Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)

[Karsten Wade]

On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 18:44 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Karsten Wade wrote:
> 
> > This confusion is happening in this thread, not made any easier because
> > everyone keeps asking what "Fedora" means.  It doesn't mean anything, it
> > means several things, and what can we do about that?
> 
> Fortunately, we're not alone in this quandary.  We need only look as far 
> as the Apache Software Foundation and ask, "what did they do about this?"
> 
> Well, for starters, they came up with identifiable names for all of their
> projects.  HTTP Server.  Ant.  Tomcat.  Cocoon.  Maven.  NOT: "The Apache
> Web Server Project" and "The Apache Java Build Tool Project"  and "The
> Apache Java Servlet Engine Project" and so forth.  And when you talk about
> the Apache Software Foundation, you talk about "the ASF", not "Apache".  
> I wonder if we could take a lesson from that.

Certainly could.  /me ponders what to call the documentation project

We get our current practices somewhat from Red Hat branding habits.
It's the branding debate of "Porsche 911" v. "Ford family of
automobiles."  Red Hat is firmly in the Porsche camp.

Still, projects gain some visibility and credentials by having the
Fedora word as part of the name.  There are many Apache projects I
wouldn't know are Apache related until I see the project URL.  I don't
know if this is good or not.

One good thing would be the dropping of all these extra TLAs.

> It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but the further we go 
> down this path, the more it becomes clear to me.  I will make the 
> following statement, and I will make it in an absolutist way, and ask 
> people to agree, or not:
> 
>   The goal of the Fedora Marketing Project is NOT to "market Fedora" as 
>   an entity.  The goal, rather, IS to explain, promote and recruit for 
>   individual Fedora projects.

+1 for the IS part

The first part leans on an unexplained definition of "marketing".

AIUI, the point is, stop thinking of Fedora as a singularity and start
thinking of it as a multilarity.  Or just plain hilarity.

- Karsten
  (yes, I know it is "multiplicity", but then the joke doesn't work)
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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