Project Rebrand?

[jonte1]

Agree on some points. , my timeline:

Novell Launches Open Source Systems Management Project

Novell Plans to Open SuSE Linux Pro to Community - openSUSE Users

Before that S.u.S.E

Maybe some people involved in openSUSE from SUSE still have to much impact.
Regards

[susejunky]

@hui

This is ripped out of context. What seems to be ment is …

As I said:

@susejunky

… this is just me and its up to everybody to read the information provided by this thread, the mailinglist, the internet, etc. and to make up their minds.

and the future will have to show what all this was about …

[dcurtisfra]

If one examines the first line of a systemd Journal for any given boot, one may notice the following, at least for Leap 15.6:

[ 0.000000] kernel: Linux version 6.4.0-150600.23.14-default (geeko@buildhost) (gcc (SUSE Linux) 7.5.0,

The term “Geeko” seems to be deeply embedded in the project …

[malcolmlewis]

@dcurtisfra It is, look at the title for the Forum;

openSUSE Forums - The meeting place of all the geekos from around the openSUSE Project

[40476]

As other people have mentioned, OpenSUSE is will always be more attractive to the more cash strapped businesses and folks who want to just have a great Linux experience.

I personally dont like the whole idea of rebranding, I think it is what make SUSE well known to the less informed people. For me, I had no idea SUSE existed until I started using openSUSE. My though was : if the name is OpenSUSE, then what would SUSE be?

And having OpenSUSE keep its name helps maintain this connection. There are plenty of other ways that SUSE benefits from allowing the openSUSE brand name to be used in the way that it is.

I also believe that SUSE could also completely toss this plan out the figurative window(s) and just place some of their branding at the top of the opensuse.org website. Basically just make their stance as the biggest benefactors and trademark owners of openSUSE (correct me if wrong please.)

[CopepodLover]

From my point of view, the most important OpenSUSE quality is it’s openness and fairness: by that I mean the friendliness of the community and it’s values as listed in the code of conduct (Code of Conduct - openSUSE Wiki).
This is for me what makes openSUSE what it is and is the main reason why I use it and I would wish for those to be kept. In terms of software, I can see how a rebrand and more distance to SUSE can be an opportunity for great changes and improvements, as long as the different projects are hold together under a brand name.

Another question a lot of people are probably asking themselves is: what do all these changes mean for me as a user of an OpenSUSE project?
What infrastructural changes will this rebranding imply and what implications will these changes have on the project(s) (them)/(it)self and on the end user.

For example some people already noticed that GeekoOS is based in the UK - and some people are already worried about what privacy issues this can imply.
Depending what an infrastructure does this can can have an impact of why or why not someone will use a Distribution.

And finally, I think that it would be great to make something like an ‘update blogpost’ or thread. Right now, people are already making assumptions (on Reddit for example - people already mentioned that GeekoOS is affiliated with the new project - even when I read here that it apparently isn’t but I could not find any official information easily) and I think that the difficulty of getting through all the information is not helping people to understand what is going on. I only know about the rebrand since an hour or something, and I had no idea about it!
These kinds of informations should be easily accessible and easy to fact-check, because the confusion is more prone to make people stop using any openSUSE project. Some people are now asking themselves if Leap will even still be existing in one year or two and this kind of dread is not helping making a good transition.

Cleaning up the misconceptions and the misinformation that is floating around is really important for people to even understand what is going on.

This is just what I can add to the discussion as a user and not someone who is actively developing anything. I am really looking forward and I am motivated to see where this will lead.
As for a brand name, I would like something that has to do with a Chameleon, a Gecko or a lizard (but I would be careful with any direct species name, since some species might have problematic colonial or racist connotations that we might not know of). I always thought the logo was a Chameleon so I prefer this over a Gecko.
Proposals:
Lizux or Chamelinux (these ones are probably too close to Linux tho),
Chameluxon or ChameluxonOS,
Chamelelux,
Tokek seems to be the Javanese word for the Tokay Gecko - TokekOS or Tokex (x for Linux but the x is far fetched)

Would there be a possibility to make a proposals and a votation for a brand name? I think that on this, the community surely has some creative and language-versed people who might have a cool idea.

[sedot]

I don’t know if there is any discussion about possible names for the “umbrella organization”, so i’ll just leave my suggestions here.
There are distributions that symbolize movement (Tumbleweed, Slowroll, Leap) and time (Aeon, Kalpa) in their naming, maybe a nickname to that may be appropriate.
The beloved gecko still fits as a mascot, imo.

[Product1856]

First of all, PLEASE don’t rename it GeekOS. It sounds so stupid and unprofessional. Look up the etymology of “geek”.

Second of all, PLEASE keep some kind of chameleon logo.

I think Tumbleweed is already a very established brand. When you hear people talking elsewhere, e.g. reddit, /g/, phoronix, you will always have people talk about “Tumbleweed” rather than “OpenSUSE Tumbleweed”.

Also it’s the upstream distro from which all the others are derived.

A possible naming scheme:

• oS Tumbleweed → Tumbleweed Linux
• oS Slowroll → Tumbleweed Slowroll
• oS MicroOS → Tumbleweed MicroOS
• oS Aeon → Tumbleweed Aeon
• oS Kalpa → Tumbleweed Kalpa

These ones are quite clear because they’re really just slightly different versions of Tumbleweed, i.e. with slower updates or as an immutable version. Leap is tricker, but it’s also based on Tumbleweed, indirectly via SLE and Packagehub. It’s definitely not just a free version of SLE, because for example SLE doesn’t support Plasma or Xfce but Leap does.

• oS Leap → Tumbleweed Leap (or Tumbleweed Stable?)

Then in the end, Tumbleweed Linux would be to SUSE Linux Enterprise what Fedora Linux is to Red Hat Enterprise Linux: an upstream version with up to date packages, a variety of desktop environments, community-led, and mostly independent decision-making. And “Tumbleweed Leap” would be a bit like CentOS before it got killed or Alma Linux today.

[asdhio]

I think the new Gecko logo will stay. They had a logo rebrand not too long ago.

[RG]

I think the project Rebrand Project has been well intentioned but badly managed. This has resulted in speculation, wideranging comments, some off the mark and/or resulting from misunderstandings. It may be also causing some to question the future of OpenNotSuSE.

I think the directors/ board members/ powers that be need to explicitly define their intentions with their recommendations and programme. If seeking comments/ feedback from the community some guidelines (who/ what/ when) are needed to help focus the responses

[hendersj]

@RG

I think the project Rebrand Project has been well intentioned but badly managed.

So far, it’s nothing more than a request from SUSE, which spawned some discussions. It’s not a “project” per se yet, as far as I am aware.

[butcherbird]

Maybe someone should set out to woo Carl at system76 away from ubuntu and debian. Infrastructure, more devs and new awkward name all in one go. They get an OS that’s both up to date and stable at same time. I’m mostly joking…

[asdhio]

If we’re renaming OpenSUSE, could we also rename OBS?
Every time I search for documentation I always end up getting results for the other OBS until I append ‘OpenSUSE’ to it.

[deano_ferrari]

This is a lengthy thread. See Jim’s reply to my suggestion about that…

Project Rebrand?

I don’t know about that, though. If you think from the perspective of how the different distros relate to each other - Tumbleweed → SLE → Leap is the progression. With OBS, I don’t think it makes sense to rebrand that - it’s an openSUSE Project, but it is able to be used by any distro, really. The same holds true for things like kiwi. I found the talk from the conference to be very illuminating from a structural perspective. Definitely worth watching to get a clearer picture of how things f…

[deano_ferrari]

I really dislike the ‘Geeko’ name. I have reservations about it due to its already mentioned negative connotations, and would be concerned that it would not be perceived as serious and professional. Additionally, the combination of a chameleon logo with a different animal name is also strange IMHO.

[brunomcl]

Same here.

[seasoned_geek]

@sfalken

Well, right off, I thought it was a mistake in 2005 to call it openSUSE, and I still think it’s a mistake.

Ah, you can blame the criminal enterprise known as Gartner Group. Microsoft paid them to declare Windows an “open” platform despite it being the most proprietary platform in the world, then went around to all the weekly trade publications declaring “Proprietary bad – Open good.” This is how VMS got re-branded to OpenVMS in the 1990s (despite not being OpenSource) and how you ended up with the name OpenSuSE.

@sfalken

They are giving us the opportunity to discuss, as a community, a request from them, as the Trademark Holder of the name SUSE, openSUSE, and the representations of that, such as the Geeko Logos and other marks.

Yes, it won’t be clean or easy. You will have to come up with your own logos, icons, and other marks. You won’t be able to have 12 year old kids call themselves “Maintainer of Package A” just because they make sure it builds. No more linking back to SuSE repos that will pull in stuff using trademarked logos.

Linux Mint did not consider any of this when they chose to be a YABU (Yet Another uBUntu). Now that Ubuntu has added a second virus to their repo, the “Upgrade to Ubuntu Pro” virus, buried in the MS Core Fonts package that the “Maintainers” at Mint just glad hand through, if you install core fonts your Mint desktop nags you to upgrade to Ubuntu Pro.

I suspect that SuSE is contemplating viruses of their own trying to pitch upgrades.

[malcolmlewis]

@seasoned_geek sounds very ‘fuddy’ No virus, the ability to move from Leap to SLES has been there for some time, but it doesn’t nag you…
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:How_to_migrate_to_SLE

[malcolmlewis]

@seasoned_geek you really do have a ‘Bee in your bonnet’ nothing is changing with respect to the actual distribution, logos, branding remain the same and will proceed as they have done. Leap 15.6 may morph into Leap 15.7 even. Tumbleweed will keep rolling with my Nvidia GPU’s running as they have always done, 560.31.02 runs fine.

Leap will continue to run my Nvidia kubernetes compute node, might even change that to my ARC with oneapi in the near future. Likewise Leap continues to run my RPi3’s and ADS-B setup without any drama…

Aeon RC3 with FDE is getting there… but runs fine (I need to learn some selinux foo), no secure boot and TPM 2.0.

[hui]

As this thread should be about the future of openSUSE, it would be good to stick with the facts and don’t make up some shady storys. Additionally to be able to shape the future, it is important to know the history and actual state of the projects (including correct spelling of the project names/brandings).

Permanently refering to SuSE (this was 21 years ago!) instead of the correct spelling SUSE and OpenSuSE (which btw never existed) instead of openSUSE shows some lack of understanding of the actual state and condition of both projects.