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

[Brandorr]

On 10/22/07, Steve Kunzer <Steve.Kunzer at sun.com> wrote:
>
>  As far as I can make out we're talking about a number of distinct entities,
> which may (or may not) deserve distinct terms:
>
>  1/ The core codebase (can I call it a kernel? or O/N?)
>  2/ The community
>  3/ The projects which are being built around it (on it?)
>  4/ A (potential) distribution
>  5/ A marketing ploy by Sun (?)
>
>  So, previous to this discussion (and the one Brian has started on
> OpenSolaris TM), I foolishly thought that:
>
>  1/ was OpenSolaris (in the same way that the Linux kernel is called
> 'Linux')
>  2/ was called "the OpenSolaris Community" (in the same way that Linux users
> of all distros could be termed "the Linux community", although, yes,
> opensolaris.org refers to 'the community' as 'the opensolaris project')
>  3/ were simply sub-projects built on/around #1, which may (or may not) be
> included in any distro built on #1 (e.g. operating system 'extensions')
>  4/ was called whatever the distro wanted (e.g. Nexenta, Belenix, etc) but
> was *not* called "OpenSolaris"
>  5/ was not going to be used by Sun as a product name, but may be used
> within the marketing of Solaris by way of "built on OpenSolaris".
>
>  But the arguments in this thread make me realise the arguments around
> naming are much more complex.
>
>  I would suggest that complications over and above the definitions above
> (which admittedly need refining) will cause confusion amongst anyone
> interested in becoming involved, or even interested in using it!
>
>  However, if 'the community' decide that OpenSolaris is actually going to be
> a distro, and other distros may be built on that (like Ubuntu for example),
> that's another story. In which case, 2, 4 and possibly 5 remain as above, 1
> & 3 combined are then called OpenSolaris and there is no name for #1.
> However, Solaris (which is a distro) is built on #1, not a (theoretical)
> OpenSolaris distro, and that could become more accurate as the 'distro'
> OpenSolaris and Solaris diverge.
>
>  >>
>  I'd rather we just stop trying to draw parallels to things. Why do we
> need to be like anyone? I think our position is unique.
>  I don't necessarily disagree, but unless that uniqueness can be articulated
> in a way that is (at least relatively) easy to understand, then confusion
> will reign! If 'the community' doesn't know or agree what it's talking
> about, then how can we expect the rest of the world to understand.
>
>  So my two cents are these: Is OpenSolaris a distro or not? The answer to
> that question will help clarify the rest. (and if it *is*, then there should
> be a name for the part of OpenSolaris that is the core from which other
> distros *could* be built).

Steve,

I don't think the community is of one mind on this question. When I
initially joined the community, I thought that there should be an
OpenSolaris Distro, but I didn't factor in that the current distros
would still be barred from using OpenSolaris. Nor did I understand the
history of the community.

I now feel, like many, that OpenSolaris should not be a distro name.
But should be limited to refer to 1) The community, and b) The
sourcecode, and to a much lesser degree c) the website/infrastructure.

-Brian Gupta

>
>  Cheers,
>  Steve K.
>
>
>
>
>  Stephen Lau wrote:
>  Simon Phipps wrote:
>
>
>  On Oct 19, 2007, at 23:05, S h i v wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>  Except it isn't. The breadth of the overall OpenSolaris project,
> and the insignificance of the traffic concerning ON proportional
> to all
> the rest of the traffic, shows that whatever the words may say, the
> actions demonstrate that OpenSolaris is a peer of Ubuntu, OpenBSD,
> Fedora (etc) rather than of kernel.org. We first need to own up to
> that reality.
>
>
>
>  The overall OpenSolaris project refers to opensolaris.org and the
> projects hosted here. This again has nothing to do with a distro.
> Attempt to make OpenSolaris==Distro is a current effort.
> Rest of the points takes this as a given (which is quite not the case)
> and uses that as the starting point of discussion.
>
>
>  But those projects at opensolaris.org are the component parts of a
> distro, not the component parts of a kernel. So, as I say, the
> community here is far closer to Ubuntu than it is to kernel.org
>
>
>  I'd rather we just stop trying to draw parallels to things. Why do we
> need to be like anyone? I think our position is unique.
>
> We are not like kernel.org since we are building an active community
> whereas kernel.org is effectively a download site for kernel source.
>
> We are not like Sourceforge.net in that we have an over-arching theme to
> all the projects and code hosted, that is to say - our "OpenSolaris"
> theme is more focused and narrower than Sourceforge's. Sourceforge is
> more a collection of silos with little to interaction between projects.
>
> We are not like Ubuntu in that our projects and our code target multiple
> distributions. The work happening on Ubuntu's site ostensibly is all
> targeted towards Ubuntu. The work happening on OpenSolaris.org targets
> multiple consolidations, multiple projects, and multiple distributions.
>
> cheers,
> steve
>
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
- Brian Gupta

http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nycosug/