Brand name proposal as a window for B2G community

B2G OS B2G Governance
#21

I like the simplicity of Zoo OS, although i see 2 handicaps:

  • cacofonie (so many “ooooo”)
  • really i didn’t like the “zoos” like a place where the animals are captive for be showed to humans (another user commented this, and i agree 100%).

There are more names there… we only need a good brainstorming.

I would said that the best think (in marketing terms) would be top choose an “emotional” word… something like “freedom” or “love”… (obviously horrible these two, hehehe…).

I suppose that this was the intention for propose “zoo”… so, the associate the new OS with something loved like animals. But maybe would be better something different that “zoo”. Maybe “Brave OS” or “Natural OS”.

So maybe, use an adjective instead of a substantive name… “Modern OS”, “Unique OS”…

#22

“Brave” already exist for another project of Mozilla.

“Fleet OS” seems to be not used yet :wink:
Fleet is a synonim of “fast”, “speed”

#23

Sorry to dissent, but I disagree about how we need a new name:

  • B2G OS is the name of the project. It was born as B2G years ago, and the name is highly descriptive. Liking a name is a matter of taste, but once a name has been assigned it should be changed only in extreme circustances.

  • We’re far away from a stable release. All concerns about marketing and final users are misplaced, as there is no product yet.

  • Mozilla is helping us a lot, even after dropping the project. Changing the name sounds like taking distances from Mozilla.

  • Tons of words have been spent on the name issue already. It’s fun to talk about it, but ultimately unproductive. We have other priorities at the moment.

2 Likes
#24

Enrico, as i told to you at Telegram, i would like to remember the bad decision about the name of the project made by Mozilla: firstly it was “b2g”… and when it passed very long time (more than a year?) they choosed another name “Firefox OS”. The consequence: that everybody never know if to use one or the other to talk about the project/product.

For this reason, mainly, i suggest the CONVENIENCE to choose a name for the project as soon as possible.

#25

Furthermore, you said today on Telegram that Mozilla is collaborating strongly in this “new” project, even you said that without that help the project cannot survive… Is it true? So, is this ANOTHER project for Mozilla? Will be every of us working during months/years in a project that “others” (Mozilla) can drop again when they leave to receive money from Google?

Please, if you or someone else have information about this… please put in clear and IN DETAIL who promotes this project and why. You know: the typical “about us”.

Until then… i think i will reserve my time, and i think that i will not be the unique.

#26

They had a code name for the project, and a commercial brand after that. It’s was mainly known via the commercial name (did you ever see any article talking about b2g and not firefox os ?).

Let’s keep things clear: Mozilla employees worked on the transition phase to convert the system to a more standard-based platform.
This is done (well, almost, still waiting for the merging).

Now Mozilla employees are working on other project (I mean, during their working time, some kind people still help ;)).

Now the project is developed by the community (which also include Mozilla employees, during their free time). However, Mozilla is providing infrastructure (this discourse for instance).
Their involvement in the project will partly depends of what we are able to do in the future.
This is no longer a Mozilla project in the sense of paying people to work on it, but Mozilla is hosting it, and it’s a project from the community. And we are still working on the same basis as the rest of B2G (for Firefox OS on TV,…) while we maintain the phone part. The core is gecko, which is still developed by Mozilla.
We are in the Mozilla community, even if it’s not developed directly by Mozilla.

#27

Thanks for the explanation @lapineige… Now i’ve more clear the origin and bases of this “new” project.

Said this, i’m also more calm now, because i understand that gecko is in the base of almost all of the products of Mozilla, so i suppose that they “never” will finish this development. So, what i means is that it seems to be a solid base for a project like a new mobile OS. Am i wrong?

About the team of Mozilla involved in this “migration” in their free time… i thought that it was the most likely :wink:

Thanks!

#28

It reduces a lot the work needed to maintain it, as we take care of the phone part “only”. And it might also be useful for Mozilla to keep this system that close to gecko (instead of forking it)… for instance for project tablet ? :wink:

That’s the strength of gecko (and also a default, as always).

No I mean, the transition was officially done by Mozilla and the community. After they will not be working on B2G OS for Mozilla.

#29

Oh, it’s true you said this the first time… i misunderstood this “detail”. So i suppose that finally Mozilla deserves thanks on our part. Thanks to you also for put in clear this question. I’m sure that more people will like to know.

#30

Could we consider this the “official page” of the project?

#31

(this is off-topic :smile:)

No, this is MDN, it’s for technical contributors. The official page will be on the wiki https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/
Even if we didn’t had time make the change from this page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Transition_Project/

#32

It’s still a Mozilla community project. Mozilla is not just a corporation, it’s all of us in the community, and B2G is is project in the Mozilla community, just like Thunderbird or even SeaMonkey. And it’s fine that it’s found with its Mozilla ties as everything about it is still hosted by Mozilla and done by people in the Mozilla community.

1 Like
#33

Yes, but we aren’t talking about b2g, we are? We are talking about a new “mobile” OS based on b2g. And we are talking (someone said it yesterday) that Mozilla will not have officially people working on this project. So i understand that’s is almost entirely a community project, not a Mozilla project. Mozilla help the project with servers (probably), also with discussion web groups like this site, etc… but it’s not the core of the project, it is?

Look Kairo, i don’t matter if Mozilla is IN or not is IN, but i don’t like nobody manipulate the good intention and time of mine and other collaborators (i’ve worked last years like translator and also developing apps for Firefox OS, including the first homescreen in the marketplace… “tilescreen”)… and sincerely, the behaviour of Mozilla (Foundation or corporation or whatelse it is) is not enough trustworthy after the recent history of the Firefox OS project… I think that the other developers/translators/testers (including people inside Mozilla) think the same like me.

So, with all the respect, i would mark distances with Mozilla for this new mobile OS.

And sorry, but it’s not clear WHAT IS the “mozilla community”. As i said, Mozilla take the decision of drop Firefox OS project without talking with “us”… sincerely… they are not more trust for me :frowning:

#34

No, we are actually talking about B2G. There is no discontinuity in the project: principles, goals, technical means, community are the same as ever.

1 Like
#35

:frowning: i’m really confused… reading again the first comments on this thread i would say that the question heres is to decide a name for the “new Firefox OS”… ie the new mobile OS based on gecko but without Gaia bla bla bla…

#36

Hi lapineige.

You saying: “Mozilla employees worked on the transition phase to convert
the system to a more standard-based platform.”

This more standard-based platform, is the core gecko ?

“And we are still working on the same basis as the rest of B2G (for
Firefox OS on TV,…) while we maintain the phone part”

I’m lost.
Does that mean, "insert your favorite mobilOS name here " from the
community project B2G has now a different core than the TV/Connected
core project ?

thx

#37

By now I’m a little lost after all these internal changes. A graph might
help.

But this thread has created to find a new brand name for the old
firefox-OS. The “new mobilOS” name as a frontend of the backend of
developers team work.

An end product, packed up, ready to be flashed ! with your favorite
browser, on air !

This simplicitytogether with different levels of documentations will
give something valuable for new users and quietly discover,understand,
join and finally participate.

#38

To clarify: Firefox OS used some Mozilla-only APIs (which where about to be standardised afterwards) which are deprecated now. Hence the transition to webapps and systemapps under chrome-protocol.

Is Gecko developed under the same rapid release cycle (new version every six weeks or so) as Firefox is? It was too fast to keep me engaged back then.

#39

I would reconsider that, because the entry barriere is higher on wiki (signing up + getting approved) as it is on MDN (log in with Persona/GitHub).

#40

On Telegram there were some additional suggestions:

  • Flex OS - but already in use

With respect to the last one, @gallux on Telegram suggested to look for words “in a disappeared language such as Celtic / ancient greek, latin” and came up with vulpes (Latin for fox). That reminded me on Vulpix. From this I associated the fox with nine tails (きゃうび の きつね, Kyuubi no kitsune), which sticked with some people on Telegram.

After that the discussion came up again, whether this is the right time to think about a name. To me it has less to do with marketing but rather with findability. And B2G OS is too short IMHO. Aside it is fun :slight_smile: