__/ On Saturday 27 August 2005 17:30, [Yves] wrote : \__
> On Sat, 27 Aug 2005, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> With names like SuSE, Fedora and Mandriva, in particular with changes
>> from masculine names like Red Hat and Mandrake, is it possible that
>> distributors see more potential in using feminine names? This is by no
>> means a critique, but a question to which I failed to find an answer on
>> the Web.
>
> What in the world is feminine about the words SuSE, Fedora and Mandriva?
> Or masculine, for that matter.
>
>> On a different topic, my experience has taught me that there is /far/
>> more to a name than there ought be. I still feel embarrassed to
>> recommend applications called "Firebox", "Thunderbird", "Mozilla" or
>> "GIMP"...
>
> Thunderbird was the name of an automobile from Ford. What's
> wrong with the word? It actually comes from North American Indian
> mythology, I believe.
>
> If this isn't a troll, it's an excellent imitation.
There was a reason why I brought this up. I personally use SuSE, but people
who are unfamiliar with the O/S can come up with sarcastic comments. Call
it Suz or call it Suzie, in my humble opinion it still does not project the
same meaning as it does when you see the acronym.
When trying to encourage somebody to switch to Linux (which I have done
successfully on several occasions) the names of distros and
components/programs still pose difficulties. We may assume people know or
heard of Firefox, or at least Mozilla. The matter of fact is that /most/
people just hear "Outlook this, Outlook that" and press the "Blue E".
When advising somebody to install Ubuntu, for example, being rock-solid and
user-friendly, what will the first step be? Send them to the Web site to
order a CD, right? What will they see? Three half-naked people holding
hands. What will they see in ms.com? A guy in a suit holding a tablet, for
example? Which one will a naïve user be more likely to /trust/?
To penetrate the commercial world, can we not find some shareable photos,
names and labels that instill better sense of trust in the visitors' minds?
A lightweight page like Debian's does not do the trick either. It is still
hard for me to persuade people to use Linux, even though it's free.
Roy
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