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The current name (Karbon/Karbon14) seems to be an obscure reference to radioactive isotopes in radiometric dating methods. If this sounds like a vector drawing program to you, by all means vote this idea down.

If you'd like users looking for a vector graphics app to find ours and understand what it does, then please vote this idea up.

Vektor Has Good Search Potential:

• In English it's quite a unique word that would make it easy to stand out in searches.
  
• In German it seems mean the same as the English word "vector" which helps it be found in searches for vector graphics.
  
• It's pretty phonetic (spelled how it sounds) so and easy to spell for people from many countries.

Summary: It's short, good in web searches, says what it offers
and would draw support by being easier to understand.

Vote +1 to have our Vector app named after vector graphics rather than radioactive isotopes.

"Karbon" doesn't seem to have anything to do with vector graphics, I wonder why it was chosen in the first place?

Well, I guess same reason Dolphin is a file manager, Cashew is...whatever, etc.
It's just a name, it doesn't necesarily have to mean anything.
Karbon is just fine with me...

Nice avatar!

I'm amazed at how often "other people do things goofy, so we should, too" is used to avoid improving things...
If it doesn't matter then there's no reason *not to* change it. Thanks for posting, though.

@Gith
Cashew is (was) not the /chosen/ name - users started to call it that because it looks like... well... like a cashew [1]

@Kubuntiac
Not all program names really reflect the functionality (even outside of KDE - Firefox, Thunderbird, Dreamweaver, ...)


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew

I thought Karbon was a reference to the pencil lead which is made of carbon.

I think changing the name from Karbon to Vektor for the vector graphics app is a great idea. The only problem is it almost sounds a little too generic to me even with the changing on the spelling. But it does certainly make the purpose of the app very clear.

Hey Ivan.

Respect for your great work on Lancelot.

ivan wrote:Not all program names really reflect the functionality (even outside of KDE - Firefox, Thunderbird, Dreamweaver, ...)

I'm very aware of this. To me, this falls under my comment about saying "other people do goofy things goofy, so we should too" as a reason to keep things the same.

I'm interested in what would work best for Koffice, rather than what Mozilla / Macromedia did. It's worth pointing out though that even most of the names you mentioned like FireFox and Dream weaver, still hint at what they do.

"FireFox" suggests what FF originally did better (speed) and DreamWeaver hints at it's purpose of weaving code into something that appears amazing.

While anyone who's been around KDE a while knows what we know as Karbon was named Karbon14 (which is where the whole radioactive carbon dating thing comes from), it *is* interesting and more relevant how Alec read it. I doubt though that we could rely on most people seeing it that way, and as the old marketing maxim goes "a confused mind always says no" (ie if people don't understand it, they won't try it).

I'd really love more people to try Karbon out. That's why I'd like to minimise the confusion.

Cheers

Kubuntiac wrote:Hey Ivan.Respect for your great work on Lancelot.

Thanks

Don't get me wrong, I'm neither pro nor con when this idea is concerned.

Kubuntiac wrote:mentioned like FireFox and Dream weaver, still hint at what they do."FireFox" suggests what FF originally did better (speed) and DreamWeaver hints at it's purpose of weaving

Ok, you're a bit pushing it here It'd be like saying Karbon14 hints that it is so good, it is a 'one in a trillion' (like C14)

---

Beside the name, we (as in Free/Libre DEs, not only KDE) have the /generic name/ aka the description. For example, Konqueror and Firefox have "Web browser" as the generic name, Blender "3D Modeler", GIMP "Image editor", Gwenview "Image Viewer"...

Karbon14 has "Scalable Graphics" as the generic name. IMO, that is the thing to change. For example to "Vector Graphics Editor". ("vector graphics" is the term that is more used than "scalable graphics", and the current generic name doesn't say what the application does - it is an editor). Or to a simple "Drawing program" like OOo Draw has.

I think we may be talking about different things. I'm not really talking about when a user opens kickoff and see's the app there. I'm mainly talking about reaching new potential users who are searching / browsing the web and having them understand the use and unique benefit asap.

I'm not saying that someone who's never heard of FireFox would read the name and go "With a name like that, it *must* be a web browser." Yes, that *would* be a stretch of this example!

That said, if you can do it and *still* have an interesting sounding name, this *is* an advantage for having new potential users browsing / searching on the web. Thats why the suggestion is Vektor rather than "Vector Drawing Application" (ugh). That's why Microsoft's browser isn't called "Web Broswer" it's called "Internet /Explorer/". A mix of functionality *and* evoking the benefit (finding new things). Granted I'm no fan of the browser, but I think we could definitely learn from MS's marketing juggernaught here (adapting it to our own strengths).

Anyway, truth be told, I'd love it if this idea was adopted, but I floated it more to get the conversation started. Thanks for your thoughts. It's an interesting conversation. Anyway, we're about to have a planned power outage here so I'd best be off.

Cheers

@ivan
Yeah, I wrote the first thing that crossed my mind. But still proves the point, like you also said: program naming is a weird process, and names don't have to do anything with usage and functionality. Your Lacnelot is also a great example (no it's not "Launch-a-lot" no matter what you say )

@Kubuntiac
I have to say that I understand your point, and agree with it but with a slightly different aproach.
It's not program names that should be so pecisely descriptive, but their..well..descriptions.
Any good package manager these days suports queries not only by name, but also by package descriptions.

I've searched for "vector" here on Arch using Shaman, and search returned 15 packages. One of them was Karbon:

kdemod-extragear-koffice-karbon (2.0.2-2)
Karbon14 is a scalable vector drawing application

On Kubuntu, which you're using it's:
Package karbon
jaunty (graphics):a vector graphics application for the KDE Office Suite

So it can be done quite easy, without program renaming.

Trouble is that not all program descriptions are so precise, they can sometimes even be missinterpreted.
But that's another story.

As for Karbon, it has a really good package description on any distro I've tried, so it can easily be found in package managers.
So I don't think that in this case name should be changed.
Also, name changes ususally produce even more mess and confusion.

@Gith
No, no, no, Lancelot is Launching Lot, not Launch-a-lot


On a more serious note, the main reason for renaming (from my POV) is unification of names in KOffice (but, then, Kexi and Kivio should be renamed as well)

Since the program description is shown alongside the name in menus, I don't consider the 'program's name should reflect functionality' an important factor...

Hey guys,

I really think we're talking about completely different things.

It still seems that people are reading my suggestion as "Will Linux users be able to find the app from Kickoff."

What my suggestion was *really* about is more "Will someone who - if they knew about it - love to use, and eventually contribute to a libre vector app see it online and understand quickly what it does." This has nothing to do with whether our packages have descriptions or not. I came to free software because I was using windows, I needed an app and the first one I found that fitted my needs happened to be open source. When I became part of that community I came to appreciate the philosophy of free and open source software to which I try and contribute today. By the time someone is using Linux, it's pretty safe to assume they're going to come across their options pretty quickly. I'm interested in bringing many more people than that in though and that requires good marketing. Good marketing starts with the assumption that you have to help people find you, that when they do you have only a split second to get their interest, and in that split second you need to help them understand how you can help them get what they want. People doing searches for Karbon, either are using the app already or looking for something completely different. People interested in vector apps who by random chance happen to see the name somewhere are unlikely to guess it has anything to do with vector graphics. A description in the menu has no impact here.

I spread awareness of free software by word of mouth to my friends and family.

I find names that evoke somehow the purpose of the program to be very useful for spreading it: the dominant word processor is called "Word", in the tradition of "WordPerfect" "Word Star" etc. all of them using the concept of well, words. KWord, while a clunky name, works in this regard.

Adobe's vector graphics program is called "Illustrator", clearly indicates what it does. But then Adobe's "Acrobat" certainly doesn't!

The name "Firefox" was one reason I was initially not interested in the product. I was certainly for a good Web browser, but if the marketing people couldn't give it a logical name how good could it be?

After all Microsoft initially called their browser "the Internet explorer', and "Konqueror" not only continues in the legacy of Netscape "Navigator" but the imagery invoked by the name as well. It was pretty obvious what the product is for.

"Kivio" is more of a pun on the program "Visio' than a descriptive name, and "Kexi" means nothing at all, at least in English, much like its Microsoft counterpart "Access".

People are more likely to try a product if the name evokes something related to its purpose. "Micro-soft" being a great example

Another advantage in changing the name is that when promoting the product by word of mouth, shortness of the name matters: its much easier to say in English the word "Vector" than "Carbon 14".

Another thing the name needs to have is remembrance.

That is why Firefox is an awesome name although it doesn't really mean anything.

It is awesome when you can achieve all the things mentioned above (the programs with unique meaningful names that come to mind are Netscape and Inkscape ).