ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:

> I think it would be good to see both names, for the reason I gave
> earlier.  When we have RMS’s green light, we can remove “Guix”
> altogether, but for now, it’s better to keep both.

Watch out!  If even developers are beginning to think it's "the Guix's
distribution", as if it were a meaningful or good thing to think or say,
just imagine the misunderstanding inflicted on users by the promotion of
that idea.

I'm afraid that RMS's green light might come too late.  The 0.8 release
is of such importance for defining what people will think about the
system, because now that it has graphical art, people will see the Guix
logo everywhere the operating system and distribution brand were
supposed to be.  The users probably will start calling it "the Guix
distribution" and very soon that will become "the Guix system", with the
releases coming by, the misunderstanding will be so disseminated and
rooted on people's habits, ideas and information they have access to,
that it'll require a immeasurable amount of time and energy, if possible
at all, to recover from that status quo, when RMS finally raises the
green flag.

But you might think: "Wait! But isn't the GNU brand being exhibited with
the same ease?".  It may well be the case now, but it tends to
diminishes and phase out as time comes by. Even now, people will look at
it and wonder why that GNU is there, and then they will get the first
*apparently sound* thought to justify it: "The Guix distro is a GNU
project, right?!".  After all, in most people's head, GNU is just a
collection of software projects.

Unfortunately, if the actual developers are not willing to stand by and
fight for the premise that "there is no system but GNU" and express that
on their work, I don't think RMS could save us, anyway.

-- 
 ,= ,-_-. =.  Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro (oitofelix) [0x28D618AF]
((_/)o o(\_)) There is no system but GNU;
 `-'(. .)`-'  GNU Linux-Libre is one of its official kernels;
     \_/      All software must be free as in freedom;