[advocacy-discuss] OpenSolaris Branding Guidelines - an alternate proposal

[John Plocher]

Patrick Finch wrote:
> I don't agree that "OpenSolaris" works as an adjective.  

I like your alternative of an attributive noun.

My objection is simply that we (Sun, the OpenSolaris Community,
or an arbitrary OpenSolaris CG Project) should not formally
define any particular distro as the singular "Opensolaris"

Of course, people are fond of simplifying things, and will
naturally elide "the SunOS 5.10 ON consolidation, which is
released as part of Solaris 10" to simply "Solaris".  Most
of the time it is clear from context what is meant.  The other
times it causes mass confusion :-)

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to be precise.

> If making that statement addresses the concerns of the OGB and others, I 
> think it is fine.  I would point out that we could talk of
> The Ubuntu Community
> The Ubuntu Community Council
> The Ubuntu Gamers Arena
> ...
> 
> Ubuntu is ultimately an operating system and so, too, is OpenSolaris, 


The difference is that Ubuntu isn't trying to encourage multiple
peer top-level distros, and we are.

In the Ubuntu world, there is Ubuntu at the top, and a bunch of
secondary, derived distros below.

In the OpenSolaris world, I think we want to have a family of
top level peer distro definitions.  Laptops, appliances, enterprise,
web server, ....

Instead of trying to comingle all those tasks, Indiana should
be focused on producing three things:

    1) A recipe for "Core Laptop OpenSolaris"
    2) Superset recipes for "Really Cool Laptop OpenSolaris",
       "Really Cool Enterprise OpenSolaris", and the like.
       Or maybe it spawns off new projects to do so...
    3) An instantiation of one of these recipes, as proof that
       recipes, packaging and repositories work and are usable.

Once these goals have been reached, the Indiana project is done.
There certainly will be follow on projects to productize distros
based on those recipes, improve and extend them, create new ones,
etc.

In this context, the 6-month release cycle desire is simply a
product planning function involving release engineering and a
distro production project; we used to call them W-Teams and
W-Consolidations.  Congradulations, we have come full circle.

I would expect that the OpenSolaris downloads page would contain
installers for all these recipes; when you go to the opensolaris
web site and click download, you get to choose which type/version
of opensolaris distro you want to install.  Sounds just like what
Ian has been asking for, but more/better :-)

> Could you use the definite article even where there could be more than 
> one implementation of an OpenSolaris GNOME Laptop Distro ?

We want anyone who wishes to to be able to take the recipe for
one of those top level distros, instantiate it, and be able to
redistribute it as an OpenSolaris branded entity, right?

If it is made from the exact same bits and exact same recipe, it
/is/ the exact same distro.

So, yes, in the case where you use the same ingredients and the
same recipe, it is the same apple pie. (aren't distributed
repositories fun?)

The difference between points A, B and C on my proposal was
specifically how compatible/exact your version was, compared
to the official OpenSolaris reference definitions.  If it is
exactly the same, it should be named the same; if it is a
superset, it should indicate that, and if it is a subset, well,
that should be said as well.

The use-case is an ISV who makes an application - what distros
will it run on?  We want to be able to use the OpenSolaris brand
to help make this determination.

> Given that Sun, who owns the trademark, intends to bring out an 
> enterprise distro called "Solaris", I can imagine that there would be 
> some resistance if another entity produced something called the 
> OpenSolaris Enterprise Distro. 

In my vision (remember, I wear glasses :-), Sun's Enterprise
Solaris.next will be based on OpenSolaris.  Making several
leaps of faith as I head out on this limb, I'd assert that
it should be branded as

    Solaris11, built on the OpenSolaris Enterprise Distro with
	Sun Value Added

and NOT as

    OpenSolaris, the new version of Solaris. From Sun.

This is a direct bad result of Sun's use of its Solaris Brand in the
naming and creation of our community :-(

> Although I realise that the example was 
> illustrative and not literal, it does raise the point, who is allowed to 
> define which nouns may have "OpenSolaris" attributed to them?

I'm asserting that it needs to be the OpenSolaris Community, but
that can only happen if Sun agrees to do so; we can't force them to
delegate their authority against their will.

This is what the OpenSolaris Branding Guidelines need to address.
It needs to be an actionable and testable decision tree, and it needs
to be signed off on by both Sun and the OpenSolaris Community.

Once we have the guidelines, I'm hoping that it is an easy matter
(ARC fasttrack or simple full case) to propose new "OpenSolaris-able
nouns", and that we will have several, but not dozens, over time.

We'd be in a lot of hurt if we ended up with a bunc of vanity
distro names like
    "The OpenSolaris Plocher reference distro of broken perl scripts"
:-)

> Agree, but think that we have a little more common understanding here 
> first. 

Strongly agree - we need a lot more common understanding.

   -John