Task:Maemo brand

This is a subtask of Task:Defining maemo coordinated by qgil.

What is maemo
Many people are confused about what exactly maemo is, and the difference between Nokia's ITOS and maemo.org.

To my mind, maemo is "the open collaboration project which was started by the release of a free software stack which made up part of the OS installed on Nokia's Internet Tablet series". That's a pretty crummy definition, but engenders a number of important distinctions:


 * maemo is not only the software running on your tablet
 * maemo is not just the website and tablet user community
 * maemo is not limited to free software
 * maemo is software based in origin
 * maemo is not limited to the needs of Nokia tablets - it can evolve beyond that usecase
 * maemo is, above all, an open collaboration project - community developed software, free software, open access, and all of the infrastructure to support it

The major evolution of maemo should thus be a move to enable the community, to help maemo evolve away from its internet tablet roots. Things which allow maemo users to target other devices, replace "official" software or libraries, and otherwise hack on the maemo platform, are all useful. Discussions about opening drivers for hardware, or adding new applications to the tablets, are not. On the other hand, proposals to open up the documentation and APIs for proprietary components is a community enabler, and might be relevant.


 * Who wrote the text above? Only to know who are we discussing with. :)  Also, I have just posted some ideas about the scope of maemo as a "software platform based mostly in open source components" at bug #630 - Increased Bugzilla transparency - get the developers involved!.


 * That would be me. --dneary 07:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Building a strong brand
To built a strong brand i.e. something that people will remember and have have feelings about, we need foremost two things:
 * clarity about what which name stands for and what are the values
 * consistent implementation of the terminology

As pointed out already above, now we have maemo, maemo.org, Maemo Mapper, Other Maemo Weather, Internet Tablet OS, OS2008, ITOS and so on. This is not helpful. In general, as less names we have as stronger the remaining name becomes. So, why not center everything around the strongest word: maemo? Why not just talk about maemo platform, maemo software, maemo SDK, maemo community, Mapper for maemo, and maemo 4 (currently known as OS2008)?

And then, why do we want to re-educate people, newcomers, and tech writers in the use of English grammar? Why can't we use a capital "M" always for Maemo? Most of the strong Internet brands and open source brands have a capital letter: Google, Facebook, Ubuntu, Linux. Why do we need to be different?

Our updated terminology would be:
 * Maemo Community with the home on maemo.org
 * Maemo - the open source software that powers mobile devices
 * Maemo SDK - the baseline to create applications
 * Maemo platform - everything from kernel up to SDK
 * Maemo 4 - the release with XYZ features
 * Mapper for Maemo - a great application--peterschneider 08:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ''Um, I hate to sound rude, but where does one get off telling 3rd party developers what to name their applications? I could understand if it were Nokia applications you were discussing that you had some sway over, but asking one of the most prominent 3rd party developers to rename their application for "branding reasons" just doesn't sit well with me. :\
 * ''The fact is that since the trademark policy was approved no new application has come up with the name "maemo something", and "something for maemo" is the recommended alternative. We declared amnesty to the projects created before the trademark policy for obvious reasons. We could talk about recommendation to swith to the trademark compliant formulas, but not enforcement. But they might be interested. If you notice "Mapper" is cooler name than "Maemo Mapper". Also think about the opssibility to have it ported it to i.e. S60 in a future. Why getting your app tied to the name of one platform if it ever becomes succesful and ported to other platforms?--qgil 12:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As for the distinction between maemo and Internet Tablet OS, I think this is a very important one. Internet Tablet OS is a fairly proprietary mobile operating system that ships with Nokia Internet Tablets, maemo is an open-source development platform for mobile Linux. They're two distinctly separate (if sometimes closely related) things. Moving forward, we should really be increasing this distinction, not blurring it further.
 * Let's see. The "fairly proprietary" part in the OS2008 comes mainly from the application and Nokia design layer, since the rest of closed elements are also present in the low level and developer platform. The current diff between Maemo 4 and and OS2008 would be, according to these definition, these preinstalled applications and the Nokia design layer that is not available in the SDK (covered by the open Plankton theme). Is that right? If so, then a possibility would be that Maemo = Maemo platform = from kernel to SDK. Then the Nokia N810 would still ship Maemo 4 + a set of preinstalled applications and a Nokia design flavor. In a potential escenario, someone in the maemo community could also take Maemo 4, add a section of application and a default own theme.--qgil 12:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I do agree that consistent usage of terminology has been lacking in maemo-related stuff from Nokia (MicroB versus Mozilla-based Browser for maemo is a fun one, though I understand the reasoning behind it), but I don't think eliminating important distinctions is the way to go about improving this situation. —GeneralAntilles 10:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It is though a priority reducing the brand soup and simplifying things that people anyway were doing '"wrong" but consistengly (i.e. Maemo instead of maemo)--qgil 12:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)