On Sat, 2011-07-09 at 11:12 +0100, David McKay wrote: > <snip> > On 09/07/11 07:58, eric b wrote: > > > > > > The .org is and was always essential to the community. > > > Why? Out of the folk on the OOo forum who expressed an opinion to me, no > one liked it. It was a perpetual reminder that the product couldn't be > called what they really wanted it to be called: OpenOffice. I greatly > prefer Apache OpenOffice to Apache OpenOffice.org. > > Dave.
As Peter Junge has stated, this discussion has a repetitive deja vu feel about it. There are number of most excellent things about the name openoffice.org, none of which relate to people who are involved in the community and this includes the people at OOoForum, they don't need to. It does however have beneficial effects for the New User or New Client which of course the Marketing project thinks of constantly. It tells this New Client, who may not be at all familiar with, or even heard the name, a number of things. It tells them that it is open, and so it starts to introduce the concept of open source or reinforces the idea for someone who is looking for Open Source Solutions. It tells them that it is an office type application and it tells them that it is a web based project with the .org on the end and at the same time gives them the web address. For the web savvy user, the .org tells them that there is a noncommercial organisation in place, a community in other words. It is a webaddress, which is important in a product whose entire distribution of product and collateral is webbased. Not openoffice.com, not open-office.com, which people would more likely put into an address bar, but OpenOffice.org, clear, precise, no confusion, put OpenOffice.org in your address bar or google and the new user will get to where they need to go. The name is not about what the community feels comfortable with. It is however about branding Branding needs continuity Branding is client focussed. The brand is 14 characters strung together in a very recognisable format, Upper case Os in OpenOffice with dot and lower case o on org. OpenOffice.org. In text on a page of typeface it is recognisable without bugs like the "gulls". The diminutive in the format OOo is as recognisable. Google it sometime. The OOo community has always been well known for the strength of it's marketing. Diluting the brand by dropping the .org or tacking Apache (which has even lower brand recognition in our target market) on the end is, from a marketing POV, close to suicidal. Where marketing requires brand development with zero budget, it makes the marketers job very difficult because changing the name throws away 10 years of marketing collateral. It needs to be left as is. If the Apache rules say that "Apache" has to be appended, then the rule needs changing. I'd be happy to dump the gulls and add the feather as a bug. I'd be happy to add "by apache" as a tagline. But OpenOffice.org is the name of the software, the website and the community, it should remain unsullied and unaltered. Unless of course someone can come up with several hundred thousand for a marketing budget to launch a new global brand. Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant.
