6 ms·

Agreed, also "libre" is a gnu/jargon word which doesn't exist in most people's vocabulary, and probably seems meaningless or foreign.

• chrisseaton 4y ago
  That part of the open source community literally prioritises linguistic whimsy over success.
  • prmoustache 4y ago
    In that particular case the openoffice name was trademarked so they wanted to find something bearing a semantic ressemblance. What was your suggestion for a name and where were you when it was time to choose it? ?
    • chrisseaton 4y ago
      > bearing a semantic ressemblance But it doesn’t, outside of the Free Software fandom. They picked a name for themselves, not for their audience.
      • Brian_K_White 4y ago
        The name sucks, but libre absolutely does bear a rather non-trivial semantic resemblence to open. Come on.
        • BlueTemplar 4y ago
          Not to mention Libre being a synonym for Free Software (the GNU kind).
          • chrisseaton 4y ago
            Approximately zero people understand that connection in the general population. They're screaming at the choir.
            • prmoustache 4y ago
              That is not true Like 1 Billion people in the world are native spanish or french speakers and understand libre verbatim. Add to that most people speaking a latin language will also understand it despite the slight difference in spelling. Most people speaking english know the word liberty and those that have an IQ higher than an oyster do figure it out easily. Additionally you don't have to have a connection for a name to work. I mean there are a lot of software used by millions of people without them never ever thinking why they are called like that.
              • chrisseaton 4y ago
                People in this thread, so technical people, who already have an interest in OpenOffice / LibreOffice, are saying they don't even know how to pronounce it!
      • yellowapple 4y ago
        I still ain't seeing your suggestion for a better name.
        • chrisseaton 4y ago
          Asking people like me is how you get a crap 'developer art' name like the one they have - they should have asked a professional!
          • prmoustache 4y ago
            I guess you were already a generous donator back then already then! shoulda woulda
        • justin66 4y ago
          I think crowdsourcing a name by polling the public will get you something like OfficeMcOfficeFace, and that is if you are lucky. So if this is your roundabout way of pointing out that the name could be even worse, well played.
          • yellowapple 4y ago
            I mean, at least OfficeMcOfficeFace is memorable and straightforward to pronounce.
• anon_123g987 4y ago
  > in most people's vocabulary In (monolingual) English speakers vocabulary.
  • robonerd 4y ago
    Even for monolingual English speakers, like myself, it only takes two or three braincells to make a guess that "libre" comes from a Romance language and probably relates to the word liberty. That gets you close enough to understand the sentiment behind the name LibreOffice. I don't think the Libre name is a problem at all. It's just one of those things people too cynically think will be a problem for other people. The real problem for LibreOffice was losing all the brand recognition OpenOffice managed to accrue in the years before everything went to shit.
    • foerbert 4y ago
      I don't quite agree. It's not so much the meaning as the ease of use that's the problem. You don't need to have any worries about pronouncing, nor spelling, OpenOffice correctly. You can tell somebody about it without going through the whole "Huh? That's how you say it? Are you sure that's right? How do you spell it again?" routine. I'm not saying it's the whole story, or even the biggest part of it. But it adds a bit of friction to getting the word around about the new name. See uBlock Origin for a more successful example, where the mere mention of uBlock had, and still does to an extent, "you mean Origin, right?" as a default, low-effort response.
      • robonerd 4y ago
        "Lee-bray" I don't know if the French would approve of that pronunciation, but it's good enough for me and seems like an intuitively obvious way for me to pronounce it. The word looks obviously French, and monolingual English speakers encounter French-looking words often enough that it doesn't give many people pause. Just pronounce it like it was English and put on a fake French accent if you want to get fancy with it. I won't say there is zero friction from the word Libre, but it's certainly much smaller than losing all the built-up brand recognition of OpenOffice, and even that is much smaller than the elephant in the room: the ubiquity of Microsoft Office and the trouble any competitor will have no matter what name is used. I think people fixate on the name because that's the easiest thing to change. But changing the name would only make things worse, by once again wiping out all accrued brand recognition. Even if you ignore that and want to talk about a hypothetical situation where it was named something else originally, the project would obviously still be an obscure oddity in the global Microsoft monoculture.
• mtone 4y ago
  > and probably seems [..] foreign Yes, it's French for "free" after all.
  • mateo411 4y ago
    It's free in Spanish too. The word has a Latin root.
  • flomo 4y ago
    "Why did you put this French stuff on my computer instead of All-American™ Microsoft?"
    • maweki 4y ago
      LibertyOffice?
      • pessimizer 4y ago
        Absolutely better. OpenProductivity? When I ddg it, the third hit is OpenOffice, so they're probably buying it, it's so good. CornerOffice?
• xeromal 4y ago
  This right here. I don't know many regular folk that ever use the word Libre, but many use the word open and office.
• DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  I just think of the Nacho Libre movie with Jack Black.