Re: FSF, terminology, and marketing

[Shane Fagan <shanepatrickfagan ubuntu com>]

Well I dont think many people outside of FSF care. Its harder to say
GNU/Linux and more people simply call it just linux. We should respect
the FSF but its not a big deal in my opinion. Its just politics. 

Regards
Shane Fagan

On Fri, 2009-09-18 at 17:07 -0500, Brian Cameron wrote:
> Marketing Team:
> 
> The Free Software Foundation (FSF) encourages the usage of the term
> "GNU/Linux" instead of the term "Linux", and also discourages referring
> to free software and licenses as "open source".  Their argument, which
> I think is valid, is that doing so helps to highlight free software and
> bring positive attention towards the free software community.
> 
> A few people have recently complained to the board that the GNOME
> community sometimes does not always follow these recommendations.  I
> imagine that some of these issues are caused by people just not being
> thoughtful about the terminology that they use, but I also do not
> believe that the GNOME community has an official stance on what language
> we should be using.  At any rate, we should probably be consistent with
> the language we use in more official GNOME Foundation communications.
> So, I think it is good to discuss and find out what the overall GNOME
> community thinks about this before making any sort of decision or
> encouraging people to use one term or another.
> 
> On one hand, since we are a GNU project and since one of the
> long-standing objectives of the GNOME community has been to promote
> free software, there is a good argument for following these
> recommendations and making it a more official policy that we try to
> use the terminology recommended by the FSF.
> 
> On the other hand, I know that some people in our community feel that
> it makes more sense to use the terms "Linux" and "open source" since
> they have more traction in the business world, and are more familiar.
> We often have trouble explaining what "GNOME" is to people, and it
> perhaps makes it harder when we use terms that are unfamiliar or that
> do not have traction.  So, there may be situations or types of
> communication where going against the FSF recommendations makes sense.
> However, if we feel that we should go against the recommendations of the
> FSF, we probably should have some solid reasoning for doing so.
> 
> Also, I think the GNOME Foundation needs to be sensitive to those
> partners with which we have close working relationships.  For example,
> we need to be sensitive to what opinions those on the advisory board
> might have to say about the terminology we use.  So, I have suggested to
> Stormy that we raise this topic at an upcoming advisory board meeting
> and find out what they think about this.  Whether or not they care would
> likely be an important input to consider in making any decision.
> 
> Perhaps it makes sense to use different terms when talking to different
> audiences.   Perhaps we should make more of an effort to use the terms
> recommended by the FSF when communicating with some audiences, and use
> other terms in other situations.  If so, perhaps we need to think about
> when it makes sense to use which terms and make this more clear so
> people have some guidance about what terms to use and when.
> 
> So, I am interested to hear what the GNOME marketing community thinks
> about this.  Since many of the documents where we use these terms are
> in public-facing documents such as marketing materials, PR, press
> releases, etc. I think whatever terms we use should be something that
> the marketing team thinks about and has input on any decisions made.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Brian