> However, we are more than just
> another product. We are both a product and a community. With just
> 'OpenOffice', we are becoming just another product!

+1

In addition, IMHO, our best customers encounter OOo in institutional 
settings like schools, etc.  Our process of branding is achieved 
through packaging by knowledgeable IT staffers, for the most part.

IMHO, the idea that someone goes to a store to buy OOo on a 
pre-fabbed CD is trying to squeeze a disruptive technology (OOo) 
into a sustaining channel.  Now Anthong Long has some interesting 
ideas about getting OOo into sustaining channels like CompUSA using 
a disruptive method of letting people burn their own CD cocktail 
right there in the store.  That is a different issue.  

It will be a long time before OOo reaches the "competitive battles" 
stage of disruptive development, so we should not apply traditional 
branding process analysis to OOo until that time.  And by the time 
that the competitive battles stage is reached, it will be our 
entire "value network" against MSO, not just us.  

So, for example, Linspire just announced this weekend that you will 
be able to beam music files  around your house with Linspire gnu 
linux AND to your cell phone AND to your PDA.  Soon, software will 
be distributed similarly.  THAT is a disruptive channel.  Linspire 
is going to kick Apple's butt and Microsoft's butt with this 
technology, and we will be there to along for the ride.  

So concerns about branding the old way missplaced, IMHO.  

Also, let's distinguish our case from GNU, for example.  GNU is a 
horrible name.  Gnu is a bit better from a marketing perspective.  

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