Naming & Rebranding Requirements

[deano_ferrari]

Ok, thanks for clarifying Jim.

[alessio.biancalana]

@sfalken

And MicroOS/Aeon/Kalpa don’t have 20 years of those posts hanging out on the internet waiting for people find them.

This is what worries me the most. I’m not completely adverse to a rebranding but I have to say that at the same time people just know the name “openSUSE”. A fresh start would be… well, a fresh start, even when it comes to brand awareness and popularity.

[karlggest]

I think “changing name” is a different thing about rebranding.

• openSUSE vs SUSE. There’s real problem with this? Seems people in SUSE thinks there’s. I think there’s.
• openSUSE is a organization? A set of products? What’s the meaning of “openSUSE” in a casual conversation?
• Related the last: what’s the meaning of “tries openSUSE”, “collaborating in openSUSE” and so?

The last two points with openSUSE or another name.

[sfalken]

Hi, board member here.

The Board can only act on what the community decides to do. We don’t have any real decision making authority for basically anything, under the current Governance structure (see: openSUSE:Board - openSUSE Wiki). We are only mandated to Facilitate Communication and Conflict Resolution.

I can’t speak with authority on this, but at the moment, I don’t believe the Geeko Foundation has any “Official” legal connection to the openSUSE Project. The only formal relationship at present, between SUSE S.A., openSUSE, and the Geeko Foundation is that of administering the Travel Support Program.

[SisterPenguin]

I’ve been following along with this topic, since I’m kind of interested in these types of higher level things and finally got the courage to join in. Here, I added a list of some things I could think of that are involved in rebranding. My job recently rebranded one of our initiatives, which involved a lot of these.

Some things that may need to be considered for rebranding:
In no particular order and not commenting on anything that may or may not be done already.

• Domain name & trademark & logo & copyright searches in host country/state
• Selection of Name
• Design of logo
• Creation of color scheme, branding colors
• Creation of new templates and document designs
• Trademarking of new name, logo, templates, colors, etc.
• Reservation of new domain(s)
• Establishment of new websites/forums/addressess
• Editing all referring sites/documents (including new sites) to update to new name, with old name in (), and then after sunset, editing again to remove ().
• Redirects on all old web/media sites, in help manuals, wikis, etc. (need to determine a back-to date, e.g. 5, 7, 10, 15 years)
• Establishment of end-of-life sunset for former name timeline (to be not less than 1 year from start date for new sites, typically 18-24 months at least)
• Maintenance costs (inc. time/effort) for multiple sites during transition period
• Effort in name transition, including checks for openSUSE references and redirects to new places in forums we may not think of typically, such as stack exchange, reddit, etc…
• Design of marketing materials to discuss name change, creation of stock replies for above
• Marketing plan for transition of name (should include techniques to reach loyal but quiet end users, e.g. my dad who has been using openSUSE in some form since it was S.u.S.E. but doesn’t subscribe to the forums or watch mailing lists closely)
• Incorporation of messages regarding name change into software updates, etc.
• Updates of name in individual branded software/packages that ‘ship’ with openSUSE (our own plasma, etc)
• Ensuring consistent reference and representation at conventions, conferences, and other public and broader community facing events
• Email address redirects/forwards for those with email addresses. Maintenance for two servers during transition period.
• Re-collection and recreation of mailing lists, tidying old lists to inform on change
• Traffic monitoring for web searches and site hits of old and new names and sites with analytics to determine if sunset date for old name needs to be extended
• Marketing plan analytics to ensure target market is being reached and awareness of new name is tracking favorably
• Re-contracting (or recreating use agreements) under new name
• Research to ensure clean re-contracting and/or obligations under old name are cleared and reestablished under new name; clearing obligations if needed

This will involve

• Legal aid, probably to the tune of 50-300hrs, for trademarking, research, establishment of necessary contracts etc. Possibly in multiple countries.
• Expenses and significant time investment on project planning and development of new marketing materials.
• Double maintenance costs for sites during transition (how much we currently spend? x2)
• Clear delegation of roles/responsibilities and a timeline of when changes happen and go live.
• Possible expenses for clearing squatters, etc.
• Expenses and/or time/effort for monitoring marketing plan.
• Additional community level buy-in and particularly support/time for marketing, correcting, redirecting, and representing new brand.
• Guidelines for community to discuss branding.

Just throwing a list out there to get folks thinking. Maybe such a list can then help put price tags on things?

Thanks all for your work!
SisPenguin