At 09:33 AM 4/14/01 -0500, Sam TH wrote:
>AbiWord Personal removed from existance.  AbiWord is now just
>AbiWord.  I've gotten tired of waiting for SourceGear to do something
>about the trademark issue, so I've done something.  Any more reference
>to AbiWord Personal that are found in the code should be considered
>bugs.  

Sam, 

Could you or someone else please explain the rationale behind this decision? 
I presume that it's more than just an easy way to close bugs 612 and 880, 
no?  If that's all it is, I'd happily fix those and any other related bugs 
in order to preserve the distinction.  

I'm the original architect of the entire AbiWord branding strategy, 
especially the Personal variant, and have always viewed this branding 
distinction as the linchpin of *any* plans to eventually build a viable 
business model around the products we're working so hard to build.  [1]

As Eric can attest, I tend to froth at the mouth whenever people mess with 
"my" branding strategy, and have been known to generate countless voluminous 
emails on the all the implications of varying this.  

For the sake of everyone's inbox, I figured we'd be better off starting with

  - the "kill it" arguments (which are presumably brief), instead of 
  - my "keep it" pleas (which could get *very* long). 

Thanks. 

Paul,
emerging from my annual tax-induced stupor

[1]  I hesitate to discuss "business" issues like this on a pure development 
list, but I don't see a better forum to do so.  The fact that there is 
currently no viable company willing or able to fund the work of *any* 
AbiWord developers is a very sore spot for me.  Maybe it's just me, but I 
don't want to do anything which would make that any harder than it already 
is.  

There may be folks on this list who can afford to continue their current 
levels of unpaid effort on AbiWord, but I'm over two years' salary in the 
hole so far, and my family can only be so understanding.  


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