Re: Name poll (Was: New name: Call for opinions)

[Andreas Tille]

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:

On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 09:03:37AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:

I apologise in advance for sending a negative email, but…

hardly seems negative, but a valid critique...

ACK

I personnaly dislike "Blend", but will not oppose if I am only part of a
small minority.

Before this discussion, I did not know what a blend is,

Well, the more I think about this whole discussion I think it is rather
a feature than a bug to use a term that makes people look for an explanation
what we mean than letting them assume what we might mean.  As I tried to
explain several times "distribution" was a failure.  "Solution" was obviosely
not accepted, because several people raised the issue that they think the
original meaning of the word does not fit what we make.  So blend is (like
a very similar proposal Remix) something that needs an explanation in a certain
context - and I would like to make people read this explanation.  On our side
we have to work on the text which is for the moment

 1. Short version from http://wiki.debian.org/CustomDebian

    a subset of Debian that is configured to support a particular target
    group out-of-the-box.

 2. Long version from http://wiki.debian.org/CDDNamingProposals

  * customises Debian for specific user needs which might be special
    working fields or language specifics
  * adds some substructure to Debian (meta packages, specific debtags,
    etc.) which simplifies usage for the target user group
  * has a special team of people working inside Debian and as an instance
    to contact upstream authors of relevant software
  * does not use any extra pieces outside of the debian.org domain

but this needs fine tuning and polishing to turn it into a realy good
readable and easily understandable definition for newbies.

apart that it is
used for whiskies. I checked the dictionary, and its fundamental meaning
is a mixture of different things.

I know it basically from tea.  It is usually used in connection with
semiluxury food - so at least this term should not cause really bad
feelings, right. ;-)

I strongly recommend to try to write
down an explanation of what a Debian Pure Blend is

See above.

and to translate it
in a few languages before adopting it: I personnaly do not know how to
explain that it is a mixture that contains only one ingredient.

Well, a mixture out of a lot of Debian packages to fit the taste of
a certain user group - IMHO that fits perfectly what we are doing.
It just depends onto your view on Debian whether it is Debian a single
thing (than it does not fit) or a huge pool of things (than it perfectly
fits).

the "Pure" in Debian Pure Blends meaning purely debian. this allows for
blends that aren't pure, possibly containing things from other
sources... Contaminated Debian Blends, for example :)

... while I know this was not intended by Jonas (the original proposer
of the name) I definitely see a really big advantage in this proposal:
It opens the chance to find reasonable names for things that are not
(yet) completely integrated in Debian.  No other naming proposal showes
this feature which is quite interesting IMHO - but it needs an even more
advanced definition for "non-pure" blends (if we want to take the chance
this proposal includes).  We have to make this clear because if we decide
for "Debian Pure Blends" I would not use the acronym "DPB" but just
"Blend" which is easy to pronounce and does not really need this
"acronymisation" - but the context has to be clearly defined.

with all the energy going into naming this concept (multiple years of
discussion), i think it is more important to find an acceptible name
than a perfect one.

!YES!

though i'd rather have a Slice of pie. :)

:)

Thanks you and Charles for your input

      Andreas.

--
http://fam-tille.de