour of the rebranding including the rename, already since watching the relates oSC streams, though I can see why others are hesitant about it for sentimental reasons and the amount of work required to pull through with it. Now or never I guess... -- Marcel Kühlhorn Have a lot of fun!
On Monday, June 3, 2019 10:47:25 AM CEST Tomas Chvatal wrote:
I will not add much for the discussion as Richard quite nicely explained why it would make sense to re-brand everything. OTOH indeed we would completely lose all the browine points we have right now with the openSUSE name.
I am also concerned about this too. Over the time openSUSE drag a bit of good and bad press. For one side the project have one of the coolest set of technology stack that I am aware of (OBS, openQA, linuxrc, YaST, zypper / libsolv, Factory / Tumbleweed, MicoOS, ...) I am not sure that this is widely known outside the project by the casual Linux user. But on the other side the name have some old history. SUSE is an old company, and openSUSE is perceived as a traditional distribution, instead of the highly innovative distro that is today. Also mistakes has been done. Changing the name will make openSUSE to lost a bit of his/her good history, but will give the chance to the marketing guys to re-orientate some of the messages, and provide a more up-to-date perception of what is the project about.
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
I agree. But I would like to have a bit more discussion to be aware of the implications of changing the name. I am still ambivalent, and I am not sure what I will vote.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
This sound like a referendum : ) But I agree, quorum and vote difference is relevant here. -- SUSE Linux GmbH Maxfeldstrasse 5 90409 Nuernberg Germany GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday, June 3, 2019 10:47:25 AM CEST Tomas Chvatal wrote:
I will not add much for the discussion as Richard quite nicely explained why it would make sense to re-brand everything. OTOH indeed we would completely lose all the browine points we have right now with the openSUSE name.
I am also concerned about this too. Over the time openSUSE drag a bit of good and bad press. For one side the project have one of the coolest set of technology stack that I am aware of (OBS, openQA, linuxrc, YaST, zypper / libsolv, Factory / Tumbleweed, MicoOS, ...) I am not sure that this is widely known outside the project by the casual Linux user. But on the other side the name have some old history. SUSE is an old company, and openSUSE is perceived as a traditional distribution, instead of the highly innovative distro that is today. Also mistakes has been done. Changing the name will make openSUSE to lost a bit of his/her good history, but will give the chance to the marketing guys to re-orientate some of the messages, and provide a more up-to-date perception of what is the project about.
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
I agree. But I would like to have a bit more discussion to be aware of the implications of changing the name. I am still ambivalent, and I am not sure what I will vote.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
This sound like a referendum : ) But I agree, quorum and vote difference is relevant here. -- SUSE Linux GmbH Maxfeldstrasse 5 90409 Nuernberg Germany GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
I'd absolutely support the referendum! I see both pros and cons. Having some actual numbers would help.
Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> 06/03/19 11:05 AM >>> On Monday, June 3, 2019 10:47:25 AM CEST Tomas Chvatal wrote:
I will not add much for the discussion as Richard quite nicely explained why it would make sense to re-brand everything. OTOH indeed we would completely lose all the browine points we have right now with the openSUSE name.
I am also concerned about this too. Over the time openSUSE drag a bit of good and bad press. For one side the project have one of the coolest set of technology stack that I am aware of (OBS, openQA, linuxrc, YaST, zypper / libsolv, Factory / Tumbleweed, MicoOS, ...) I am not sure that this is widely known outside the project by the casual Linux user. But on the other side the name have some old history. SUSE is an old company, and openSUSE is perceived as a traditional distribution, instead of the highly innovative distro that is today. Also mistakes has been done. Changing the name will make openSUSE to lost a bit of his/her good history, but will give the chance to the marketing guys to re-orientate some of the messages, and provide a more up-to-date perception of what is the project about.
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
I agree. But I would like to have a bit more discussion to be aware of the implications of changing the name. I am still ambivalent, and I am not sure what I will vote.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
This sound like a referendum : ) But I agree, quorum and vote difference is relevant here. -- SUSE Linux GmbH Maxfeldstrasse 5 90409 Nuernberg Germany GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 10:47 AM, Tomas Chvatal <TChvatal@suse.com> wrote:
Stasiek Michalski píše v Po 03. 06. 2019 v 08:01 +0200:
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)
I will not add much for the discussion as Richard quite nicely explained why it would make sense to re-brand everything. OTOH indeed we would completely lose all the browine points we have right now with the openSUSE name.
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected.
Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
You can count me in as a volunteer to take care of the vote there. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Dne pondělí 3. června 2019 10:47:25 CEST, Tomas Chvatal napsal(a):
What I would like to see is to have a proper vote in helios (like when we vote for board members) first with 'rename/no rename' and if rename wins then with the various possible names to be selected. Also given the importance of the first decision it would be nice to have something more than 50% of the votes but to make sure we have more than X of the all electorate voting and (to avoid brainsplit when we could get 50.2% in favor of one option).
Yes, just as also pointed out elsewhere, it must be very clear what we are voting for, what are all consequences of all possible decisions, e.g. legal, all practical, and so on. -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
On 6/3/19 2:01 PM, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
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]
For the reasons already explained well by others I'm in favor of a name change and logo redesign. If we are talking about re-branding the project, then logo and name are to be discussed together or it would be kind of a waste of time going forward. IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do. Cheers, -- Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can: * change nothing * change the logo * change the logo and the project name But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition? Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period. Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible. -- SUSE Linux GmbH Maxfeldstrasse 5 90409 Nuernberg Germany GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:53, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
I agree - I see the logo and project name discussions are somewhat separate. I think we can do nothing, we can change the logo without changing the name, and if we change the name we will absolutely need to change change the logo So I'm favouring discussing the name change first, we can work back from there :)
But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition?
With all things surrounding the Foundation concept, there is no deadlines or formal timepressure from any party.
Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period.
Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible.
If we change the name, I'd expect the "<insert name here> Foundation" would have some agreement with SUSE to continue using the openSUSE Marks for the purposes of a smooth transition. This is the kind of decision that may take weeks or months to agree upon, but could take years to fully implement - and as far as I can see at the moment, I don't think there would be any problem with that for any of the parties involved. :) Unlike other Open Source project renamings we're not considering anything hard, brutal, or urgent.. I think we have the luxury of being able to take the time to do it right. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/3/19 6:00 PM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:53, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
I agree - I see the logo and project name discussions are somewhat separate. I think we can do nothing, we can change the logo without changing the name, and if we change the name we will absolutely need to change change the logo
So I'm favouring discussing the name change first, we can work back from there :)
Yes I kinda like this approach. -- Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition?
Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period.
Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible.
I can have all the repos in our Github renamed by Monday, and all the obs submission next month, my resume includes: https://github.com/yast/yast-yast2/issues/934 redoing all of YaST naming conventions in desktop files... LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 19:44, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition?
Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period.
Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible.
I can have all the repos in our Github renamed by Monday, and all the obs submission next month, my resume includes: https://github.com/yast/yast-yast2/issues/934 redoing all of YaST naming conventions in desktop files...
Its more then just a few obs submissions, for example every official repo and most repo's in devel projects + home projects list openSUSE in the repository name, changing the repository names will be messy because it will also involve changing everyones zypper config, on the other hand maybe we can get more standard/consistent naming of "openSUSE_Factory" vs "openSUSE_Tumbleweed" across devel repo's because that is a mess atm. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:30 PM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
On 03/06/2019 19:44, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition?
Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period.
Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible.
I can have all the repos in our Github renamed by Monday, and all the obs submission next month, my resume includes: https://github.com/yast/yast-yast2/issues/934 redoing all of YaST naming conventions in desktop files...
Its more then just a few obs submissions, for example every official repo and most repo's in devel projects + home projects list openSUSE in the repository name, changing the repository names will be messy because it will also involve changing everyones zypper config, on the other hand maybe we can get more standard/consistent naming of "openSUSE_Factory" vs "openSUSE_Tumbleweed" across devel repo's because that is a mess atm.
Well, new name would be a new devel project, wouldn't it? Then everybody would need to switch that manually unless it was linked, that's how you *could* fix it. LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 03/06/2019 20:15, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:30 PM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
On 03/06/2019 19:44, Stasiek Michalski wrote:
On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM, Alberto Planas Dominguez <aplanas@suse.de> wrote:
On Monday, June 3, 2019 11:47:41 AM CEST Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:
IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.
I consider the logo and the name as different issues, as we can:
- change nothing
- change the logo
- change the logo and the project name
But if we decide for a full rename, do we have a time-table about how much time do we have for the transition?
Renaming all domains, OBS projects and metadata, the github namespace, the multiple review bots, osc, IRC channels, packages trademarks, etc, etc is not something that we can do without a very long transition period.
Actually, I am not sure that this is something feasible.
I can have all the repos in our Github renamed by Monday, and all the obs submission next month, my resume includes: https://github.com/yast/yast-yast2/issues/934 redoing all of YaST naming conventions in desktop files...
Its more then just a few obs submissions, for example every official repo and most repo's in devel projects + home projects list openSUSE in the repository name, changing the repository names will be messy because it will also involve changing everyones zypper config, on the other hand maybe we can get more standard/consistent naming of "openSUSE_Factory" vs "openSUSE_Tumbleweed" across devel repo's because that is a mess atm.
Well, new name would be a new devel project, wouldn't it? Then everybody would need to switch that manually unless it was linked, that's how you *could* fix it.
It would be nice to fix it without causing everyone to have twice as many repo's enabled for building for whatever we decide as a transition period. I guess leap for example will stay as is until it goes end of life and the repo's are dropped. I'm sure there is a way, but its not as quick and simple as what you suggested. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 2019-06-03 08:01, schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
Hi,
Here's just one little bit of food for thought. I was just chitchatting with a coworker about this, and he said: "If opensuse changes their name whey will be just one of many unknown / new linux distributions, while right now they are one of the market leaders" Do we really WANT to be "just some small new distro" instead one of the big five? Cheers MH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 11:18:26 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
Am 2019-06-03 08:01, schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
Hi,
Here's just one little bit of food for thought.
I was just chitchatting with a coworker about this, and he said:
"If opensuse changes their name whey will be just one of many unknown / new linux distributions, while right now they are one of the market leaders"
Do we really WANT to be "just some small new distro" instead one of the big five?
Cheers MH
Hi Mathias, I don't think that we are becoming "just some small new distro". The Community stays the same, only with a strong supporting foundation behind it. Neither are we cutting the ties to SUSE, nor do we rebase the distro on any other technological basis. Leap will continue to be Leap, and same applies to Tumbleweed and the openSUSE project. I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 11:45:27AM +0200, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 11:18:26 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
Am 2019-06-03 08:01, schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
Hi,
Here's just one little bit of food for thought.
I was just chitchatting with a coworker about this, and he said:
"If opensuse changes their name whey will be just one of many unknown / new linux distributions, while right now they are one of the market leaders"
Do we really WANT to be "just some small new distro" instead one of the big five?
Cheers MH
Hi Mathias,
I don't think that we are becoming "just some small new distro". The Community stays the same, only with a strong supporting foundation behind it. Neither are we cutting the ties to SUSE, nor do we rebase the distro on any other technological basis. Leap will continue to be Leap, and same applies to Tumbleweed and the openSUSE project.
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
But we will lose most of our (non community) users. The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind. The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry. Ciao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors.
| sed -e 's/pessimistic/realistic/' Am I really the only one on this list to realize that the four letters "SUSE" have been a household term for over 25 years now? And we want to throw that away WHY exactly? do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason? Cheers MH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On śro, Jun 5, 2019 at 12:45 PM, Mathias Homann <Mathias.Homann@openSUSE.org> wrote:
Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors.
| sed -e 's/pessimistic/realistic/'
Am I really the only one on this list to realize that the four letters "SUSE" have been a household term for over 25 years now? And we want to throw that away WHY exactly?
do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason?
Absolutely, after the scandals with emissions their reputation is way below the mark, they are lucky to have bought majority of European industry and brands to keep them going ;) Joking aside, the choice comes down to: we are able to freely use brand as a community or we keep the recognized brand with strings attached. It's basically either being able to do marketing at reasonable levels or have already recognized branding. Now question is, will we be able to keep up the momentum going if we have a limited ability to promote our brand? LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 12:45:43 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.>> But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors.
| sed -e 's/pessimistic/realistic/'
Am I really the only one on this list to realize that the four letters "SUSE" have been a household term for over 25 years now? And we want to throw that away WHY exactly?
do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason?
Cheers MH
No, they won't. Though they are not in the need to come up with a new name to build themselves a foundation but have to avoid copyright and trademark issues. And anyways, if they'd decide to do so because they think it sounds better and is more internationally understood, don't you think that they'd still be seen as VW and linked to their history and tradition and that people would still continue to buy their cars?! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 13:38 Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 12:45:43 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason?
And anyways, if they'd decide to do so because they think it sounds better and is more internationally understood, don't you think that they'd still be seen as VW and linked to their history and tradition
I definitely don't. We may consider it irrational but in general public perception, the continuity and tradition would suffere a lot. Changing the name (and I don't mean cosmetic changes like dropping the dots or capitalizing the "u") is a big step and it means quite substantial disassociation from the history. In general, only companies with weak brands and/or companies which believe cutting themselves from the history would actually help them rename themselves.
and that people would still continue to buy their cars?!
Hard to say. For a lot of people, a brand with tradition means a lot. So I don't expect Ford, Peugeot or Volkswagen going through a rename unless they were in deep and serious trouble. Even "Dieselgate" you mentioned wasn't enough for VW to want them to risk the image of continuity. And, to be honest, I don't really expect Boeing to do that either. Michal Kubecek -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le 05/06/2019 à 14:05, Michal Kubecek a écrit :
Hard to say. For a lot of people, a brand with tradition means a lot.
in fact, why do we need to change the distro name when the only thing we need is to take a different name for the foundation? why not "Komodo Foundation" (just an example) and still openSUSE distro? who care really now of the foundation name? and, by the way there where not all this discussion when promoting Tumbleweed or Leap!! the basic error was made long ago when dropping "Linux" from the name. Still today everybody knows about Linux, who really know about openSUSE apart the Linux fans?? Being on the linux stuff for more than 20 years now, I myself don't know the difference between Centos and Fedora... jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
This is not a openSUSE thing by itself. Ubuntu also has no "Linux" in its name, and still people refer to it as "the Linux" because they don't know any other "Linux". If they hear about openSUSE being a linux distro, they usually don't need the extra hint of openSUSE Linux to be sure to install a linux distribution, imho. Centos is a binary compatible free community version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora is the community project from RedHat which they use as testbed for all their shiny new toys. The naming discussion should also consider: do we want to be seen close to SUSE? If so, we should should avoid any name change at all. Cheers, Bernd Am Mi., 5. Juni 2019 um 15:15 Uhr schrieb jdd@dodin.org <jdd@dodin.org>:
Le 05/06/2019 à 14:05, Michal Kubecek a écrit :
Hard to say. For a lot of people, a brand with tradition means a lot.
in fact, why do we need to change the distro name when the only thing we need is to take a different name for the foundation?
why not "Komodo Foundation" (just an example) and still openSUSE distro? who care really now of the foundation name?
and, by the way there where not all this discussion when promoting Tumbleweed or Leap!!
the basic error was made long ago when dropping "Linux" from the name. Still today everybody knows about Linux, who really know about openSUSE apart the Linux fans??
Being on the linux stuff for more than 20 years now, I myself don't know the difference between Centos and Fedora...
jdd
-- http://dodin.org
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On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 15:34:53 CEST John Salvatore Fontanelli wrote:
The naming discussion should also consider: do we want to be seen close to SUSE? If so, we should should avoid any name change at all.
It should consider that, too, sure, but even if, I wouldn't generally decline a name change (or better said: a different name for the foundation and continually rebranding the project). I mean, let me explain in different words: You don't need to marry your girlfriend to be her boyfriend/man, do you? To be close to her you don't need to share a lastname or move into your girlfriend's apartment. Same is true for us as a community. We don't need to have a SUSE in our name to be close to SUSE, just like Fedora has neither "Red" nor "Hat" in it's name - although I know that fedora is a hat which might even be red... well, yeah. But you get my point, I guess. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Dne středa 5. června 2019 15:34:53 CEST, John Salvatore Fontanelli napsal(a):
The naming discussion should also consider: do we want to be seen close to SUSE? If so, we should should avoid any name change at all.
IMHO being in very close relationship with innovative technological company is huge benefit of openSUSE. Isn't openSUSE upstream of SLE? I'd keep this link as visible as possible. -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
On 6/5/19 6:56 AM, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:
Dne středa 5. června 2019 15:34:53 CEST, John Salvatore Fontanelli napsal(a):
The naming discussion should also consider: do we want to be seen close to SUSE? If so, we should should avoid any name change at all.
IMHO being in very close relationship with innovative technological company is huge benefit of openSUSE. Isn't openSUSE upstream of SLE? I'd keep this link as visible as possible.
I've been in the openSUSE exhibit space at LinuxFest NW (Bellingham, WA, US/original grassroots fest/20 years) several times. The most common question by far is: "What is different about openSUSE?" Answers vary depending on the particulars of the questioner and the boothperson addressing the question. However my sense is the answer that satisfies most people involves speaking about the relationship between Tumbleweed, Leap, and the rest of SUSE (not just SLE). This explanation has hidden, subjective weight far beyond just the name. In my view, the visible, obvious relationship between openSUSE and SUSE is highly valuable. It would be a mistake to change the name. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 05/06/2019 21:08, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 12:45:43 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.>> But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors.
| sed -e 's/pessimistic/realistic/'
Am I really the only one on this list to realize that the four letters "SUSE" have been a household term for over 25 years now? And we want to throw that away WHY exactly?
do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason?
Cheers MH
No, they won't. Though they are not in the need to come up with a new name to build themselves a foundation but have to avoid copyright and trademark issues.
openSUSE is also not necessarily in need of a new name to build ourselves a foundation either. We are far from reaching a place in negotiations with SUSE where not changing the name is a blocker to creating a foundation. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Le 2019-06-05 12:45, Mathias Homann a écrit :
Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 11:59, Marcus Meissner <meissner@suse.de> wrote:
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
I second this view. It may not be representative at all, but most of the people I have talked with at FOSS events in the last 3 years are in two categories: they don't know openSUSE at all (or have barely heard about it) OR they know it by the name of SUSE and use both names for the same things. So, from my perspective, changing the name of the project will help to clarify the situation *a lot*.
But we will lose most of our (non community) users.
The "buzz" will be the same as with RandomNewDistro, one article and then gone in the wind.
No sure. If we make a proper, intensive and on the long term marketing campaign. Most the people that will write the articles you mention already know about openSUSE and are able to make the difference between a teenagers new useless distro and a huge project like openSUSE.
The brand is the most important part on keeping the distribution alive. Throwing it away means throwing the distribution away, sorry.
that's a rather pessimistic view. If we do decide to change the Project's name, I'd expect we'd continue using the openSUSE brand for the distributions for at least a transitional period of a few years, which should give us the benefit of both attracting attention through the new name AND not alienating our existing users and contributors.
| sed -e 's/pessimistic/realistic/'
I agree with Richard. Don't forget that if we go this way, there will be several steps in the overall name changing process, each one being a new good reason to make communication campaigns. Creating the fundation with the new name and still using openSUSE for the distributions will clearly mitigate the issues you've mentioned. Then, slowly, we can switch some parts of the project to the new name.
Am I really the only one on this list to realize that the four letters "SUSE" have been a household term for over 25 years now? And we want to throw that away WHY exactly?
do you think that ... lets say Volkswagen would change their name to ... "peoplevehicle" for some reason?
I don't think the comparison applies here. Car brands are already independent entities, they don't need to rename them. We are not fully independent at the moment. Like any living being, a new name is the first and essential step toward self existence. -- Sébastien 'sogal' Poher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/5/19 5:45 AM, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 11:18:26 CEST Mathias Homann wrote:
Am 2019-06-03 08:01, schrieb Stasiek Michalski:
Hi,
Here's just one little bit of food for thought.
I was just chitchatting with a coworker about this, and he said:
"If opensuse changes their name whey will be just one of many unknown / new linux distributions, while right now they are one of the market leaders"
Do we really WANT to be "just some small new distro" instead one of the big five?
Cheers MH
Hi Mathias,
I don't think that we are becoming "just some small new distro". The Community stays the same, only with a strong supporting foundation behind it. Neither are we cutting the ties to SUSE, nor do we rebase the distro on any other technological basis. Leap will continue to be Leap, and same applies to Tumbleweed and the openSUSE project.
I am sure that a name change and the new build foundation will get some media buzz around the globe. So we probably might even get much more attention than we got in the last few years and we might profit from that attention, too.
Sorry but that is all speculation, we might get media attention we might ..... and flies in the face of historical evidence Mandrake -> Mandriva -> what is it now? Does anyone care? Our own experience shows that making changes in people's head when it comes to changing names is extremely difficult. One can still find, in relatively recent writing SuSE and sometimes even S.u.S.E. and how long has that been declared dead? Companies that undertake re-branding efforts spend millions some billions of dollars to change the wiring in people's heads. The press attention we __might__ get is not going to come anywhere close. But again it all comes back to my earlier question why do we pursue this avenue? Initially the answer was, paraphrasing, ability to better handle financial transactions and attract sponsors. As the discussion moves on it appears to me that the real reason is control of trademarks and more independence. If the later is really the underlying reason, then yes a name change would be the pill we have to swallow. But if we primarily care about being able to properly handle financial transactions then a name change is not needed and I am certain there are reasonable ways to deal with the trademark topics that come up. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
But again it all comes back to my earlier question why do we pursue this avenue? Initially the answer was, paraphrasing, ability to better handle financial transactions and attract sponsors. As the discussion moves on it appears to me that the real reason is control of trademarks and more independence. If the later is really the underlying reason, then yes a name change would be the pill we have to swallow. But if we primarily care about being able to properly handle financial transactions then a name change is not needed and I am certain there are reasonable ways to deal with the trademark topics that come up.
Please do us all a favour and kill the conspiracy theory talk :) The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period. The name of the Project, the name of the Foundation, are supplementary discussions that spawn from that, and the Trademark issues are not things to be ignored or brushed over lightly. The harsh realities of trademark law will shape and impact what the Project will be able to do as a Foundation. There's no ulterior motive in bringing this up for discussion now, but if we don't discuss it now, it will be too late to consider those implications once we've started signing contracts and forming legal entities. if we keep the name, we'll have the challenges of figuring out how to operate a legal entity without absolute control of our trademark. There are no easy answers on that route, but the challenges are not impossible. If we change the name, we'll have the challenges of rebranding. There are no easy answers on that route either, but the challenges are also not impossible. So, I think you can stop going back to your earlier question instead look forward. The only question for the Project is which is our preference? Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/5/19 8:29 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
But again it all comes back to my earlier question why do we pursue this avenue? Initially the answer was, paraphrasing, ability to better handle financial transactions and attract sponsors. As the discussion moves on it appears to me that the real reason is control of trademarks and more independence. If the later is really the underlying reason, then yes a name change would be the pill we have to swallow. But if we primarily care about being able to properly handle financial transactions then a name change is not needed and I am certain there are reasonable ways to deal with the trademark topics that come up.
Please do us all a favour and kill the conspiracy theory talk :)
How is describing what I am observing conspiracy theory? The talk at the openSUSE conference was focused on financial transactions as the reasoning for the foundation and probably more than 60% of messages, or more, in this thread focus around issues w.r.t. trademark and control thereof.
The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period.
Well if that is the case then maybe you should make equally offensive accusation against those that are focusing and speculating about trademark restrictions and focus the discussion on legal issues when we have no statements from SUSE about if there would be any additional restrictions on the use of the mark or not.
The name of the Project, the name of the Foundation, are supplementary discussions that spawn from that, and the Trademark issues are not things to be ignored or brushed over lightly. The harsh realities of trademark law will shape and impact what the Project will be able to do as a Foundation.
Fair, then go get the facts from SUSE and stop the speculation, that's part of your job isn't it.
There's no ulterior motive in bringing this up for discussion now, but if we don't discuss it now, it will be too late to consider those implications once we've started signing contracts and forming legal entities.
if we keep the name, we'll have the challenges of figuring out how to operate a legal entity without absolute control of our trademark.
True, but that is not a stated goal of the foundation, you just said that yourself above. So maybe a bit consistency would be helpful. If control of the mark is important then that should be stated as a goal of the foundation. Which then pretty much ends the discussion as we all agree that in order to control the mark a re-name is necessary.
There are no easy answers on that route, but the challenges are not impossible.
Actually the answers are fairly obvious if we'd choose to properly formulate the goals of the change. - Financial only -> keep what we have - Financial and control the mark -> rename
If we change the name, we'll have the challenges of rebranding. There are no easy answers on that route either, but the challenges are also not impossible.
So, I think you can stop going back to your earlier question instead look forward. The only question for the Project is which is our preference?
How can you ask the preference when the goals are not clearly formulated? If we want control of the mark, which is what many in the thread appear to be advocating, there is only one choice. What's missing here is a clear statement whether or not control of the mark is part of the driving factor of the foundation. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 15:03:59 CEST Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/5/19 8:29 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
But again it all comes back to my earlier question why do we pursue this avenue? Initially the answer was, paraphrasing, ability to better handle financial transactions and attract sponsors. As the discussion moves on it appears to me that the real reason is control of trademarks and more independence. If the later is really the underlying reason, then yes a name change would be the pill we have to swallow. But if we primarily care about being able to properly handle financial transactions then a name change is not needed and I am certain there are reasonable ways to deal with the trademark topics that come up.
Please do us all a favour and kill the conspiracy theory talk :)
How is describing what I am observing conspiracy theory?
The talk at the openSUSE conference was focused on financial transactions as the reasoning for the foundation and probably more than 60% of messages, or more, in this thread focus around issues w.r.t. trademark and control thereof.
The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period.
Well if that is the case then maybe you should make equally offensive accusation against those that are focusing and speculating about trademark restrictions and focus the discussion on legal issues when we have no statements from SUSE about if there would be any additional restrictions on the use of the mark or not.
The name of the Project, the name of the Foundation, are supplementary discussions that spawn from that, and the Trademark issues are not things to be ignored or brushed over lightly. The harsh realities of trademark law will shape and impact what the Project will be able to do as a Foundation.
Fair, then go get the facts from SUSE and stop the speculation, that's part of your job isn't it.
There's no ulterior motive in bringing this up for discussion now, but if we don't discuss it now, it will be too late to consider those implications once we've started signing contracts and forming legal entities.
if we keep the name, we'll have the challenges of figuring out how to operate a legal entity without absolute control of our trademark.
True, but that is not a stated goal of the foundation, you just said that yourself above. So maybe a bit consistency would be helpful.
If control of the mark is important then that should be stated as a goal of the foundation. Which then pretty much ends the discussion as we all agree that in order to control the mark a re-name is necessary.
There are no easy answers on that route, but the challenges are not impossible.
Actually the answers are fairly obvious if we'd choose to properly formulate the goals of the change.
Financial only -> keep what we have
Financial and control the mark -> rename
If we change the name, we'll have the challenges of rebranding. There are no easy answers on that route either, but the challenges are also not impossible.
So, I think you can stop going back to your earlier question instead look forward. The only question for the Project is which is our preference?
How can you ask the preference when the goals are not clearly formulated?
If we want control of the mark, which is what many in the thread appear to be advocating, there is only one choice. What's missing here is a clear statement whether or not control of the mark is part of the driving factor of the foundation.
Later, Robert
Controlling the brand and trademark and owning the copyright for the name isn't the main factor. The main factor is: Do we want the risks that I described which are a direct consequence of using openSUSE as a name for the foundation. If we want we can continue to call all projects openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Tumbleweed and so on until maybe some day we are not allowed to further use the brand. That's a possibility here. So the question isn't alone what goals there are for the foundation but under which conditions we want that foundation to operate, too. Just saying... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/5/19 9:26 AM, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 15:03:59 CEST Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/5/19 8:29 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
But again it all comes back to my earlier question why do we pursue this avenue? Initially the answer was, paraphrasing, ability to better handle financial transactions and attract sponsors. As the discussion moves on it appears to me that the real reason is control of trademarks and more independence. If the later is really the underlying reason, then yes a name change would be the pill we have to swallow. But if we primarily care about being able to properly handle financial transactions then a name change is not needed and I am certain there are reasonable ways to deal with the trademark topics that come up.
Please do us all a favour and kill the conspiracy theory talk :)
How is describing what I am observing conspiracy theory?
The talk at the openSUSE conference was focused on financial transactions as the reasoning for the foundation and probably more than 60% of messages, or more, in this thread focus around issues w.r.t. trademark and control thereof.
The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period.
Well if that is the case then maybe you should make equally offensive accusation against those that are focusing and speculating about trademark restrictions and focus the discussion on legal issues when we have no statements from SUSE about if there would be any additional restrictions on the use of the mark or not.
The name of the Project, the name of the Foundation, are supplementary discussions that spawn from that, and the Trademark issues are not things to be ignored or brushed over lightly. The harsh realities of trademark law will shape and impact what the Project will be able to do as a Foundation.
Fair, then go get the facts from SUSE and stop the speculation, that's part of your job isn't it.
There's no ulterior motive in bringing this up for discussion now, but if we don't discuss it now, it will be too late to consider those implications once we've started signing contracts and forming legal entities.
if we keep the name, we'll have the challenges of figuring out how to operate a legal entity without absolute control of our trademark.
True, but that is not a stated goal of the foundation, you just said that yourself above. So maybe a bit consistency would be helpful.
If control of the mark is important then that should be stated as a goal of the foundation. Which then pretty much ends the discussion as we all agree that in order to control the mark a re-name is necessary.
There are no easy answers on that route, but the challenges are not impossible.
Actually the answers are fairly obvious if we'd choose to properly formulate the goals of the change.
Financial only -> keep what we have
Financial and control the mark -> rename
If we change the name, we'll have the challenges of rebranding. There are no easy answers on that route either, but the challenges are also not impossible.
So, I think you can stop going back to your earlier question instead look forward. The only question for the Project is which is our preference?
How can you ask the preference when the goals are not clearly formulated?
If we want control of the mark, which is what many in the thread appear to be advocating, there is only one choice. What's missing here is a clear statement whether or not control of the mark is part of the driving factor of the foundation.
Later, Robert
Controlling the brand and trademark and owning the copyright for the name isn't the main factor. The main factor is: Do we want the risks that I described which are a direct consequence of using openSUSE as a name for the foundation.
And your statement is not consistent with statements made in the open Board meeting at Osc and not consistent with what was stated by Richard, let me repeat: """ The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period. """ I am not implying that related topics should be ignored, but we should give them proper weight. The discussion in this thread mostly focuses around control of the mark and why that may or more may not be important. Based on that it appears to me that the first question we need to answer for ourselves is if it is important to control the mark, and how important it is? And that is being discussed with arguments on either side of the topic. The rest follows from there. The original question, paraphrased, "change the name or not?" becomes superfluous once we agree, possibly vote on, whether complete control of the mark is something that we want or not. But again it all flows from the answer to the question, what is the driving factor, or more broadly formulated, what are the driving factors? And then the follow on question, what is the relative importance of the various factors. Based on the discussion it would appear that topics around the mark are more important than handling the finances. Otherwise one would think we'd talk about how it would work to open accounts, where they would be located, if there would be membership dues, if we get hardware where that would be located etc. Basically things around financial and sponsorship topics. None of those topics are going to be straight forward. Yet the majority of the messages are around the mark. And here is the crux, two different answers to the same question. One person proclaiming the main factor is financial and another proclaiming that risks associated with not owning the mark are the driving factors. And yes certainly we can in some way construct a way in which owning the mark is connected to money.
If we want we can continue to call all projects openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Tumbleweed and so on until maybe some day we are not allowed to further use the brand. That's a possibility here.
So the question isn't alone what goals there are for the foundation but under which conditions we want that foundation to operate, too.
The conditions are determined by the choices we make. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 16:12, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
And your statement is not consistent with statements made in the open Board meeting at Osc and not consistent with what was stated by Richard, let me repeat:
""" The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period. """
I am not implying that related topics should be ignored, but we should give them proper weight.
The discussion in this thread mostly focuses around control of the mark and why that may or more may not be important.
Based on that it appears to me that the first question we need to answer for ourselves is if it is important to control the mark, and how important it is?
And that is being discussed with arguments on either side of the topic.
The rest follows from there. The original question, paraphrased, "change the name or not?" becomes superfluous once we agree, possibly vote on, whether complete control of the mark is something that we want or not.
But again it all flows from the answer to the question, what is the driving factor, or more broadly formulated, what are the driving factors? And then the follow on question, what is the relative importance of the various factors.
Based on the discussion it would appear that topics around the mark are more important than handling the finances. Otherwise one would think we'd talk about how it would work to open accounts, where they would be located, if there would be membership dues, if we get hardware where that would be located etc. Basically things around financial and sponsorship topics. None of those topics are going to be straight forward. Yet the majority of the messages are around the mark.
And here is the crux, two different answers to the same question. One person proclaiming the main factor is financial and another proclaiming that risks associated with not owning the mark are the driving factors.
And yes certainly we can in some way construct a way in which owning the mark is connected to money.
This thread isn't the "lets sort out all the topics around the Foundation" thread. The Board have made their decision regarding the Foundation, it's going to happen, and sure, you list above a whole bunch of subsequent decisions that need to be discussed and then made. This thread is titled "Project name and logo discussion" and was started by Stasiek to discuss one of those related topics. It's one close to his heart, as the most active contributor to all of our branding across the Project. I respect that, and it makes sense to me that this is one of the hotter topics to some members in our community even if it was 'out of scope' of the Boards motivation for deciding to go towards a Foundation. Therefore, all of my replies on this thread have kept to the topic of the thread. When discussing this in the context of the Foundation, sure I've heavily focused only the aspects of the Foundation discussion that are relevant to this threads topic of "Name and Logo" - the Trademark..because, well, I think it should be obvious, the Trademark is the primary, if not only, part of the Foundation discussion that is remotely relevant to the topic of this thread. There is only a crux, conflict, or confusion if you conflate the topic of this thread with all the other aspects of the Foundation discussion we're going to need to discuss eventually. But I'd say it would be hell of a lot better for everyone if we actually kept this thread on topic and just addressed the Name/Logo topic here and now. It's not that relevant to the primary goals of the Foundation. But it is highly influential to the scoping aspects of the Foundation, and there is nothing more critical for any community than being certain about it's own identity. So if we address the name/logo topic first, it puts us on a good footing to address the other aspects. We can't do everything at once, and this represents a relatively 'low hanging fruit' of the bunch. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, On 6/5/19 10:23 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 16:12, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
And your statement is not consistent with statements made in the open Board meeting at Osc and not consistent with what was stated by Richard, let me repeat:
""" The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period. """
I am not implying that related topics should be ignored, but we should give them proper weight.
The discussion in this thread mostly focuses around control of the mark and why that may or more may not be important.
Based on that it appears to me that the first question we need to answer for ourselves is if it is important to control the mark, and how important it is?
And that is being discussed with arguments on either side of the topic.
The rest follows from there. The original question, paraphrased, "change the name or not?" becomes superfluous once we agree, possibly vote on, whether complete control of the mark is something that we want or not.
But again it all flows from the answer to the question, what is the driving factor, or more broadly formulated, what are the driving factors? And then the follow on question, what is the relative importance of the various factors.
Based on the discussion it would appear that topics around the mark are more important than handling the finances. Otherwise one would think we'd talk about how it would work to open accounts, where they would be located, if there would be membership dues, if we get hardware where that would be located etc. Basically things around financial and sponsorship topics. None of those topics are going to be straight forward. Yet the majority of the messages are around the mark.
And here is the crux, two different answers to the same question. One person proclaiming the main factor is financial and another proclaiming that risks associated with not owning the mark are the driving factors.
And yes certainly we can in some way construct a way in which owning the mark is connected to money.
This thread isn't the "lets sort out all the topics around the Foundation" thread.
The Board have made their decision regarding the Foundation, it's going to happen, and sure, you list above a whole bunch of subsequent decisions that need to be discussed and then made.
This thread is titled "Project name and logo discussion" and was started by Stasiek to discuss one of those related topics. It's one close to his heart, as the most active contributor to all of our branding across the Project. I respect that, and it makes sense to me that this is one of the hotter topics to some members in our community even if it was 'out of scope' of the Boards motivation for deciding to go towards a Foundation.
Therefore, all of my replies on this thread have kept to the topic of the thread. When discussing this in the context of the Foundation, sure I've heavily focused only the aspects of the Foundation discussion that are relevant to this threads topic of "Name and Logo" - the Trademark..because, well, I think it should be obvious, the Trademark is the primary, if not only, part of the Foundation discussion that is remotely relevant to the topic of this thread.
There is only a crux, conflict, or confusion if you conflate the topic of this thread with all the other aspects of the Foundation discussion we're going to need to discuss eventually.
But I'd say it would be hell of a lot better for everyone if we actually kept this thread on topic and just addressed the Name/Logo topic here and now.
And how can one form an opinion about that if one does not know if collectively we think that control of the mark is important or not? We need to answer the underlying question.... Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU Distinguished Architect LINUX Technical Team Lead Public Cloud rjschwei@suse.com IRC: robjo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Am Mittwoch, 5. Juni 2019, 18:24:07 CEST schrieb Robert Schweikert: <snip>
There is only a crux, conflict, or confusion if you conflate the topic of this thread with all the other aspects of the Foundation discussion we're going to need to discuss eventually.
But I'd say it would be hell of a lot better for everyone if we actually kept this thread on topic and just addressed the Name/Logo topic here and now.
And how can one form an opinion about that if one does not know if collectively we think that control of the mark is important or not?
We need to answer the underlying question....
...and probably we need to ask 'Why and under what circumstances should one change a brand name?' I talked to a marketing and communications expert this evening. He is CEO of a communications agency in Germany. There are two reasons why you should change a brand: 1) the brand is damaged, e.g a company that went bankrupt and tries a restart (Example: Schlecker, a retail chain in Germany, would have been such an example). Or you are associated with bad practice or problematic goods (Monsanto maybe?) In this case it makes clearly sense to change the brand to get a 'clean reputation' before going back into the market. Is the brand perception of openSUSE damaged? Clearly not. SUSE is the oldest Linux distro alive, and has a very good reputation esp. among professional users. Newbies may tend to Ub***u, but we can work on this. In general, openSUSE perception is positive as well. 2) for legal reasons of whatever kind. Here we are back in the discussion about the trademark 'openSUSE'. And this is something that needs to be solved and discussed with SUSE. Ideally SUSE grants openSUSE (Foundation, I assume) the unlimited and non-revocable right to use the brand 'openSUSE' under the terms and conditions of the foundation charter. In this ideal case there is no legal issue. Assuming that SUSE still wants to keep the relationship I see a good chance that this right is given to the foundation. Board has to discuss terms and conditions with SUSE legal counselor, and report this back to the community. Only in case there is a real issue we should consider a name change. Under no circumstance - never ever - we should change the brand without a need (in german: in vorauseilendem Gehorsam), as this has no benefit to the brand. We would need to put some effort in a new CI/CD, and a massive investment in communication, under the risk that we end up as 'just another Linux distro'. So, lets clarify terms and conditions for trademark usage, and then see if there is a need to change names. For the moment I would not continue this discussion, for the above reasons. Cheers Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 21:33:08 CEST Axel Braun wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 5. Juni 2019, 18:24:07 CEST schrieb Robert Schweikert:
<snip>
There is only a crux, conflict, or confusion if you conflate the topic of this thread with all the other aspects of the Foundation discussion we're going to need to discuss eventually.
But I'd say it would be hell of a lot better for everyone if we actually kept this thread on topic and just addressed the Name/Logo topic here and now.
And how can one form an opinion about that if one does not know if collectively we think that control of the mark is important or not?
We need to answer the underlying question....
...and probably we need to ask 'Why and under what circumstances should one change a brand name?'
I talked to a marketing and communications expert this evening. He is CEO of a communications agency in Germany.
There are two reasons why you should change a brand:
- the brand is damaged, e.g a company that went bankrupt and tries a restart (Example: Schlecker, a retail chain in Germany, would have been such an example). Or you are associated with bad practice or problematic goods (Monsanto maybe?) In this case it makes clearly sense to change the brand to get a 'clean reputation' before going back into the market.
Is the brand perception of openSUSE damaged? Clearly not. SUSE is the oldest Linux distro alive, and has a very good reputation esp. among professional users. Newbies may tend to Ub***u, but we can work on this. In general, openSUSE perception is positive as well.
- for legal reasons of whatever kind. Here we are back in the discussion about the trademark 'openSUSE'. And this is something that needs to be solved and discussed with SUSE. Ideally SUSE grants openSUSE (Foundation, I assume) the unlimited and non-revocable right to use the brand 'openSUSE' under the terms and conditions of the foundation charter. In this ideal case there is no legal issue.
Assuming that SUSE still wants to keep the relationship I see a good chance that this right is given to the foundation. Board has to discuss terms and conditions with SUSE legal counselor, and report this back to the community. Only in case there is a real issue we should consider a name change.
Under no circumstance - never ever - we should change the brand without a need (in german: in vorauseilendem Gehorsam), as this has no benefit to the brand.
We would need to put some effort in a new CI/CD, and a massive investment in communication, under the risk that we end up as 'just another Linux distro'.
So, lets clarify terms and conditions for trademark usage, and then see if there is a need to change names.
For the moment I would not continue this discussion, for the above reasons.
Cheers Axel
Good morning, Axel! Fair point you are mentioning. But as far as I understood Richard Brown correctly, and unlimited and irrevocable right is not what we can get, as it will most likely be a right as we already have, probably even with more limitations. In case I misunderstood Richard Brown, I am quite sure it will end all discussion instantaneously. As you point out correctly, if you are able to get full, unlimited and irrevocable rights for the use of SUSE in openSUSE as a foundation name, we should stay with a well established name and brand. But, if I am right and understood Richard Brown correctly, well, then it's like I said: rather change at least the name for the community and foundation. At least we are still free to use openSUSE as a brand for all the foundation's and community's projects. Maybe on a way to a transition to rebrand them according to the foundation's and community's name and brand, but that could be kept open for a decision on the road. Kind regards Pierre -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
Dne středa 5. června 2019 16:11:57 CEST, Robert Schweikert napsal(a):
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 15:03:59 CEST Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 6/5/19 8:29 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote: The discussion in this thread mostly focuses around control of the mark and why that may or more may not be important. Based on that it appears to me that the first question we need to answer for ourselves is if it is important to control the mark, and how important it is? And that is being discussed with arguments on either side of the topic. The rest follows from there. The original question, paraphrased, "change
On 6/5/19 9:26 AM, Pierre Böckmann wrote: the name or not?" becomes superfluous once we agree, possibly vote on, whether complete control of the mark is something that we want or not.
To avoid situation similar after referendum in one well known state, before answering any such question, we must have very precise information. E.g what *exactly* does it mean in practice to have or not to have "complete control of the mark"? From my very limited perspective I don't see problems with the current state, so I don't feel need to change. I'm afraid all that financial and legal issues are far too much virtual for many people here. The question was raised with particular aims. If we agree on the aims, which options do we have to reach them? What does it mean practically? I know many points were repeatedly mentioned repeatedly in the discussion, but still, when preparing the vote, the question and accompanying materials will have to be prepared with big care. -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/
On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 16:11:57 CEST Robert Schweikert wrote:
And your statement is not consistent with statements made in the open Board meeting at Osc and not consistent with what was stated by Richard, let me repeat:
""" The primary motivator for the Foundation is to better handle financial transactions and to attract sponsors - period. """
I am not implying that related topics should be ignored, but we should give them proper weight.
We definitely should. What weight is the right weight for each of them nonetheless needs discussion again and has nothing to do with inconsistent statements.
The discussion in this thread mostly focuses around control of the mark and why that may or more may not be important.
Based on that it appears to me that the first question we need to answer for ourselves is if it is important to control the mark, and how important it is?
Is that a question or a statement? I can only speak for myself, but that is not the main question and has never been. But it is a question that needs an answer and I'd say: Yes, we should control the brand and trademark and be the copyright owners of our own community's and foundation's name because otherwise we'd be dependent on others.
And that is being discussed with arguments on either side of the topic.
The rest follows from there. The original question, paraphrased, "change the name or not?" becomes superfluous once we agree, possibly vote on, whether complete control of the mark is something that we want or not.
But again it all flows from the answer to the question, what is the driving factor, or more broadly formulated, what are the driving factors? And then the follow on question, what is the relative importance of the various factors.
Based on the discussion it would appear that topics around the mark are more important than handling the finances. Otherwise one would think we'd talk about how it would work to open accounts, where they would be located, if there would be membership dues, if we get hardware where that would be located etc. Basically things around financial and sponsorship topics. None of those topics are going to be straight forward. Yet the majority of the messages are around the mark.
And here is the crux, two different answers to the same question. One person proclaiming the main factor is financial and another proclaiming that risks associated with not owning the mark are the driving factors.
I can only find one main driving factor. But that doesn't limit our discussion to only that one driving factor. There is more to consider than that. Otherwise it'd render the whole discussion useless, because those side effects are what we need to discuss.
And yes certainly we can in some way construct a way in which owning the mark is connected to money.
You don't need to construct a link that's already there.
The conditions are determined by the choices we make.
That's another no-brainer and only logical. So, yes, exactly that's why we are discussion the influence of all thinkable choices on the conditions under which a foundation would have to operate. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 15:04, Robert Schweikert <rjschwei@suse.com> wrote:
The name of the Project, the name of the Foundation, are supplementary discussions that spawn from that, and the Trademark issues are not things to be ignored or brushed over lightly. The harsh realities of trademark law will shape and impact what the Project will be able to do as a Foundation.
Fair, then go get the facts from SUSE and stop the speculation, that's part of your job isn't it.
and I've got 'the facts from SUSE' - you and most of the people on this list know me, and my default setting of community first. It should be obvious to anyone who knows me at all that my advocacy for addressing this issue, and all the issues I raise, are entirely informed by information I've received as part of my job. The only reason I qualify all of my remarks with words like "should", "possibly" and other qualifiers is because we have strong commitments from SUSE that they will do everything they can to help openSUSE regardless of it's decisions. So we have the luxury of this discussion not being under undue pressure from our corporate sponsor. And thusly, we can all discuss this frankly as community members with my 'communication of SUSE's interests' being part of my regular, relaxed way of conducting myself in the community. But please don't mistake that casual nature as neglecting my responsibilities. And even if you do, please refrain from publicly questioning my commitment to my work duties in the future. Not only do I find that behaviour unprofessional, but it sure makes it harder to do my job.
There's no ulterior motive in bringing this up for discussion now, but if we don't discuss it now, it will be too late to consider those implications once we've started signing contracts and forming legal entities.
if we keep the name, we'll have the challenges of figuring out how to operate a legal entity without absolute control of our trademark.
True, but that is not a stated goal of the foundation, you just said that yourself above. So maybe a bit consistency would be helpful.
If control of the mark is important then that should be stated as a goal of the foundation. Which then pretty much ends the discussion as we all agree that in order to control the mark a re-name is necessary.
It's not a stated goal. Because it