Renaming OpenSUSE | Hacker News Reader

Renaming OpenSUSE

lwn.net

47 pointsTomte27 comments

I know that the name SUSE stems from an acronym, but it's also a woman's name in Germany. So maybe switch it out for another, equally short woman's name? "Lisa Linux" or "Nora Linux" or so maybe?

why not a mans name this time around? like Tim linux or Hanz linux? :(

"Linux" is already named after a man!

Linus Linux!

As an Austrian, I've never met a woman named "Suse". "Susi" is however quite common (short for "Susanne")

Why not just keep calling it OpenSUSE, a recognised brand, and use the leverage that its brand recognition brings to SUSE (the company) 's products, to get them to do what the community prefers, or keep the right sort of distance etc. ? Sounds like a win/win.

The SUSE part of openSUSE means any use of the name will be constrained and controlled by the company. Which is much of the issue already:

> the openSUSE board spends a significant amount of its time dealing with trademark issues, to the detriment of the rest of the project.

Having openSUSE split from SUSE but keep using the trademark would make things worse, even if the relationship remains cordial and of perfectly good faith.

I guess the trademark issue sits on the downsides column, whilst brand recognition is on the other: your board will have to do a bunch of work to re-establish the recognition they will lose by a name change. Have they properly considered this? Will the board's "trademark issues" time gain offset the extra work of going through name change and brand re-establishment?

SUSE and OpenSUSE gain by the association (I argue), and it is that gain to SUSE, along with perceived OS community support, which is OpenSUSE's leverage to create the relationship it wants with SUSE including license to use the trademark without referral (within sensible limits). If SUSE are being intransigent or controlling, I would agree a renaming is an unfortunate necessity - but it hasn't been shown that they are, so why go through the unnecessary pain?

ONSL is Not Suse Linux

ONSL

I like it, the acronym is able to be easily pronounced.

Then why not 'INSL'?

Same argument can be used for all recursive acronyms. Both GNU and Linux for example could have anything as first letter.

Linux is a recursive acronym?

Gecko linux?

There's already an OpenSUSE spin with that name, so that won't work. OTOH, there doesn't seem to be any distros called Iguana, Crocodile, or Agamidae yet...

Lizard Linux

What about ESUS (which is SUSE backwards) - it would preserve the SUSE brand in a fun way that will likely catch on. Plus, it's the name of a Celtic god.

Would a different spelling help with the copyright issue? Examples "opensuze" "opensoese"

And khula-suse/khulazuse (Hindi for open) ?

I've a suggestion: Khula-use

It's not a copyright issue, it's a trademark issue. Anything resembling the trademark can be considered an infringement, and it's up to a judge to decide what is.

Then it must be really completely different. Something like "ChameleonOS" would also infringe the trademark since that animal as logo for an OS is also protected?

IANAL, but if they went with ChameleonOS and their logo looked sufficiently different from any SUSE logos, they should be in the clear.

Trademarks can be shared through contract easily enough; this is more or less already happening.

> Examples "opensuze"

Not convinced by that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suze_(drink)

Wouldn't the past tense of suse be susaw?

OpenSushi

See if Illumos is available?

How about SEntOS?

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