[Fedora-marketing-list] Re: Red Hat's Fedora to Get Longer Support

[hymno3]

You hit it right there.

(Few points though, I wouldn't dare say that Fedora is the most popular
distribution; it could be but there's no way of telling.
And whereas "Linux" is hot, "GNU" (as such) is not.
I figure there are only few people that wouldn't greatly respect RMS,
but His GNUness would be given special credits anyway, with or without
"Fedora GNU Slash Linux" (yeah, don't forget the "slash" :) ).
In compensation, we should not mention Linus/x either - the guy even
admits to hating GN...ome. ;) )


Naming is a very messy business. Attempts to name something with the
idea in mind to express its "core identity", its background, or its
essence, are bound to fail.
Say I want to name our child "Becky" (fictitious as all of my examples),
but my wife hates this girl she was once bullied by (fiction again),
named also Becky.
Is that a good choice then? I might have thousands of great arguments
why "Becky" has a wonderful meaning, background, etc. But no, it's a bad
choice because it will have the very wrong references.

I don't really *associate* the word Linux with "Fedora" immediately, or
the other way around. I associate it with Yum, SELinux, the Fedora logo,
Gnome, Red Hat, the user forums, even the Sony PlayStation 3, the fact
that it was the first distro that works just how I want it to; all sorts
of things - and of course, with "Linux" too - one of the many
references.

A name "Fedora Linux", however, would narrow down possible associations
people could have with such a name. For a lot of people, "Linux" is
still something that *refers* to the technical, geeky, anti-Windows
trolls, something just for servers, for businesses, you know the drill ~
unfair of course.

So the question is, what do we want the Fedora name to refer to, to be
associated with? Perhaps with "a great, no-stress, no hassle open source
software experience", with "programs that invite you to join, share,
adapt, learn, and use, in stead of try to make you hate them"?
Just "Fedora" would give people using or hearing it *much more freedom
in associating* that name with whatever they feel about it ~ exactly
because it doesn't really mean anything, when it comes to computing.

"Linux" refers to too many specific things and that's why it's not an
ideal (part of a) name for a distribution.

Then again, you might know these lines,

	"That which we call a rose
	by any other word would smell as sweet."
;)

I see I spent a lot of words on this issue.
Well, that would be enough, after all, who am I.
 

best of regards,
herman


Op vr, 12-01-2007 te 00:55 +0800, schreef Siddharth Upmanyu:
> 
> +1 to just 'Fedora'
> as far as googlish or newbie understandable naming stands, i dont
> think we need to look into it to that extent that we decide what the
> name of Fedora to be changed to...
> Fedora is the most popular distro these days and people will get
> educated about it 
> 
> GNU and Linux is hot these days... we must make a mark on the road too
> but not being in boundries of the big but by creating a brand itself.
> 
> Siddharth
> 
> 
> 
> 
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