[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [tiago@debian-ba.org: Re: New name: Call for opinions]



Hi Andreas,

On Monday 25 August 2008 22:53, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Does a name really need to say something.  What says the name
>
>       Debian
>       Sun    (double meaning is intended)
>       Tiago
>
> A name is just a tag you put on a thing that exists somehow.  We have
> to define what we mean first and then tag it with the name we agreed to.

I'm getting a bit annoyed by your repeatatly stated attitude, that the name 
doesnt really matter, as long as its not CDD. Your main argument for this 
seems to be that any name can be misunderstood.

If this were true, why change the name at all?

IMHO the name DIS has a lot of potential to become as misunderstood as CDD. As 
said in my blogpost I posted here, i dont think neither Debian, nor Debian 
Edu or Debian Med is a _solution_. Thus, by marketing them as such (and this 
is what a name is also used for very much) we will harm Debian (Edu|Med): 
people will install it and find out, that it's not a real solution, "only" 
something to base a solution on.

(You said in another reply we could use versioning to convey the message that 
our solution might not be a real solution yet. I wonder how you think that 
should work: Debian will release 5.0 soon, Debian Edu probably 4.0 or also 
5.0....)

> You don't like it?  Fine.  Last month I solved this kind of issues by
> offereing a beer / whatever at DebConf.  Feel invited to have a drink
> at my account at next DebConf. ;-)

Again, what do you want to say with this? That we should all get drunk and not 
care anymore?

It seems (well, you stated it explicitly..) you don't like naming discussions, 
I guess thats why you want them to be short and thats why you offer these 
beers. 

Believe me, if a bad name is choosen, we will have many and long naming 
discussions in future (or the name will not be picked up and everybody will 
just stick to CDD). So if you don't like naming discussions, you should 
rather have a long one _now_.

And if the name isnt clear in itself, such one has to read the definition of 
the term anyway, we dont need to change the name neither. We already have 
such a name.

Changing this name has high costs, CDD is everywhere, not only in many peoples 
minds, but also in package names, in binaries/scripts, in manpages, in 
several web pages (we will loose search engine relevance) and documentations, 
plus their translations. So we really shouldn't choose a new name lightly.

Even though I'd like to be constructive and suggest a better name now, I'm not 
sure if this is even a sensible approach. IMO we need to define the thing 
first, and then look for a name. Do we have such a definition written down 
somewhere? IMO this definition should also be short (while still complete), 
three paragraphs at maximum, better two, even better one. 

Anyway, to not only critice let me suggest two names: "Compilation Inside 
Debian" (CID) (Debian integrated Compilation sounds like dick) or "Debian 
Remixed Distribution" (DRD). A thesaurus should be helpful to find other 
iterations of the same meme. (BTW, I dont think we have to go for a three 
letter acronym, two, four, five or six letters are also entirely valid 
options :-)


In summary: please don't choose the name lightly, just because you want to do 
other stuff instead. Do other stuff, if you don't want to discuss the name, 
and leave that to people who want to.


regards,
	Holger

Attachment: pgpYBoPiFl5CU.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: