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

Romain d'Alverny rdalverny at gmail.com
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


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