Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoppreH | Hacker News Reader

Very sleek marketing, but why did they rebrand (the fantastic) KDE Connect to "Zorin Connect"[1]? From the mere <30 commits, I see no reason for the fork, only confused users.

If it was tightly integrated into the OS I could sort of understand not mentioning its name, like you don't want "Foobar Control Panel" and "FizzBuzz Start Menu". But KDE Connect is a standalone app you can install even on Windows. And this is not just hiding the name, it's replacing it!

So, why the "rebrand"[2]? It feels like an attempt at stealing credit.

[1] https://github.com/ZorinOS/zorin-connect-android and https://github.com/ZorinOS/gnome-shell-extension-zorin-conne...

[2] https://github.com/ZorinOS/zorin-connect-android/issues/19

View on HN

Presumably because a good portion of the target audience are less technical users, and there's no reason to be throwing extra (ex-)initialisms at them. "Zorin Connect" is clearly something that will connect my Zorin OS to something. "KDE Connect" is something that might perhaps connect me to a "KDE", but what's a "KDE" anyway and why would I ever need to connect to it?

On the other hand, you've now made it one step harder for people to find the documentation.

So that’s how you’re getting dependent on them even more. So probably you need the pro version with the paid support.

Stealing credit was the definitive factor for me, I wanted to try it recently for replacing Windows for some folks, but now I think I’d just go with immutable Fedora.

Forking it makes it easier to convince your flock of sheep that you must pay for GPL software. It also gives them a lot of opportunity to inject their own happy accidents into there.

Wow, you were not kidding: https://zorin.com/os/pro/

Love the most commit titled 'Release 1.33.4' that's actually just changing a log export file from `kdeconnect-log.txt` to `zorin-connect-log.txt` : https://github.com/ZorinOS/zorin-connect-android/commit/de6d...

but forking not to confuse users does make sense

Users who are installing a new OS should be able to handle it being called KDE Connect. There's some far too charitable takes in this thread, IMO.

It's a really scummy move by the Zorin people to take FOSS, rename it, and sell access to it.

Oh, such scum! I'm grateful we have the noble giants Microsoft, Google and Meta, who would never use open source code in their commercial products.

Growing up is also understanding that the opposite of bad isn’t good. In the same vein, Ms, Google, and Meta being bad, does not help Zorin OS being bad either. Red Hat is bad too, apparently, but I have no issues with using Fedora.

> It feels like an attempt at stealing credit.

If it quacks like a duck...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com