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.
