[Zope] The name ZOPE (was RE: [Zope] Linux.com community ad)

Michael Hirsch hirsch@z2i.com
Fri, 15 Oct 1999 09:41:59 -0400 (EDT)


Evan Gibson writes:
 > On Thu, Oct 14, 1999 at 11:23:44PM -0400, Michael Hirsch wrote:
 > >  > Am I alone in this thought?
 > > No, you are not.  My company have almost committed to using ZOPE, but
 > > one thing we had to overcome was distrust of the name.  Somehow
 > > "StoryServer" seems to convey more than "zope".  Fortunately, we've
 > > overcome the name prejudice.
 > 
 > The problem of a world conditioned by marketing...

Oh, I agree.  Unfortunately, upper management is more likely to have a
management background than an engineering background.

 > For me the knee-jerk response goes the other way... I distrust
 > advertising to the extent that the flashier and better the name the
 > less I'm tempted to even _look_ at the option. I expect well advertised
 > and marketed products to be useless piles of fluff or to (best case) have
 > been forced to release at least 3 months before they were ready and
 > consequently be bug-ridden and unusable for the forseeable future.

Right.  But try talking to your CEO about the difference between beta
commercial software and beta free software.  In my eperience, beta
free software is more robust than released commercial software.
Version 1.0 free software seems about as stable as 3rd release
commercial software.  But it is a difficult case to make to someone
who reads glossy brochures (and believes them).

-- 
--Michael