[Grok-dev] Re: What is Grok anyways... time for a name change? :)

[Martijn Faassen]

Martin Aspeli wrote:
[snip]
>> Grok, the caveman as a subculture. I am not convinced that he has  
>> (already) become a subculture. Grok the caveman is a metaphor, and he  
>> just gives me the wrong associations. Nonetheless, as an ironic comic  
>> strip bashing on the evils in software development, yeah I think it  
>> could become a really cool thing. As the poster boy of Grok... he  
>> might actually be a problem. :(
> 
> I disagree that this is a problem. Java has a silly merlin-wizard like
> thing. Linux has a fat penguin. BSD has a devil-looking-thing. Logos
> that are memorable and personable are more important, in my opinion,
> than a "I am really corporate and solid" me-too.

Note also that we're marketing Grok to developers primarily, not to 
corporate/enterprise people. We do this as Grok is an open source 
project, and attracting developers is more important than attracting 
people into "enterprise". Open source projects that sound all 
enterprisey *put off* open source developers. Open source developers 
want to have fun.

Note that for enterpriseyness Grok can also point to Zope, which has a 
foundation, etc, etc. Then, if Grok is successful with developers and 
attracts a critical mass, we'll have a large part of the battle for the 
enterprise already won. That time is the time to look into presenting 
another enterprisey face for Grok.

That said, that doesn't mean I'm closed to tweaking our message so it 
works better. If a caveman puts off some developers, we can look into 
tweaking the caveman. We should just not forget our current primary 
audience for the message is developers.

Regards,

Martijn