On 6/3/19 8:01 AM, Stasiek Michalski wrote: Unlike I usually do, I will keep it short. 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.

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?

SUSE owns the trademark and the names and as holder they can allow "us" the use of the name.

If openSUSE keeps its current name, I would be absolutely shocked if we manage the form the Foundation under the name "openSUSE" without

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:34, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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

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.

Hi Stasiek, I know this rule, but I figured the rule that a starting sentence requires a capital letter, would overrule this ;-)

On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM, John Salvatore Fontanelli <commel(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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...

On 03/06/2019 20:12, Stasiek Michalski wrote: 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 :-)

To make it more fun, check https://www.suse.com/products/server and scroll down the page. ;-)

I know it might be rare, but I really care about branding of openSUSE

Am Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2019, 11:47:10 CEST schrieb Gerald Pfeifer: 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.

Neal Gompa <ngompa13(a)gmail.com> hat am 17. Oktober 2019 um 15:03 geschrieben: At least it would fix dealing with word processors constantly "fixing" capitalization...

"Carlos E. R." <robin.listas(a)telefonica.net> hat am 18. Oktober 2019 um 19:31 geschrieben: 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.

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:

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

On 19/10/19 7:22 am, Carlos E. R. wrote: Don't forget to print them out and frame them .

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.

Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 13:39:35 CEST schrieb Stephan Kulow: Nah... what next? Red colored Geekos?

Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 18:14:40 CEST schrieb James Mason: 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. ;-)

Am Freitag, 25. Oktober 2019, 14:06:28 CEST schrieb Simon Lees: Subjunctive. There you go. ;)

Am 24.10.19 um 13:28 schrieb Vinzenz Vietzke: 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.

Am 24.10.19 um 15:22 schrieb Stasiek Michalski: 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.

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.

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.

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.

Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 15:20:03 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried: 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?

Am Donnerstag, 24. Oktober 2019, 15:20:03 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried: 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 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 yes, and as long as the users who began prior to openSUSE, that reference will continue. but it is a good reference.

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?

Gesendet: Montag, 03. Juni 2019 um 11:59 Uhr Von: "Simon Lees" &lt;sflees(a)suse.de&gt; An: opensuse-project(a)opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion On 03/06/2019 18:05, Richard Brown 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

On 6/3/19 11:59 AM, Simon Lees wrote: 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.

Op maandag 3 juni 2019 13:20:44 CEST schreef Ancor Gonzalez Sosa: 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 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.

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: 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.

On 03/06/2019 18:05, Richard Brown wrote: > On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski > &lt;hellcp(a)opensuse.org&gt; 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?

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

Gesendet: Dienstag, 04. Juni 2019 um 11:28 Uhr Von: "Richard Brown" &lt;RBrownCCB(a)opensuse.org&gt; An: "Vojtěch Zeisek" &lt;vojtech.zeisek(a)opensuse.org&gt;rg>, opensuse-project &lt;opensuse-project(a)opensuse.org&gt; Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 at 11:05, Vojtěch Zeisek &lt;vojtech.zeisek(a)opensuse.org&gt; wrote: 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 ;) --

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.

...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...

Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?

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.

* jdd(a)dodin.org &lt;jdd(a)dodin.org&gt; [06-03-19 12:55]: 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.

On 6/3/19 3:53 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote: 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 Nry隊Z)z{.k7맲rz^ˬzN(֜^ ޭ隊Z)z{.k70Ǩ

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski &lt;hellcp(a)opensuse.org&gt; 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?

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.

On 6/3/19 10:17 AM, Richard Brown wrote: 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

Gesendet: Dienstag, 04. Juni 2019 um 00:38 Uhr Von: "Simon Lees" &lt;sflees(a)suse.de&gt; An: opensuse-project(a)opensuse.org Betreff: Re: [opensuse-project] Project name and logo discussion On 04/06/2019 02:09, Robert Schweikert wrote: 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.

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?

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 08:02, Stasiek Michalski &lt;hellcp(a)opensuse.org&gt; wrote: 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?

Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?

On Monday, 3 June 2019 10:35 Richard Brown wrote: 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).

On 6/3/19 12:35 PM, Richard Brown wrote: 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

From my point of view, there a number of benefits of renaming the openSUSE Project [...] Trademarks are only enforceable if they're considered unique.

Do you think openSUSE should change it's name?

Em 3 de jun de 2019, à(s) 05:35, Richard Brown &lt;RBrownCCB(a)opensuse.org&gt; 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?

- 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.

Am 11.06.19 um 14:06 schrieb Richard Brown: 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". ;-)

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.

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 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.

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.

On pią, cze 14, 2019 at 5:57 PM, Lars Marowsky-Bree &lt;lmb(a)suse.com&gt; wrote: 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

Hi LCP, What is the point? Isn?t this similar to the discussion about GNU/Linux vs Linux?

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).

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?"

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.

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.

Hi Richard, 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?

On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Ronan Chagas &lt;ronisbr(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: 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.

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?

On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 11:28:25 +0200, Christian Imhorst wrote: 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.

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).

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:00, Marcel Kühlhorn &lt;tux93(a)opensuse.org&gt; 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?

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher &lt;sogal(a)opensuse.org&gt; wrote: 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.

Le lundi 03 juin 2019 à 02:17:46, Richard Brown a écrit : 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 ?

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher &lt;sogal(a)opensuse.org&gt; wrote: 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(a)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(a)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.

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).

>> Alberto Planas Dominguez &lt;aplanas(a)suse.de&gt; 06/03/19 11:05 AM >>>

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).

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).

IMO we should vote on the re-branding as a "package" first and then decide what to do.

On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 11:53, Alberto Planas Dominguez &lt;aplanas(a)suse.de&gt; wrote: 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 :)

On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM, Alberto Planas Dominguez &lt;aplanas(a)suse.de&gt; wrote: 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...

On pon, Jun 3, 2019 at 12:30 PM, Simon Lees &lt;sflees(a)suse.de&gt; wrote: 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.

Am 2019-06-03 08:01, schrieb Stasiek Michalski: 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

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.

Am 2019-06-05 12:02, schrieb Richard Brown: | 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?

On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 12:45:43 CEST Mathias Homann wrote: 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?!

Le 05/06/2019 à 14:05, Michal Kubecek a écrit : 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(a)opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner(a)opensuse.org

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.

On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 12:45:43 CEST Mathias Homann wrote: 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.

On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 11:18:26 CEST Mathias Homann wrote: 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.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 14:19, Robert Schweikert &lt;rjschwei(a)suse.com&gt; wrote: 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?

On Wednesday, 5 June 2019 15:03:59 CEST Robert Schweikert wrote: 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.

On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 16:12, Robert Schweikert &lt;rjschwei(a)suse.com&gt; wrote: 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.

Am Mittwoch, 5. Juni 2019, 18:24:07 CEST schrieb Robert Schweikert: <snip> ...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