The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors is planning a new initiative: the idea is for the GNOME project to start managing a list of cool software that uses or extends the GNOME platform, which we will then promote and support.
The list can include nice apps which use our platform and (loosely) follow our HIG. It can also include libraries that extend the platform, such as additional language bindings. The software that’s on the list won’t have to be hosted by GNOME, but would receive publicity and support from the Foundation, and contributors would qualify for Foundation membership.
In this way, we want to promote, celebrate and support all the great software that people make for GNOME.
We’ll be sharing more detailed plans for the initiative, but for now we want your help giving it a name!
The name needs to be applicable to the software we’re promoting, so you can say this is a GNOME supercalifragilisticexpialidocious application. It also needs to be a cool name, so we can do marketing around the initiative and the software itself.
It would be great if people wanted to share their suggestions or thoughts. At this point there’s no wrong answers so don’t feel shy about posting your ideas!
Using words like “Endorse” and “Approve” carries a lot of weight. Can you guarantee there will be (for example) security updates, and good response time to bug reports? Having your well known and respected name behind an application might give people the impression you’ve reviewed the code or vetted the developer.
Is it a one-time thing, or something you review with each update?
You can imagine the internet fun when an application which initially was “Approved” doesn’t get updated, is insecure or grows features that don’t fit with your GNOME ethos. I’d go for words which indicate a wider community of “suggested” applications rather than “recommended”.
However, my suggestion would be:
GNOME Application Community
This highlights that you’re not saying these people / apps are part of GNOME per se, but part of a wider broad community. You’re offering no commitments, just saying “Hey, they used our tools, fit our HIG and the app looks like something you might like”.
Later, if there were applications which met with more stringent guidelines such as security updates, perhaps add additional modifiers:
GNOME Application Community - Suggested Apps
GNOME Application Community - Verified Developers
GNOME Application Community - Audited Product
These could be represented in GNOME Software with badges, which developers could strive for. The badges help give users confidence in the applications they’re installing, that not only do they fit the HIG, but also the GNOME ethos, and commit to security updates etc.
But those would be optional, further down the line once you get critical mass and have numerous people on the team who can spread the load of verifying developers and applications.
Ideally we’d periodically review the collection of software, but I doubt it would be for every update… (just because of time and resources).
Note that we’re hoping to include both libraries and applications. That’s not to say that we couldn’t call it this, though, or have a GNOME Application Community and a GNOME Platform Community, or something.
How far should requirements go for language bindings, should language community provide a flatpak sdk extension? Should we promote language servers for builder integration? Can we have subcategories in discourse for specific gnome language communities?
The name doesn’t have to be completely literal, by the way: there’s nothing to say we can’t use a random world if it conveys feelings or associations that would work in this context…!
@csoriano and I have spent some time looking over the suggestions in this thread. As part of that conversation, we identified some potential goals and requirements for the name:
Good things to aim for:
Short names
Names that can be easily used to describe both the group and individual members
Suggestions to avoid:
That software outside the group is incompatible (or less compatible) with GNOME
That included software is only compatible with GNOME, and not with other platforms
That included software is made by the GNOME project
That the group of apps and libraries is naturally occuring or organic
An idea that I really like personally: GNOME Family
The word family has a very positive meaning for most people
“GNOME Family member” has a nice and warm ring to it.
Doesn’t imply in any way that apps are exclusive to Gnome
Implies that this is somehow connected to GNOME but at the same time, it doesn’t sound official enough to be something that GNOME Foundation would call their official set of applications.
Vague just enough to make users curious about it and maybe look it up on Google if it’s mentioned somewhere without any context.
Mentioning “family” in a negative context would sound off.
In the programming community there are a lot of people who keep curated lists of the libraries and applications for specific technologies. Typically they follow the naming convention “Awesome [tech]”. For example “awesome rust” or “awesome php”. So using “awesome gnome” might leverage that existing trend among developers, thereby making it natural to include libraries and bindings and the like. It also doesn’t have any negative or conflict oriented connotations. Nor does it sound too official or sanctioned.