Re: Don't mess with our brand [Was: 'GNOME', 'Gnome']

[John Williams <john williams lists gmail com>]

> Our project has a name. It is "GNOME". You may not like it, but that's what
> it is. 
Regarding capitalisation of acronyms: it is acceptable to reduce
capitalised acronyms to sentence case if no equivalent word exists,
hence "radar" and "laser" etc.  But "Gnome", in English, means
"unusually small person" or similar.  It should always be GNOME to avoid
confusion.


> Please, don't screw around with it for your own satisfaction alone -- until we change our
> brand/identity, we must protect what we have.
This is the most important point.  As a brand name, "GNOME" sucks rocks,
principally because of the connotations it has in English.  If GNOME is
the GNU Network Object Model Environment (a name that was chosen, I am
absolutely positive, because it spells out "gnome" when made into an
acronym; but for no other reason) why not call it "GDE" instead?  (GNU
Desktop Environment), or, to avoid confusion with KDE, GNE (GNU Network
Environment)?

It is my view that GNOME would easily survive a brand-name change.  The
very fact that we have changed the name (if we do!) may even generate so
much publicity and interest that the project will be re-vitalised.  

But we would have to make our message clear: why are we changing the
name?  Not because of a flamewar on a mailing list; but because now that
GNOME is in the Big League, we realise that our branding, which was fine
for the beginnings of the project, needs to change to reflect our
professionalism.  (Being professional does not imply kowtowing to the
running dogs of the capitalist hegemony, by the way!)