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Comment by sandGorgon | Hacker News Reader

I have said this before and I'll say it again. Libreoffice is a terrible name because it is unpronouncable ESPECIALLY for non-native english speakers.

This is not an untested axiom, it is a reality that I face. Most people understand even a highly accented "open office". OTOH, listen to these vastly different pronounciations of libre : http://www.forvo.com/word/temps_libre/ http://www.forvo.com/word/libre/

In addition, the first 3 pages of a google search for "free office" does not turn up libreoffice (the first hit is OpenOffice). I'm sure this can be fixed with a bit of SEO, but I'm afraid TDF isnt thinking about its target demographic: non techies.

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Wait, what? Now I'm confused about how I've been saying libre. Isn't it a french/spanish word anyway (same word different pronunciation)?

Which non-native english speakers are you talking about?

My pronunciation (as a native english speaker) is pretty much like the spanish version I guess.

That said I don't think it's a particular fantastic name.

I was confused by this too. If anything it should be harder for native English speakers unless they know French/Spanish also.

native english speakers - by which I mean USA, Canada and UK - know what libre means.

It's like the word "bazaar" - even if you say "baajaar", you will get most Indians to understand the meaning.

close to 90% asians will not even know the meaning of Libre even if you write it down.

Please understand, I am not debating the relative merit of using the word "open" as opposed to "libre" as a branding exercise - people just dont know what libre is.

They don't need to know - if they care, they can learn. How many people knew what "ubuntu" meant before the Ubuntu distribution? How many people know what "ubuntu" means now?

agreed - but the problem is two fold. I can say ubuntu to a person on the street and they remember it, because the word is phonetically easy. Libre isnt.

Again, this is not about branding - "libre" is a word that is extremely difficult to pronounce, read and remember for a lot of asians.

What dialects would have the most difficulty? Is it the 'L', or the 'BR'?

Would LibOffice be better or about the same?

How about LibaOffice or LireOffice? (I know both 'li' and 'ba' or 're' are chinese syllables that can be written in pinyin.)

Even if they can't change, maybe there could be an official alt-name for native Asian-language speakers.

its the "BRE".

LibOffice would be infinitely better in terms of pronounciation.

...then that just sounds like its a library of word processing and spreadsheet utilities that exposes nothing buy an API.

Not that anyone who would use the root and assume is a library wouldn't already know better, but just sayin :)

liberal office, the hated enemy of every single self respecting conservative /s

> vastly different pronounciations

Are they? Not very, IMO.

Ask a German how to pronounce "Python" :-)

http://www.forvo.com/word/python

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