Formal complaint concerning the use of the name "System Settings" by GNOME

[Markus Slopianka]

Am Montag 25 Juli 2011, 02:37:15 schrieb Friedrich W. H. Kossebau:

> Sorry, Ben, but someone who names his program with that general term
> "System settings" and expects it to have this name in all of the
> shells/workspaces (Gnome Shell, Unity, XFCE, Enlightenment,
> $WINDOWMANAGER, even in Windows and OS X?), while it only basically
> controls settings of the KDE runtime env/platform, is at least also one
> who is insular and only cares for himself (or his workspace), no?

Hey, why don't we just rename Plasma Desktop as "Windows"? After all it's just a general 
term. Let's see how Microsoft's lawyers see that...

Seriously, there was no System Settings application in any repository I know before our 
System Settings was developed (first for KDE3, later SC4) and the term is perfectly fine 
for at least some distributions which use System Settings as sole configuration central 
with printer config etc. (If I'm not mistaken SUSE and Mandriva(+derivatives) are the only 
exceptions).


> Well, the two desktop file solution might work, no? Name it "KDE System
> Settings" or similar for non-Plasma envs in one file, and "System Settings"
> for Plasma envs in the original one. Make that other file a patch for
> 4.7.1. Or did I miss something?

Why should we again be the ones to move when GNOME chose to use that already taken name?
That rename proposal would torpedo our branding own effort suggesting that "KDE" is the 
name for the environment.
If we/Ben decide to rename System Settings, it should be done for our own sake. Personally 
I've thought for a while whether the name Workspace Settings would be better in line with 
our "Plasma Workspaces" branding. But how long until GNOME hijack that name again? Should 
_we_ retreat again?

I'm sorry but cooperation is a mutual thing. Just like we don't use application names they 
already use, they should respect our names -- no matter how generic a name might be.
We don't call our webcam application Cheese and force GNOME to rename their application to 
GNOME Cheese.