Logo/name considerations

[Georg C. F. Greve]

 || On Sun, 24 Dec 2000 10:57:57 +0100
 || Peter Gerwinski <peter at gerwinski.de> wrote: 

 >> On Sat, Dec 23, 2000 at 09:52:25AM +0100, josX wrote:

 >> > We are talking about 'Free Software Foundation Europe', since
 >> > everything is held under the microscope: why use English? [...]
 >> [...]  Having said that, 'Free Software Foundation Europe' in
 >> english doesn't associate the FSFE with any country in Europe,
 >> [...]

 pg> I agree.

Same here. As people already pointed out: English is the language
usually used for communication of people from different countries (at
least when it comes to computers & science). 

It is simply a convenient language as it is relatively easy to grasp
the basics and very forgiving as far as mistakes go.

And what can be said against one language can usually be said against
another. In the end it boils down to: if we want to use the most
widely used language, we should all be speaking Chinese. But I guess
that'd be rather difficult. .-)

 pg> Another thought: Even if we rename the "Free Software Foundation
 pg> Europe" now, people all over the world will continue referring to
 pg> it as the "Free Software Foundation Europe", so all we can get by
 pg> renaming is confusion.

That adds on top of it, too.

 pg> Having said that: Why not think about different _expansions_ of
 pg> "FSFE" in other languages? For example, I can translate "FSFE" to
 pg> "Freie-Software-Förderung Europa" in German which is not exactly
 pg> the same as "Free Software Foundation Europe", but preserves the
 pg> spirit.

I don't know. This sounds like it might create confusion, too. People
still have problems with the expansion of LGPL... and that has only
two possible choices. 

 pg> I would be really glad if we found a suitable latin name which
 pg> also can be abbreviated "FSFE". In that case I would vote for
 pg> that as a valid official name. :-)))

Yeah, right. There are tons of people on the street who understand
latin. .-)


By the way: I DID suggest a latin motto several days ago. The
combination of English name & latin motto is probably the best we can
do. At least that's what I'd vouch for. 

On top of this we could have local mottos in the native language of
the country.


Oh yeah: Merry Christmas, everyone!

                        
                                        Georg

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                       <greve at gnu.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe	             (http://www.fsfeurope.org)
Brave GNU World	                           (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 268 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/attachments/20001224/a390cd3e/attachment.sig>