History: Branding Guidelines

The following are guidelines concerning promotion of WikiSuite, the software and the community.

Free Software vs Open Source

The choice of the terms "Free Software" vs "Open Source" is delicate; for reference:

• https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software#Naming

We want folks from both camps to be heavily involved with us, which is why the WikiSuite tagline is "The most comprehensive and integrated Free / Libre / Open Source enterprise software suite".

This tagline is quite long, so it's understandable that in cases where space is limited (for example, on Twitter), we can alternatively use "Open Source" or "Free Software".

GNU/Linux vs Linux

Similar to above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy

Let's use "GNU/Linux" and work towards one day becoming an FSF High Priority Free Software Project.

Promoting only what is in WikiSuite

WikiSuite only includes Free / Libre / Open Source software (FLOSS). Some of the components have non-FLOSS plugins (that is, premium or proprietary plugins). We do not use them as part of WikiSuite and, thus, we do not promote them on wikisuite.org. Of course, people can discover and use these on their own, but the long-term strategy of WikiSuite is to reproduce any desired functionality as part of WikiSuite. This will perhaps lead to some tricky political situations, which we will navigate through. But this is only for non-core features as the main software always has rich functionality as per our component criteria.

From the main site of each component:

• Components that are FLOSS only: Tiki, Openfire Meetings / Jitsi Meet, Syncthing, Kimchi/KVM
• Components with proprietary plugins: ClearOS (although most paid apps are services), Elasticsearch, Xibo (Android player)
• Need to be checked: FusionPBX/FreeSWITCH

Similarly, some components also have some things that are FLOSS, but not in WikiSuite. We generally do not promote these, as it will cause our users to look for info and documentation, and in the end, they can't use them in WikiSuite, for example: https://www.elastic.co/products/hadoop .

Truth and backing up our claims

• WikiSuite's offering will be compared to the related offerings of two of the biggest companies in the world (Google and Microsoft), and other companies are increasingly in the Enterprise Suite market.
  • Expect that our promotion will be doubted (by potential users or journalists) or attacked (by alternatives).
  • Even one false or exaggerated statement can be used to discredit everything else.
• Therefore, everything has to be rigorously true.
• We can promote our strengths and avoid talking about our weaknesses. When we talk about weaknesses, we talk about our plan to improve the situation.

References for stats and claims

• It is common and powerful to use stats to demonstrate a point. When we do so, there should be a reference / link to the source.

Avoid claims like "the best"

This is highly subjective and it depends on the context. It's OK to use terms like great, fantastic, awesome, etc. because WikiSuite can be great at something and it doesn't mean that another project is not also great.

When we do make claims like "the most", document them like this so people can challenge this fact.

Clarity, spelling and grammar

• The first language of a lot of our audience is not English, so let's keep our language level simple and unambiguous. Please avoid idioms.
• Gary Cunningham-Lee can help for all proofreading.

About technical languages

• Our main target is managers that see the value of technology and want their organization to be more efficient, so our communication must not be too techie. If something might be ambiguous, add an explanatory link or mouseover.

Visual consistency

• Bilal Siddiq and Isabelle Montminy will work together to keep branding consistent and evolving according to our needs.

Respecting licenses

• We must be diligent with respect to licenses. Ideally, we find sources of images, videos, and so on that we can remix. And we give proper credit.

Keeping components and service providers in mind

WikiSuite is composed of software components. We must ensure that we do everything we can to make their producers proud of their software being a part of WikiSuite and want to help us promote the project. This applies to service providers as well, for example: https://www.bsfez.com/tiki-browse_freetags.php?tag=wikisuite .

Think re-use and remix

Already, one university has taken WikiSuite and re-branded. They need to be able to re-use all of our content. Some of the producers of software components may also want to re-use and remix. Again, this is also true for service providers, for example: https://www.bsfez.com/tiki-browse_freetags.php?tag=wikisuite .

Message consistency

The branding page should have all of the latest text and images, and should be used for listings. The promotional text we put elsewhere should be coherent with what is on WikiSuite.org.

About money, commerce and services

WikiSuite exists to help organizations be more efficient. In the case of non-profits, that means fulfilling their mission. And in the case of businesses, that means being more profitable (making customers happy, selling more, reducing costs, etc.)

And WikiSuite fosters a commercial ecosystem of service providers (support, development, training, hosting, etc.) which add value. And these are services which organizations should expect to pay for if they don't have the skill set in their team.

So WikiSuite is for commerce but is against proprietary software because this is not a good way to manage your organizations's data.

So when contrasting WikiSuite to others, let's avoid the term "commercial sofware" and instead use "proprietary software"