0003-name-change-plan

0003-name-change-plan.md

+# Plan name change
+
+* Date proposed: 2025-03-04
+* PMCR ID:
+  <https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmcr/-/merge_requests/6>
+
+## Summary
+
+After annoucing a name change in our
+[blog](https://postmarketos.org/blog/2025/03/04/pmOS-update-2025-02/), we will
+have to take extra steps in the implementation of the decision for a new name.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Duing a brand change is always a risky decision. The team agreed on it after
+many discussions, and with some kind of general consensus, despite not everybody
+fully agreeing. Extending on the discussion in the blog post:
+
+### Benefits of a name change
+
+* postmarketOS only reflects a fraction of what the project is, and could be.
+  The best example is Fairphone 4 and 5 support being added on release-day.
+  A new name could still reflect the sustainability aspect of the project,
+  without exclusively referring to one very limited aspect of sustainability.
+* It is hard to pronounce. This is specially a problem when doing outreach to
+  non-native English speakers. This is a great problem if we want to grow as a
+  community and reach out of the hacker world.
+* The capitalization is awkward, as easily becomes obvious in the first bullet
+  point of this point.
+* An easier to pronounce and less specific name is certainly a better branding
+  to approach less-technical people that might already know about what
+  postmarketOS is.
+* postmarketOS had very little chances of being accepted as a trademark, leaving
+  us in quite a vulnerable position against trolls. This came after discussions
+  with trademark lawyers.
+
+### Problems of a name change
+
+* Some people might feel alienated by it. Change is always hard, and we did not
+  do a great outreach before-hand. We might have also failed to explain some of
+  our rationale.
+* Part of the reasons for name change come from a goal to expand the horizonts
+  of the project outside a group of very-technical hackers. This might be hard
+  to explain, and might not seat well with some.
+* postmarketOS is already a well-recognized brand, and easy to find online.
+  We might loose some of that momemtum with a new name. However, we shoot high,
+  and it would be fair to assume that postmarketOS is only known by a tiny
+  fraction of the people that might at some point be able to use a device with
+  our operating system installed. So this might only be a relative downside.
+* The rebranding might cause technical disruption, reason for which this PMCR
+  exists.
+
+In addition to this, a name change needs work. I personally do not consider that
+a downside. The work will be put by motivated individuals working as volunteers.
+People work on what they find best, and I do not consider it a downside when
+people do volunteer work on their own will. When volunteer work applies, it is
+not always for granted that people will do the same amount of work on some other
+part of the project. They might simply not do it.
+
+## Consequences
+
+A name change could have the following consequences:
+
+* An easier to pronounce name, that will be more appealing and easy to share
+  outside the group of people that *don't yet know the project*.
+* Allow the project to not appeal to a single and very specific scope within
+  sustainability.
+* Avoid having to correct people over a non-intuitive capitalization.
+* Having a name that could be defended and trademarked.
+
+It also carries some risks:
+
+* Alienating part of the community and causing some social backslash
+* Requiring a transition for projects and branding
+* Losing some recognition short-term. However, that does not seem to have been
+  an issue in similar projects that renamed around us.
+* We choose a name that people don't identify with, or that is unnecessarily
+  "empty".
+
+## Draft implementation plan
+
+The plan has too parts:
+
+### Finish making the decision
+
+1. Set a deadline for the collection of names in the form
+2. Discuss different alternatives withing CC and TC team
+3. Research trademarks of the alternatives. postmarketOS was not possible
+   to trademark.
+4. Come with a set of preferred alternatives (2, 3, 4?), and vote on them.
+   Voting should probably be done in a way that people's preferrences are
+   respected (and not top 1). Asking for votes outside the team was deemed
+   not-appropriate due to the risk of trolling (e.g: people registering
+   domains or trademarks). Finding some alternative so it can be discussed with
+   a broader community would be great.
+
+### Actually implement the name change
+
+I'm sure I'm missing things. Filling this out is one of the main reasons to open
+this PMCR early
+
+1. Before going public, buy associated domain(s)
+2. Make it public, with a rationale on the decision
+3. Code/Reaname changes:
+   1. pmaports: packages with postmarketos in the name, adding "provides"
+      for backwards compatibility
+   2. bpo and pmbootstrap code changes (with alias/symlink to old name)
+   3. postmarketos.org
+   4. Visible parts of build.postmarketos.org
+   5. Wiki branding
+4. (Concurrently to point above) Infra changes
+   1. Point new domain to gitlab.postmarketos.org and wiki.postmarketos.org
+   2. Deploy website(s) to the new domain:
+      * <https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/postmarketos.org>
+      * <https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/build.postmarketos.org>
+   3. Add new aliases for matrix rooms
+   4. Rename gitlab group and repositories with the name
+   5. Create email aliases for everybody?
+5. Do a blog post as retrospective
+
+### The proposer
+
+Pablo Correa Gomez, a Core Contributor. I am basically opening this so we can
+start discussing on things that need change, and start drafting a plan. I do not
+have infra access, but could totally do any parts of the other work.
+
+### Blocking issues
+
+* Decide on voting mechanism. We need to make sure that we have a voting process
+  that is fair with a situation that is not black and white, but people might
+  have multiple acceptable preferences.
+* Decide whether we want to the keep the old websites frozen in time with some
+  disclaimer or redirect to the new ones (with or without disclaimer?)