Well put…think I completely agree on all the points. I can't think of a strong reason not to hold course. The only negative thing I can think of against the CloudStack brand is it's not as well known as the other IaaS project with the strikingly similar name - hopefully we'll fix that. :)
John On Jul 9, 2012, at 8:15 PM, David Nalley wrote: > On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:41 PM, David Nalley <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi folks: >> >> So one of the things that PMCs are charged with is maintaining the >> brand of a project[1][2], and while it's a responsibility of the PMC, >> I brought the discussion here to enable some broader conversations and >> to solicit input from folks in general. >> >> This discussion is not about the mascot - but rather the name and >> logo. (or in trademark terms, the wordmark, logo, logotype) >> >> As a project we are provided tremendous flexibility in establishing >> our brand - you'll even note some projects have completely changed >> their name (Cordova nee CallBack, nee Phonegap). In this email I am >> not going to share my opinion (I'll follow up with that in a bit), but >> rather want to call for participation on this topic. Please weigh in. >> >> --David >> >> [1] http://www.apache.org/dev/pmc.html#brand-policy >> [1] http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/responsibility > > > > Hi folks, > > I am back, this time with my opinion. I am breaking this up into two sections: > 1. my stance > 2. my reasoning > > Branding is an interesting thing to me, and I am biased wrt to this > project, as I think I had a small part in promoting the existing > CloudStack brand. > > #Stance > My personal stance is that the name should be 'Apache CloudStack' . > > For the record, you can see the two different types of brand logos > currently in use here: > http://people.apache.org/~ke4qqq/runbook/ > > The main logo is center of the page - and says cloudstack in blue and > gray with a ruled line and 'open source cloud computing' below it. > > The secondary logo is in the top left hand of the page above - and > just has cloudstack in blue and gray. (best seen with firefox or > chrome, I seem to recall IE not liking SVGs, but maybe that's a > non-issue now). > > There's been some discussion of adding some Apache elements like the > feather or the 'Apache' wordmark, and while I am thrilled to be at the > ASF, I don't personally want to see us do this, and I'll discuss that > below as well. > > #Justifications: > * The 'Apache CloudStack' name shows both our lineage (CloudStack) and > our (hopeful) future at the ASF - and it complies with the incubator > guidelines to boot. > * This logo is already widely in use, and all things considered is > relatively well spread for an open source brand as nascent as it is. > * This logo is already on thousands of items of swag from luggage tags > to tshirts and everything in between > * The current logo works well even in single color, which is > economical should we desire to produce swag or use it in print. > * I'd argue the current brand is pretty good, and changing it, > especially if it's a drastic change is a decent amount of work to get > done. > * (Warning: Lazy side of me appearing) If there's nothing broken, we > shouldn't expend the cycles on reinventing the brand which distracts > us from the real objective of the project. > > ##Reasons for not adding Apache elements: > * Some of the most successful ASF projects do not have either the > wordmark in their logo or feather-logo. Namely Hadoop, Cassandra, etc. > http://hadoop.apache.org/images/hadoop-logo.jpg > http://www.flickr.com/photos/sog/4561537432/ > * The incubator frowns on projects with an undue fascination with the > Apache brand.[1] > * If it's the feather-log it becomes much more difficult to print > > ## Potential downsides > > There are some downsides - I realize that - and am even happy to point > them out. > 1. There was previously a commercial product (as well as the project) > also known as CloudStack - and the producer of that product still has > some folks that can't discern the difference between the ASF project > and their product based on the ASF-project. (this is a training > problem with individuals, not the body corporate IMO, but I am biased) > 2. There's some striking similarity to another IaaS project, though > FWIU the two names originated within a few months of each other. > > Your thoughts, comments, and flames are welcome > > --David > > [1] > http://incubator.apache.org/guides/proposal.html#template-brand-fascination >
