Marketing Team/Name
IntroductionThis is a discussion on the name "Sugar" and potential alternatives. There are currently no active initiatives to rebrand. Note that re-branding would be a very difficult, costly, and extended process - however, if you believe it to be worthwhile, go for it and start mapping out and proposing a gameplan on how and why to do so. Please add to the discussion on this page if you have ideas/are interested. HistoryPlease explain here how the name "Sugar" emerged and how the decision to use it was made. Downsides to current name
The names "Sugar" and "Sugar Labs" have no intuitive relationship to education or to our mission goals. Potential alternatives
Both names convey a sense of place and safety for children. Sugar is not simply a background canvas like Windows XP. I propose keeping Sugar Labs for the organization name and renaming "Sugar" the environment to SugarLand.
I thought the term "OLPC" was much better known than "Sugar Labs," but based ONLY on Web search hit counts, OLPC has even better name recognition than I had guessed. And the phrase "one laptop per child" does even enormously better - but it is a mouthful! So I think re-branding Sugar as an OLPC derivative makes a lot of sense. On the whole, the word "juice" has wholesome connotations - as a nutritional food, a font of energy and so on - much better, I think, than Sugar. Juice is also an extract which is intimately related to its precursor host. That's why I think "OLPC Juice" is a much better name for what is now called "Sugar." (If there is some reason the acronym "OLPC" could not be used by Sugar Labs, I think even "Sugar Labs Juice" is a better software name than "Sugar.")
The name is evocative of a once(still?)-popular commercial USA building tool for children called "Lincoln Logs." The second word also recalls "Logo," with its arcane but respectable educational heritage and also "Lego," yet another commercial building tool for children, of international repute. One drawback is that "Logs" does not immediately convey the VIRTUAL nature of the learning environment. However, the word "log" DOES reflect that Activities are preserved, so that they can be revisited and extended at a future time. (Some quick online searching reveals this name is ALREADY applied to a type of pedagogy. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_log). Perhaps more words could be added for branding. A feeble possibility is "Logical Learning Logs", suggesting the use of the undergirding logic circuitry of the machine. Being alliterative, many triple-L logos are immediately obvious. One can escape alliteration with "Digital Learning Logs." The phrase "Digital Online Learning Logs" roughly has as its acronym DOLLs - but I am told that boys today will only play with "action figures." |
