[osol-mktg] Re: Sponsor Project Indiana

[Eric Boutilier]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Alan Coopersmith <alan.coopersmith at sun.com> wrote:
>
>> Patrick Finch wrote:
>>> Are being a "pure community driven project" and "especially blessed by
>>> Sun" mutually exclusive?
>>
>> They have been in the past - if Schillix, Belenix, Martux or Nexenta had
>> asked to be able to use the OpenSolaris name, they would likely have been
>> denied.    That it's an option now seems to be because a Sun executive is
>> pushing for this project.
>>
>> Is that good or bad?   I don't know - but it's one of the issues that people
>> think about when naming a distro "OpenSolaris".
>
> If Sun would name a distro "opensolaris" this would cause a big confusion
> for many people.

I totally agree, however, IMO, if the OpenSolaris Community were to name a
distro OpenSolaris, it would not cause much confusion. My personal
interpretation[1] of that kind of scenario is that we (the OpenSolaris
Community) could do the following:

- Follow the group voting procedures documented in the constitution.

- Subsequently, if there is a positive result from the vote, collaborate
   with Sun (the Software Marketing group would be my guess) on terms. That
   is, for the specific use of the word OpenSolaris that was voted on.

Thoughts anyone?

Eric

1. Which is to say, not Sun's interpretation nor anyone else's.