[Mageia-discuss] A name for mageia-app-db

Sat Feb 12 21:44:50 CET 2011

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 20:08, Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> wrote:
+> 2011/2/12 Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org>:
+>>
+>> Well, to me, the name market and all of it connotations is quite
+>> consumerist, and doesn't really fit with the spirit of a community
+>> distribution, based on collaboration more than pure commercial
+>> exchange as the various proposed name implies.
+>>
+>> When samuel presented his idea, I was quite interested because it would
+>> allows me as a packager to find who would be ok to test packages,
+>> to collaborate when i need confirmation for a bug and so on.
+>>
+>> But it seems that the vast majority of proposal are geared toward
+>> replicating the model of Apple Appstore, Google market and others :
+>> - app market, app box, software database, app center, Appworld,
+>> software portal.
+>>
+>> Where is the collaboration in all of this ?
+>
+> Yes, I agree to this point of view. "market" is connected with
+> "selling", "app*" is connected with Apple's commercial appstore.
+
+That a word is used or misused would not justify to abdicate our own
+use of it, if it is relevant. Or we are headed for newspeak each time.
+
+"App" has been used years for software applications before Apple
+coined the "AppStore" name. And their application platform has
+fundamentally nothing new, but that it does build a hugely profitable
+ecosystem, for now at least.
+
+A "market" is a place where people meet and exchange stuff. From this
+have grown many different things of different sizes and implications.
+And sometimes, there is sales and purchases there, because that's how
+it takes place. And nothing here opposes collaboration: it just takes
+place in a certain way, provided both parties are happy with the
+transaction that took place.
+
+"Market" may indeed not be the best word in this very case, but this
+reflexion hints something interesting: that you oppose the possibility
+to have paid-for stuff witin mageia-app-db. Why not. Is it so really?
+Is it assumed?
+
+For such generic terms (app, market), it's more what you do with it
+with time that matters and prints some identity, than the name only
+(the records of inane names back then that now bear some very serious
+meaning are countless).
+
+Notwithstanding that one may rename it anyway later.
+
+Back then (2006), we coined "Kiosk" for what could have been Mdv
+application store at the time. The name matches, through several
+acceptions, the public passing-by/meeting place, the public
+distribution place (of newspapers) and integration in the daily life;
+the "library" and "social" aspects that are in the project's
+description (http://mageia-app-db.tuxette.fr/projects/1/wiki ).
+
+Or Forknamad, for Formerly-Known-As-Mageia-App-Db application. :)
+
+Cheers,
+
+Romain
+