Re: Principles for new name

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 8:01 PM, C. Boemann <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Saturday 06 November 2010 19:51:35 Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
>> On 6 November 2010 14:42, Mark Kretschmann <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Inge Wallin <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> The time has come to choose on a new name for our software. I'm sure
>> >> there will be lots of suggestions, some good, some, eh, maybe not
>> >> optimal. :-)
>> >>
>> >> Before we start throwing out suggestions for names, I thought it would
>> >> be useful to discuss a little about what we want to achieve. Here is my
>> >> personal view; please add more input.
>> >>
>> >> What we are creating now is something that will last a long time. A man
>> >> teaching me about the advertising industry once said "A new trademark is
>> >> completely empty. It almost doesn't matter what it is, but it should be
>> >> simple and easy to remember. The real value comes from what you put
>> >> into it." This means that whatever name we come up with will eventually
>> >> be as good as any other, but it should still follow a few principles.
>> >> The two below are based in science, the rest are my opinion.
>> >>
>> >> 1. It should sound friendly.  I think we in the KDE community is a bit
>> >> unlucky here, because K is a very hard letter.  K<whatever> just has a
>> >> slightly unfriendly feel to it. For instance Dolphin is a much
>> >> friendlier name than Konqueror. Besides, the K names are not really
>> >> favoured any more.
>> >>
>> >> 2. It turns out that companies with a name that begins in A have on
>> >> average 50% higher revenue than other companies. This is because
>> >> companies are mostly sorted alphabetically in lists. People often don't
>> >> have the energy or knowledge to pick the best choice, so they just take
>> >> something near the beginning. Perhaps we could take advantage of this
>> >> and have a first letter near the start of the alphabet.  (Blue Office
>> >> would be very good here, but there were other problems with that.
>> >> Perhaps we could just call it A Office or the A Suite? :-P)
>> >>
>> >> 3. I think we should consider calling it <something> Suite instead of
>> >> <something> Office.  This would make it more suitable(!) for Karbon and
>> >> Krita since they have indicated that their users don't like them to be
>> >> part of an office package. It would also be easier to enhance the
>> >> package later with other applications. Maybe something like DigiKam
>> >> could be part of the Suite(tm) sometimes in the future?  (note: this is
>> >> not a suggestion, just an loose thought)
>> >>
>> >> 4. Regarding the individual applications, I think we have two choices:
>> >>  - to call them <name> writer, <name> calc or something generic like
>> >> that, where <name> is the name we give the entire package.
>> >>  - to give them individual real names. A good example is the
>> >> applications in Apple iWork: Pages, Numbers and Keynote
>> >> I would prefer the second, but I'm not strongly in either camp.
>> >>
>> >> Then of course there are the other normal considerations like domain
>> >> names, etc.
>> >>
>> >> But PLEASE don't suggest any "funny" names that draw chuckles on an IRC
>> >> channel but will be dragging us down for all future to come.
>> >
>> > So you said we should not suggest names just yet? I'm going to break
>> > the rules, as I think that I have come up with something really nifty.
>>
>> Hmm sorry for interrupting but niftyness (from your POV) is not enough
>> strong reason to break the rules.
>> The one problem I already see is that calligraphy is a lot about word
>> processing, not about spreadsheets/presentations, and yet definitely
>> not at all about databases. The other is that it's relatively hard to
>> pronounce e.g. in Poland. Come on people please first try to validate
>> the ideas, e.g. check if the name has two syllable (that's the best
>> idea).
> Yeah, I don't like it either. Reminds me of something pompous with no real
> value, old fashioned and boring. The sort of name that would actually turn me
> off rather than just being neutral. This goes for many of the latin style words
> with more than 2 syllables btw.

This is coming from the guy who suggested "Kolaka"?

Please. Give me a break.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer, Software Engineer at KO GmbH
Fellow of the Free Software Foundation Europe
http://amarok.kde.org - http://fsfe.org - http://kogmbh.com