On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 20:33 +0000, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Ian Lynch wrote:
> >>Nah, I don't like the .org at all. And I don't think it conveys "open 
> >>souce" in the slightest. 
> > 
> > In the slightest? How slight is slight? More internet related and that
> > its an organisation/community that communicates over the internet than
> > specifically open source perhaps.
> 
> No, I don't get that message at all from a .org, I think it's just 
> ackward. And if I did get that message, I still wouldn't get "open 
> source" from that.

You don't, but I did and so did one or two others. Of course it will be
lost on the vast majority of ordinary users who will probably just say
Openoffice so its not going to change anything materially to them.

> I don't think that RMS ranting about saying GNU/Linux instead of Linux 
> has helped market Linux. 

I doubt its had any significant impact one way or another. 

> I don't think that telling people who know 
> about OOo to call it .org helps market the product. I do think that 
> having a more ackward name makes it harder to remember and more tempting 
> to dismiss. I have not yet seen the .org be used for marketing purposes.

I use it occassionally as a means to get a discussion going about owning
names, licenses and copyright. "Take for example, OpenOffice. Strictly
speaking we should refer to it as OpenOffice.org. The reasons for this
is...." Pretty useful to a teacher that knows something about the
subject. However, overall I think it matters very little so unless the
whole project is to be rebranded under a name that has not been taken
all this is really a waste of time because nothing is going to change.
I'm sceptical that names really make that much difference. If Arnold
Schwarzenegger can become famous with a name like that any brand name
can be made to sell ;-) I doubt changing a name on its own makes a
difference unless its something very significant like changing a name
that means "broken" in one language to something positive. Changing to
say CrapOffice from OpenOffice.org would be retrograde. Dropping the
Open would be too big a price to pay to get rid of the .org.

> >>If we had a vote for a name change, I'd vote in favour of dropping the .org
> > 
> > I don't think it matters much at all but having a tag to make soemthing
> > more memorable is not really a disadvantage. 
> 
> I think it makes it less memorable and more ackward, and those are 
> disadvantages.

Awkward :-) Schwarzenegger is pretty awkward but it doesn't seem to have
held him back that much. Given that we can't change it to OpenOffice
because that name is taken, what do you suggest?

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMS Ltd


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