John Plocher wrote: > Stephen Lau wrote: >> Sure - but this isn't an issue of competing distros. This is an >> issue of one project choosing to overload a name/term that has >> already been used to mean something else. > > At the root of all this angst is the MISUSE of the word "OpenSolaris" > as a noun. > > It isn't a noun, it is an adjective. "The OpenSolaris ____" is the > proper usage. As in > > The OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) > The OpenSolaris Community > The OpenSolaris Nevada (aka ON) Community > The OpenSolaris Advocacy Community > The OpenSolaris Indiana Project > The OpenSolaris ON Consolidation > ... etc ... > > When someone say "OpenSolaris is ___", without being clear what > their implied context is, they cause confusion. One could almost > accuse them of trolling :-) > Agreed >> I think that is dangerously destructive itself to the community IF >> the community decides so. > > How can anything be destructive if *the community* decides to do > so? It seems it would be *more* destructive if some outsiders > forced the community do do something against its will. > Yes - that's my point, only I didn't word it so well. :) >> I for one would not like *any one person, or board* (whether that's >> the OGB, Jonathan Schwartz, or Ian Murdock) unilaterally make that >> decision. This is a significantly-impacting decision that I feel it >> should be a community vote. > > The OpenSolaris trademark is owned (for better or worse) by Sun. > The brand owners and decision makers at Sun (aka PR/Marketing) > are also among the core contributers in the advocacy community. > While they have chosen to develop their branding in the open, > they have not delegated their ownership rights to anyone else. > > They are currently working on branding guidelines for use of the > OpenSolaris trademark - things like "OpenSolaris Compatible", > "Built with OpenSolaris", "The OpenSolaris Appliance Distro", > and so on. > > If you wish to influence this discussion, then y'all need to > become a contributer in that community as they address these > marketing activities. While OpenSolaris governance, for the most part is left up to the various Community Groups, something that is cross-community impacting, like Indiana taking on the OpenSolaris name is exactly the kind of issue that is a board issue. > It may even be a great idea for the entire OpenSolaris mega- > community to ratify those branding guidelines once the Advocacy > Community finishes developing them. Be sure to raise the > question as part of your involvement there; doing it /here/ > isn't reaching the right audience. > Completely agree. I'm not the one who brought this discussion here. > From Sara's branding discussion at the OpenSolaris Developers > Summit this weekend, it seems that Indiana is working with > the advocacy community (or maybe the other way around) towards > the goal of being able to brand Indiana as something like: > > "The OpenSolaris Laptop Reference Distro" > or > "The Definitive OpenSolaris Core Reference Implementation" > or maybe even > "Sun's OpenSolaris Operating System" > > Today, none of the distros out there can label themselves > with the OpenSolaris brand (even though the downloads page > does so :-) One of the outcomes of the advocacy community's > brand guidelines effort is to allow them to be branded as > "built with OpenSolaris Components", OpenSolaris Compatible" > or somesuch. Just like Indiana will be able to do. That's fine, nobody would argue against "Indiana, powered by OpenSolaris" or whatever. That isn't a contentious issue at all. The issue of contention is if Indiana gets to call itself "OpenSolaris" while other distributions can't. > The elephant in this room is that people seem to fear that > Sun will usurp the OpenSolaris brand and call their Solaris10 > follow-on product simply "OpenSolaris" (the noun). Given that that's what I've been lead to believe, it seems like a reasonable thought process to me. Again, it's not a fear to me. It's a worry that Sun will usurp the OpenSolaris brand against the OpenSolaris community's desires.
I happen to actually agree fully in the desire to have a reference distribution. I think having an OpenSolaris binary distribution would do wonders. I fully support Indiana and it's desire to *BE* that distribution. I just don't think it's fair for Sun to unilaterally decide to re-brand it and name it as such. cheers, steve -- stephen lau | stevel at opensolaris.org | www.whacked.net
