I recently added a feature to Gimmie. I replaced the “Computer” topic with one called “Linux”, which contains all the same stuff:
(Btw, this is really just handed out by Python, so it’ll say Solaris or FreeBSD correctly).
There are two related reasons to do this. They have to do with marketing and branding the Linux desktop. I know I know, you’ve probably just spit at the mention of such things. I hope you’ll read on anyway…
Linux is a strong brand, it turns out. Many, many people recognize it as a unique name representing a special kind of computer software.
That single five-letter word is one of only two free software names that have managed to filter up to a larger audience. One that includes non-geeks. (The other word is Firefox.) This is amazing!
This fact is all the more incredible because the free software community — the very people who make the name worth knowing in the first place — try everything possible to sabotage the Linux brand.
No one outside of our community has heard of Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, GNOME, KDE, Debian, Gentoo, or any of the other arbitrary project subdivisions we make up. Chances are pretty good that they never will.
This doesn’t stop us from the constant arguing and public debate over the merit of one versus the other. Almost as if it’s a more important distinction than making the flying leap to try out our Linux-based software in the first place. As if the free software goals aren’t being accomplished when people choose one project’s offerings over those of another.
What’s worse, we happily allow distributions to collude the strong brand we have built, replacing Linux with their own chosen naming. You can see this with every distribution in the form of de facto changes adding an icon here or a splash screen there. Why they do this is understandable: brands are very powerful. They empower their owner to use all sorts of techniques to create a value proposition against the competition. Marketing people eat this up, and they defend the brands they control using any means necessary.
Anyway, it’s probably best for all parties that regular guys never hear about all our project distinctions and their associated micro-brands. People would be so annoyed and overwhelmed that they’d never look back from the cozy arms of the Windows and Mac (strong brands indeed) worlds they come from.
So the first reason for the Gimmie change is to help people accept that Linux is our brand, and to help bring that out and to forefront so we can begin to galvanize behind it.
Imagine how much stronger our community would be, how much more energy would be shared instead of duplicated, if every news article or blog post comparing one Linux project unfavorably to another was met with a simple resounding reply:
Linux is a single project intended for the common good of all people. The divisions you draw serve only to fracture and distract our progress. Please stop.
Sure, in the short term Linux distributions will continue their status quo of rebranding. As is their right, they may even patch Gimmie to replace “Linux” with their preferred proprietary trademark. But distributions that do this do so without my approval, and I hope, by extension, without yours.
The second reason for the change has to do with actively increasing brand recognition for Linux.
Let’s have an illustrative example to show why this is needed. After you finish reading, boot your machine and count the number of times you see “Linux”. Sadly, chances are good you’ll see it one or two times in the terminal output before your distribution’s splash screen takes over.
Now consider how diverse and configurable every Linux desktop is. Panels and docks can be put anywhere. Labels, icons, and themes are drastically variant. The navigation needed to open a Web browser, for example, is impossible to predict. In fact, it’s nearly impossible for someone not seeped in the nuances of free software to know they’re even looking at Linux!
So Gimmie makes it a little more obvious. Linux desktops that say “Linux” on them. Quite the novel concept, no?
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Right on.
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Good call on the branding.
If you know you’re in linux, the only way to reliably launch a browser is to open a terminal and type `firef`… oh wait.. debian…. ice, now which one is it again?
This also makes gimmie smaller in the panel, a utilitarian option.
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Sure… sounds great.
Except we create arbitrary brandings because we don’t agree with other people way of doing things. As long as we are human, and not bound to agree by being free software, it will continue, as it was meant to.
Anyways, I’d like to see the word Linux replaced with Ubuntu, because I believe that should be the one true brand. =)
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@Jerry: The Linux brand translates to many hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing mindshare. Why throw that away?
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ok, that Linux thing is kinda lame
Computer was better..
imo anyway -
Sounds like a reasonable and well thought out default.
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What’s the rational behind Library?
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I don’t think it’s a good idea. There’s nothing Linux specific in the “Linux” entry and it’s not at all obvious what the Linux button would do if you didn’t press it. At least with “Computer” or “System” there’s a chance that people can guess what it’s for.
There’s also the issue that Gimmie might run on FreeBSD, Solaris, or even MacOSX or Windows (with suitable GNOME port), so using the Linux branding or any other branding is even more inappropriate.
BTW, what does the Library option do? Is it the same as the old Documents entry? If so, documents seems a bit more obvious. If it’s a combination of documents and something else (e.g. Places), I still think it’s not entirely obvious, but I don’t think I can offer a name suggestion other than the equally inappropriate “Bookmarks” and “Favourites”.
Keep up the good work. Despite my criticisms on the renamings, I think Gimmie is on to something and has a lot of potential.
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Don’t you mean GNU/Linux?
Kidding! Please don’t kill me!
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@stalefries: Library contains more than documents. It contains anything you might download or have as an attachment, it includes del.icio.us bookmarks, and posted Flickr photos.
@Robert: Linux brand propagation is so much more valuable than avoiding the very minor initial hurdle of clicking the menu to connect it with system-level tasks. Things like listing printers, shutting down the system, accessing inserted media, networked computers, and settings are all found here.
I think it’s pretty obvious what the Linux menu holds, and if you’ve never heard of Linux before, clicking the menu will give some strong reinforcement that it’s the underlying framework of what a user is seeing.
Basically, we want people to know that their system is running Linux. They already know that they are using a computer.
And as I said, the Linux label alters correctly for FreeBSD, Solaris, and even Windows and MacOS. It’s builtin to Python.
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My main concern would be that “Linux” (or Solaris, or whateve) is, well, a kernel. It’s not entirely obvious to me what a button with the name of a kernel on it should do, or what a less-knowledgable user would expect it to do, or even what we could tell them that it did that would help convey to them what “Linux” actually is.
This is why, I suppose, Windows has a Start button rather than a Windows button, and Apple has an Apple menu (or a “Macintosh HD” icon) rather than an “OSX” menu or button. It just really doesn’t quite make sense, IMHO.
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I think fraggle has a point here, I mean most of us can’t even agree on *our* “brand name” let alone convince other people outside the community. Personally, I’m more fond of the term GNU/Linux, too.
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I agree with Robert and Callum. Labeling the button ‘Linux’ doesn’t really make sense. It’s great that you want to strengthen the brand, but this isn’t really doing much to accomplish that goal; it’s just adds confusion by not clearly indicating what pressing the button does.
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I think I agree with Calum. Although I could use the same reasoning to argue that “Computer” doesn’t make much sense for the name of that button, either.
Users don’t care about or understand operating systems. They refer to MS Office as “Microsoft” or even “Windows”, because they don’t know the difference. Branding any interactive UI element with “Linux” might just add to the confusion.
But taking advantage of the Linux brand is a great idea. Why not a beautiful default background image that says “Linux” in gorgeous easy-to-read lettering?
Or a standard logo to replace the GNOME foot branding that said “Linux” as clearly as the mighty blue apple says “Apple” and the weird four-color flag says “Windows”. If IBM, Red Hat, and Novell endorsed a common logo, so would the public.
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@Calum: Stop thinking about it like an engineer. It’s more than the kernel. It’s a powerful catch phrase. The idea here is to reframe what the Linux brand means to include all of the system that runs on top of the kernel.
We need to make Linux appear as a single obvious entity that everyone can use in discussion and comparison with the real competition, which is not KDE versus GNOME versus XFCE, but Linux versus Windows versus Mac OS.
Also, Windows has a button with the Windows trademarked logo on it. Mac OS has the official Apple logo. This stuff increases brand and makes it drop-dead obvious what a user is looking at.
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@Sandy: What you propose would be awesome! I personally like showing the Linux label in my Gimmie software, but all of the things you bring up would be substantive in redefining Linux to be a more universal.
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That’s going to be great fun to explain when someone sees a desktop without the green, blue and pink and loudly exclaims “What? That’s not Linux.”.
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@Robert Scott:
What I’m talking about is visual identity. If most stock desktop backgrounds provided with every Linux distribution (and especially the default one) were clearly and beautifully stamped with the hypothetical Linux logo and the word “Linux”, it would be enough.There will always be tinkerers who want to change their desktop background to show their goofy dogs instead. Hence the idea to have additional branding/visual identity in key parts of the UI (like where the GNOME foot is).
If users want to customize that branding/identity out of the UI, that’s their prerogative.
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“It’s more than the kernel. It’s a powerful catch phrase. The idea here is to reframe what the Linux brand means to include all of the system that runs on top of the kernel.”
Linux IS a kernel and nothing more. People have been reframing it to include all of the system since Linux was created, and that has caused major problems in the user experience, which is why I hate to see this being encouraged even more on gimmie.
“Windows Vista” and “Mac OS X 10.4″ are complete products that you install on a computer. There’s a standard way of doing things on each of these, like how to install software. There are standard interfaces programmers can use, and there are standard methods of distributing software so that it works on these systems.
Not on “Linux”. You can’t even install a browser plugin on “Linux”, because the system plugins folder is not on a standard place (of course! how can you expect a kernel to have a standard browser plugins folder?). Users are expected to drop to a command line, because no matter what the LSB says there’s not a standard package format. There’s not even a standard file manager, so you can’t have a set of instructions to do things graphically. For any user that needs more than the out-of-box software, the desktop experience is hell.
We wouldn’t be having this problem if the kernel hadn’t been so heavily promoted to be a catch phrase years ago. For example, Red Hat is a system that, just like Windows, has a standard file manager. A standard package manager. Things are installed on a standard location, which developers and users can rely on.
Go to mozilla.com. Look at the installation instructions for Firefox on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Windows has a standard step-by-step installer, Mac has a standard drag and drop installation, and “Linux”? You have to extract the archive, move it to a system location (from a terminal, because you can’t use su/sudo from nautilus), manually create menu entries and support in the MIME system. This is because Linux is a *kernel*, and yet Mozilla is targetting its software for Linux.
Now imagine that instead of the “Linux” columns, we had an Ubuntu column. And a Fedora column. You’d simply download the file, double click, enter password and be done with it.
I think marketing is important, but people have given so much importance to the kernel that the user experience todays is seriously lacking, and I think it’s a shame.
Also, I didn’t even get in to how unfair it is to call the whole thing Linux. IMO, GNOME, Xorg and GNU are all big projects (possibly all bigger than Linux, I don’t know), so I don’t know why put them all under the kernel’s umbrella. Today, my parents run a Debian system with Linux, GNU, Xorg and GNOME. They could switch to a Debian system with FreeBSD’s kernel, GNU, Xorg and GNOME, or to an openSUSE system with Linux, GNU, Xorg and KDE. The switch to FreeBSD would be completely painless, unlike the switch to a different Linux system.
Though I spent a long post telling you why I think you shouldn’t market what you’re trying to market, I have to say I think it all comes down to this: UI design should always come before marketing. I’m sure there are several other names (like Computer) that would be more usable than a random computer software name. My mom doesn’t even know she runs “Linux”.
Sorry for the rant, btw! Keep on rocking with gimmie, I really like it.
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You totally got it. I’m happy that you’re able to explain this so clearly, I’ll use this page everytime I have to explain to people why I just say “Linux” instead of whatever they tell me to use. Of course, nobody will listen, but at least you tried. Rock on!
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@thebluesgnr: Comments like your make me feel so dreadfully hopeless. There will never be an “Ubuntu column” or a “Fedora column”. The New York Times will never write about anything more specific than “Linux”. Stop fighting this. It’s okay. It’s actually a good thing!
The public perception of what a kernel is and what it does may be wholly out of whack, but WHO CARES? We no longer have to do things like explain what free software is about in conversation. We just say “Linux,” and people get it. That is so powerful, and you want to squander it splitting hairs over technical nits. Sheesh!
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While I agree with the value of branding, I also have to agree with those who say this isn’t the place for it. ‘Computer’ to me implies the physical stuff – the disks, cd drives, etc. ‘Linux’ has no such association – it’s the name of my OS, and tells me nothing about what I should expect to happen when I click on that button.
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@Simon: Linux is precisely the thing that handles your disks and CD drives! What other name could be more appropriate?
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>>What other name could be more appropriate?
How about ‘System’ ?
The Library quite make sense, I realy like it. -
Good luck! Something like this is badly needed.
But be aware what you’re up against. When I last talked with the Ubuntu guys (like Jerry) I was told in no uncertain terms “there’s a reason Ubuntu does not have Linux in the name”. Their view – putting the word “Linux” in their name implies they might be compatible with another distro, which they don’t want.
Unsuprisingly I didn’t get far with trying to convince them 3rd party software developers existed
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I like your thinking Alex!
Keep up the great gimmie development. -
Quote: “…— the very people who make the name worth knowing in the first place — try everything possible to sabotage the Linux brand.
No one outside of our community has heard of Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, GNOME, KDE, Debian, Gentoo, or any of the other arbitrary project subdivisions we make up. Chances are pretty good that they never will. …”
Comment: “Well, *those* are the same people who gave no sh*t about software freedom. Brand is a symbol of something more concrete than that, and is good if it symbolizes what needs to; in this case, unfortunately, my friends “Linux” as a brand has nothing to do with freedom, but popularity.”
We gotta be really carefull on this one, what we seek is freedom, popularity might seem to be essential, but it is always secondary.
My very personal suggestion is to set old “Computer” (and new “Linux”) topic with the name of the computer dynamically, so everyone can enjoy his own desktop. (For instance i’ve renamed my Computer icon on desktop as “leilam”, and would love to see this on my menu too…)
Good work, thank you.
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So, is “Linux” a brand we can trust ? is it truly
representative of what we’re doing ?>
This is a very important point for us to remember, many people contribute
to the free software movement for different reasons, my personal reasons
are partially a hobby, but I wouldnt lift a finger to contribute if it
werent for the values of free software, we need to protect these values
at all costs, if we are true to our own struggle and persevere, we
dont have to worry about popularity, it will come with merit.>
I see what your getting at – wouldnt the world be great if the word “Linux”
signified everything beautiful that we all believe in, unfortunately
this is not the case at all – I say “Linux” and my computer unsavy
neighbor just stares blankly, I tell them that they have to pay $100
to have windows installed on thier new computer and that they dont
even get the CD or the liscence themselves – but at least somebody
on the planet is giving them an alternative – then they begin to
understand, I usually have to resort to a paper like the no word
attachments paper[1] for someone to even get an incling of what freedom
means wrt computing.I dont have any opinion about putting branding in a system menu,
I dont think that we as a community will ever reach a consensus
on what brand represents free software, but if we did push
a brand – it better clearly represent the ideals of free software.Any room for misinterpretation is an oportunity for other unrelated
parties to distort the meaning of our movement, to confuse it with
terms like “Open Source” and make it sound like we’re all doing it
for free – not for freedom. -
+1 for “Linux” branding.
@everyone-in-the-comments
Forget your stupid philosophical arguments. Linux, Firefox, and Moodle are the only 3 open source brand names I’ve had non-technical people approach me about because they wanted to learn more.They didn’t approach me to learn about Ubuntu, RedHat, Debian, Gnome, KDE, Apache, Python, PHP, MySQL, LAMP, SUSE, etc. etc. etc. Just Linux, Firefox, and Moodle (I work in a school by the way).
So lets stop arguing and focus on delivering a superior product to end users!
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@michael: Thanks for the powerful words! I totally agree. Ooh, and Moodle looks really cool!
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I thought the whole point of Gimmie was abstraction –that is, logical organizations of information. This is a step backwards IMO.
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@Orph – yes, *I* know that Linux (or another OS) is the thing that handles the physical devices, but even as a technical user, I’m not going to expect to click on the name of the OS in order to find my CD drive. Users who don’t know what an OS is certainly aren’t going to make that association themselves, and are likely to see it in the same light as “Why do I click Start to shut down??”
I say again, branding is good, but not at the expense of usability. ‘Computer’ is a good catchall for finding physical bits of the computer – ‘Linux’ isn’t.
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Idea looks very promising but from User Interface point of view “Linux” does not seem very informative than “Computer” or even “System”. I’d prefer “Computer” to stay there, but a Linux logo and/or Linux in tooltip to express what that button does to users of gimme. Just my $.2
Also from branding POV of gimmie itself, isn’t Gimmi not a good name choice for such a powerful application? I can’t think of any good names currently but maybe why not rebranding gimmi w/ “Linux Panel” or something?
For “Linux” name there, please keep in mind that if you think Linux is a good brand for not-tech-savy users, you should also consider not-tech-savy users would like to see not-tech-savy expressions there. Think about ’start’ button of Windows. They only had logo there for branding, and ’start’ as a descriptive word. (Then they got rid of ’start’ and just replaced Windows Logo, that’s another story though).
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I agree with what you say about the strength of the brand. But I disagree that it’s a good thing to lay all importance on a single brand, it makes you dependent on it.
Look at Firefox – sure, people know about Firefox, web designers care about making Firefox compliant web sites, all good things. But they still don’t care enough for standards… the web has only gotten better because Firefox itself recommends open web standards, whereas standards as a means of cross-browser, cross-platform implementation is low as ever. Browsers with lower market share, like Konqueror, are still not only ignored but even excluded with braindead browser checks, even if they would actually support the required standards. This has to stop.
Today, many people are using “Windows” and “computer” as synonyms. (”Apple” as a brand is so strong that it’s hardly a “computer” anymore, it’s just an “Apple”.) Maybe with the rise of open source software, we’ll see a shift from “Windows” to “Linux” sometime, and when software is written, it’s written for Linux, not Windows, and when PC knowledge is required for work, it means Linux knowledge.
Do I consider this a good thing? No. Why? Because it doesn’t change the way people think. It’s not important that applications run on Linux, it’s important that they run cross-platform, including FreeBSD, Solaris and whatever. It’s not important that there is a Linux driver for some hardware, but that vendors cooperate with the community and provide hardware specifications.
We need to get people to see that there is actually a choice, and that they shouldn’t have to care about their specific {OS, browser, office suite, …} as long as it’s open source / Free software, and builds on open standards. We need to communicate that it’s ok when someone else is using some different solution, as long as we can interoperate. We need to tell web designers that they must not rely on single browsers, but on web standards instead, and that the browsers are just a means to an end. We need to get the message to ISVs out that even if there is a Linux version of their app, it’s still important to be cross-platform and also support the less popular Unices. We need to be able to switch the kernel to Solaris/GPL3 if Linus goes fuck-you-FSF and the GPL2-only thing causes interoperability problems, without taking too much damage from no longer using the Linux brand.
We need to grow independent of specific solutions, and strengthen the overall Open Source / Free Software and Open Standards brands and mindshare instead. There might not be an Ubuntu or openSUSE column in any newspaper, but there might be an Open Source column.
I think that catering the label to your specific system, in the long run, increases unnecessary dependencies on one-true-system, enforces one-way thinking, and is no better than what MS and Apple are doing.
Open Source is not about bringing Linux to the masses. Open Source is about bringing cooperation, choice and self-control to the masses. Linux is just a means to that end, but it’s not the goal itself, and shouldn’t be promoted like it was.
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It’s entertaining that people would get so upset over this. Does anyone here honestly believe this decision is going to ruin Gimmie for its current users? For new users? If so, I recommend continued bickering.
However, if you’re like me and think “Linux” vs. “Computer” is only a usability engineering faux pas (or perhaps a disservice to Stallmanistas rallying for “GNU/Linux” wherever the L-word is found), what’s the worst that could happen? Let your curiosity guide you and see what happens. Maybe people will like having a little unified branding. Maybe my Grandma will wonder what a Linux is doing in her Ubuntu. Maybe time will stop.
But we won’t know until someone tries, will we? I say go hard, Alex.
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Sandy Says:
“a standard logo to replace the GNOME foot branding that said “Linux†as clearly as the mighty blue apple says “Apple†and the weird four-color flag says “Windowsâ€â€That would be Tux.
So if I were in charge, I’d change the following: the computer icon to a picture of Tux; the word “Linux” to “Computer” or “System” or something like that; and I’d replace the Ubuntu logo with a generic icon for applications, such as Tango’s orange, cog-filled diamond ( http://tango.freedesktop.org/static/cvs/tango-icon-theme/scalable/categories/applications-other.svg ).
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More evidence that letting programmers do marketing is like letting marketers do programming.
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just gotta put in props to thebluesgnr. very well said and i agree completely. linux is a kernel and far too much importance is placed on it. having a brand like what orph describes implies a consistent user experience, which as thebluesgnr illustrated, doesn’t exist.
that said i like the idea of gimmie having some kind of information like the running kernel as it’s “Start” menu. That’s just me, i’m no interface expert. Perhaps it’s best to make these titles user configurable?
the primary advantage of open source is that it does not require any serious marketing beyond word of mouth. Linux took over the server room via word-of-mouth, because the product is free and really good, you’d be nuts not to use it everywhere you can. The linux desktop will be the same thing, despite predictions that it’ll never happen, or is happening now, or already has happened. Eventually we will get to the point where it’s just obvious that the linux desktop is so much better than anything else and we’d all be nuts not to use it.
attempts to define this collection of software we informally call linux are unnecessary and potentially damaging to the “no BS” reputation linux has built around itself.
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