I was reading this blog post by Nicu the other day. Following up on this post he quotes, Nicu asks whether branding a Linux distro is useless – especially when the users already know what they’re using.
I don’t want to get into the underlying conflicts I don’t know much about: Fedora vs GNOME and Fedora users/contributors vs project leaders. I am not a Fedora user, but I am a Linux user. I use other distros – Ubuntu, Debian, Android, *WRT and other embedded Linuxes. And I like them branded!
Why? Because when I download, install and use a certain Linux flavour, I dont “buy” compiled vanilla source code, but much more: user experience tweaks, testing and QA, documentation, tech support (free/community or commercial) and the community formed around that specific distro.
Let’s assume that two random distros (for example, Ubuntu and Fedora), decided to ship on the next release the same list of packages, based on the exact upstream package versions (same patches). Would running the next Ubuntu and Fedora “feel” the same for me? I don’t think so.
Fedora and Ubuntu have different targets and different management styles. This perspires in default settings, themes and documentation, and even attitude towards the “customer” – or what we call “user experience”. Distros need to make sure that the user knows and is constantly reminded where that user experience comes from. Hint: it comes from the distro as a whole, not from the individual software products shipped.
Innuendo: Those who think that, just because the distro is not commercially driven or too small, they don’t need marketing (or in this case, branding) are horribly wrong. Every public project who has one external user must be into marketing. Competing for money, market share, or just attention and recognition, or to plant an idea in people’s heads, requires marketing. Yes, even your “not commercial, for the community” distro! Ignore this and you will fail hard.
Another reason for branding (and why is should be extended beyond two splash screens and a background picture) is to develop a sense of belonging to the community. “Random distro” users should be able to identify themselves, they should have their own gathering places, they should share the same lingo and “heroes”.
Dear distro maintainers, if you remove the logos in the software, the pins, the T-Shirts, the hats, the stickers and shut down the distro-specific forums, the community will dissolve and, since community is the power of any open source product, you will die and users will go to another distro where they will feel “accepted”.
Innuendo 2: I believe this is the reason why Ubuntu has so much success. It got the best distro (Debian, IMHO), made sure if fixed the technicall annoyances (too rare stable releases) and built a community for average users, which were mostly ignored by the ‘leet Debian developers.
My personal oppinion and conclusion: Branding a Linux distro or any kind of product is necessary and mandatory – it doesn’t matter the size or the “market” type.
What do you think?
Image credit: phylevn.
Related posts:
very important for a distro is to have its own look and feel, to set it apart and the branding is part of it
I use both Fedora and Ubuntu and I flexibly recommend them to various categories of users, depending on target. Each one have to learn from the other, both have strong points and weak point. My goal is to increase GNU/Linux desktop usage, especially in my geographic area; IMHO, this (numbers !) is a precondition for seeing other, more “refined” GNU/Linux usage and benefits.
@Razvan, and in this case, isn’t branding necessary so you can correctly identify for the users what they should use for their specific needs? I would assume so.
I see the branding also as a way of saying: I use Distro X and FOSS and I am proud of that, people do not fear, try yourself, you may like it too.
Nicu didn’t cause he doesnt agree with my POV, but let’s see if you’ll actually publish my comment.
GNOME is already branded, its branded by the people who wrote it. The GNOME developers who worked hard for producing it. They should get all credits for GNOME, not some distribution cause they just packaged it.
Why should distributions brand software they didnt write themselves?
In the Windows or Mac OS X example in the mailing list thread the software is produced by Microsoft and Apple. Thats why they brand it. If you want to brand something to go along with a GNOME distribution try writing a splash screen or a screensaver.
There are thousands or ten of thousands apps in a distro, there is not enough space estate on the desktop to brand every one of them… a distro is about integration, look & feel and user experience.
BTW… the GNOME developers I am talking about are paid by Red Hat and working on it during they normal work time.
@Greg, of course I approved your comment. I approve all comments (even if it takes more than 5 minutes…), if they’re not spam or insults. I actually like comments who don’t agree with my point of view
Take one minute to think about this example: If I am producing and selling plum jam (a favorite here in Romania), should I brand it with my own logo or should I include the logos of the plum farm, sugar factory and water provider? What do you think?
I think that in my example, all providers got what they deserved from my jam business – money for their products. What I do after is my business and only my jam loving customers can appreciate or critique my products.
I would say that this is the same for Gnome and distributions. What distribution “customers” “buy” from Fedora is NOT Gnome. Is much more, as I already said in the post above.
It’s possible that Gnome developers don’t like the final products, just as my water provider might not like the jam I make, but the situation is clear: I bought water and I can do whatever I want with it. And the OSS licenses allows the distributions to change Gnome in any way they want.
I will say it again: anyone can do any changes to OSS. They don’t have to be “nice”, they don’t have to show recognition or respect towards the original developers. They don’t even have to improve the software.
Now, I can understand that Gnome developers want the users to get a certain experience, and branding is a part of that. But some distros have other things in mind – like their own experience and branding. This is a conflict of interests and I see nothing wrong about it. I can see three options for Gnome:
* Change license as to not allow any changes. Result: everybody will switch to Unity or KDE or some other DE. Gnome dies.
* Make their own distribution. Result: unknown. I would like to see another powerful distribution. And I am certain that the Gnome team will get some respect for the effort involved in “just packaging”. They should give it a try, and I am serious.
* man up and shut up. Result: everybody does what they know best and things move forward for the users, whose interests, IMHO, take precedence to bruised egos.
@Ovidiu: in this particular case the people who designed GNOME 3 are also the maintainers of the Fedora Desktop spin, that was selected a while ago by the Fedora community as the default download offered by the project. They don’t care about Fedora so they feel free to follow their own agenda.
@nicu, well, in this case, the community should select other leaders, who have the Fedora interest as their first priority – we all know we get the leaders we deserve… If choosing other leaders is not possible, I would just fork and create another spin. From past experience, most OSS forks produced better products and a “cleaner” community – I am thinking Xorg, LibreOffice…
Yes, I knew… in a short while a couple of seats in the Board will be open for election. Sure there are other Fedora spins for desktop use: one for KDE, one for Xfce, one for LXDE, and another one is the Design Studio (which is based on GNOME), but for usability reasons only one is featured prominently on the website, the others are buried in a download page for advanced users.