Decide on Starshot's product name

Created on 3 June 2024, 6 months ago
Updated 11 September 2024, 2 months ago

Problem/Motivation

I never thought I'd have to file a critical marketing issue, but here we are.

As @catch pointed out in #3452233-5: [PP-1] Establish the repository layout โ†’ , if we're going to provide Starshot's component recipes to people for use in their own projects, we're going to need to expose them to Project Browser. If we're going to expose them to Project Browser, we need them to be projects on drupal.org. And if we're going to do that, we need to decide on the permanent name of the Starshot product suite, because projects and releases are written in stone on drupal.org.

Okay, sure -- projects could be migrated from one namespace to another. But, because each individual recipe needs to be its own project, we anticipate that Starshot will generate many sub-projects. Therefore, it'll be better for everyone if we decide on this now, so as to minimize the amount of debris we create.

So, let's fling open this biggest of all bikesheds. I don't think we have a ton of time to decide this, but maybe @Dries would be willing to accept some sort of deadline, since I'm guessing the final decision lies with him.

Last I heard, "Drupal CMS" was the option that seems to be floating around. I don't have a problem with that. But if you have some other/better idea, go ahead and share your $0.02.

Proposed resolutiom

Suzanne (I think) mentioned in Drupal Slack that it's been narrowed down to:

Drupal CMS
Drupal Spark
Drupal Plus

and the team is going to move forward with user testing these against user personas who are not part of the Drupal community.

๐Ÿ“Œ Task
Status

Fixed

Component

General

Created by

๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States phenaproxima Massachusetts

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  • Issue created by @phenaproxima
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States phenaproxima Massachusetts
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States phenaproxima Massachusetts
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom catch

    I don't think it's just the recipes, the composer create-project command will have to have the name in it too e.g. composer create-project drupal/cms or something like that. 'starshot' shouldn't be anywhere user-facing at all.

    The wireframes have had 'Drupal core' vs. 'Drupal CMS' as a working name, and it's pretty clear what it means relative to Drupal core and is self-explanatory.

    There was some discussion about rebranding Drupal core as Drupal framework, but I feel quite strongly against that because if we were to move more stuff from Drupal\Core to Drupal\Component we'd have actual framework-y components that people could use (cache, config, database etc.), so should leave 'framework' available for that.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States phenaproxima Massachusetts
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic
    1. If this is the new "default download" of Drupal, then the name should be just "Drupal", see @Dries LinkedIn Post here https://www.linkedin.com/posts/buytaert_starshot-activity-72015734272273...
    2. "Core" means nothing to the outside world, and "CMS" is redundant.
    3. I agree that Starshot should not be mentioned
    4. I think as technical folk, we like to categorize and label things and so ofcourse we want to go down the road of naming it "Core" or "CMS"
    5. I also think it's OK to have it be "Drupal" and "Drupal" and not "Drupal CMS" and "Drupal Core" or "Drupal API" or "Drupal Framework"
    6. Maybe think about this as "Drupal for Marketing" and it uses "Drupal for Devs" but it's all "Drupal"

    One more thing... if this is the and it's just a package of certain things that we deem best in class, then it SHOULD be called Drupal. Otherwise, when this launches, we will have done ourselves a disservice and bifurcated our beloved product into two. I see no other option but that "Drupal Starshot" is just "Drupal"

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic

    I was wondering if there was a technical reason why `drupal/drupal` would not be possible, and it seems to me that this is the perfect thing to call it. When you go to https://packagist.org/packages/drupal/drupal the first thing you see is a page that says the "This package is abandoned and no longer maintained." -- this is really awful for us, I think. From a marketing perspective, `drupal/drupal` should be our best and brightest. And the `drupal/core-recommended` should be the underlying power of the product.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บHungary Gรกbor Hojtsy Hungary

    That's not the only place where Drupal appears. Eg. https://git.drupalcode.org/project/drupal and https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal โ†’ . We'll likely not use in marketing but the underlying core will have a different release cadence and versioning than "Starshot", so for the sake of referring to the two of them we need some kind of naming scheme. At least both of them can't be called "Drupal".

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic

    @Gabor I think that means we are splitting Drupal into two things. You can't have "the new default download of Drupal" and "Drupal" at the same time.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บHungary Gรกbor Hojtsy Hungary

    Yes, see "A clearer separation of target personas" in https://www.hojtsy.hu/blog/2024-may-11/15-reasons-i-am-excited-about-dru...

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    Not sure I'm a big fan about the terminology "CMS". In the end, both are CMS'es.

    I actually like the suggestion of @ivanstegic in #6 and #7.

    Since Starshot will be built on top of core, I have no problem with it being named just Drupal. Power users will know that Core is the one "for developers". So if there is no technical limitation for that, I'm a big fan of drupal/drupal.

    Another approach similar to Commerce could be "kickstart".

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom catch

    drupal/drupal/ is already taken on packagist https://packagist.org/packages/drupal/drupal - it is the namespace of the entire drupal core repo.

    It is not recommended for any kind of installs via composer, but I think it would be non-trivial to change what that points to - e.g. we might have to rename https://drupal.org/project/drupal to https://drupal/project/drupal-core (it can't be drupal/core either because that's also taken on packagist for the contents of the /core directory subtree split) and migrate the repo on gitlab and all sorts of things. And then there's the question of sites that actually did do composer require drupal/drupal for whatever reason which would get a big surprise if they upgrade. Feels like somewhere between very hard and impossible to make work.

    This doesn't mean that it would be impossible for the 'product name' to be 'Drupal' vs. 'Drupal core' but it can't be the raw project/repo name and it could introduce lots of confusion if we use 'Drupal' to mean one thing in one context and another thing in another context.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ao5357

    Dries mentioned in today's zoom that a potential future-state would be that the resulting package from Starshot could eventually be the main offering, and discussion on #3453043: Review initial Starshot wireframes โ†’ is already pointing in that direction to some extent, too.

    Here are a few one-word options that could be put after Drupal, in case there isn't other brainstorm/workshop work product out there:

    • CMS
    • Site
    • Go
    • Start
    • Kit
    • Package
    • Guided
    • Pack
    • Launcher
    • Drop
    • Bundle
    • Wizard
    • Stroom
    • (going Dutch and watery)

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States dalemoore

    I don't see why we can't just stick with "Drupal" for the new product name, but refer to it as "Drupal CMS" under the hood/as developers, and "Drupal Core" for the framework/version with no extra modules/themes/recipes/whatever added. Basically what we already do?

    WordPress refers to itself as "WordPress Core" for the version with no other themes and plugins installed. See here for WordPress Core. ("Never edit WordPress Core!") But generally, just "WordPress"...

    If you mouseover "core" in the link, it says:

    Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

    That sounds like the equivalent of Drupal Core.

    If it works for WordPress, the most-used CMS in the world, don't see why not also for Drupal?

    Either just "Drupal", or "Drupal CMS", are the only two options that make sense. The only other thing I can think of is "Drupal XP" for Experience Platform, so that we can abbreviate it "DXP", same as digital experience platform.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic

    Can we just use the word Drupal to describe our product and be done? This post applies now more than ever: https://ten7.com/blog/post/just-say-drupal

    Here is what I think we need to do:

    • Use the Starshot moniker as a way to rally around a temporary push
    • When time runs out, launch Starshot as the "default download" as @Dries put it and just call it Drupal
    • Tweak packagist.org/packages/drupal/drupal to NOT say abandoned
    • Continue to THINK of the HEAD of Drupal right now as "Drupal Core" (easy)
    • Realize that Starshot uses "Drupal Core" AND "Drupal Contrib" and that calling it "Drupal" is just fine and people in the real world won't care

    I also think we need to rethink the marketing page in the wireframes that @Gabor posted about. Here is how I would frame it: https://ten7.im/2zyds1rL

    (My edited image is uploaded here too.)

  • ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฐSlovakia poker10

    If we are considering to rename Drupal -> Drupal core and Starshot -> Drupal then we need to be careful. It was not the same situation (and we cannot compare it directly), but Home Assistant made a similar change in 2020, when initially the product was called just Home Assistant. After the rebranding, Home Assistant became Home Assistant core and Home Assistant itself was then a different product (the full OS). It caused a big confusion, problems with documentation, etc. Again, it is not the same situation, as Starshot and Drupal (core) both will be on the same core and the docs would apply to both of these, so I think more important will be how we will present this on the downloads page and so on.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บAustralia pameeela

    I think that means we are splitting Drupal into two things.

    'Splitting' feels like the wrong word, because one is built on top of the other, but it is accurate that there will be (for now) two different versions. So they need two different names, as others have pointed out. We may eventually not have both but the current roadmap calls for keeping core separate.

    I can definitely see the point about just calling it Drupal, but I also think that we are trying to market to some folks who know Drupal and have a certain opinion about it, so we want to be clear that it is something new. And, it will be confusing for many if we change what we currently know as Drupal to be something else, when the core version still exists.

    FWIW Silverstripe uses 'Silverstripe CMS' and 'Silverstripe Framework'. I have no info on whether this is working well for them but it does suggest that it's not a totally wild idea :)

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    I can definitely see the point about just calling it Drupal, but I also think that we are trying to market to some folks who know Drupal and have a certain opinion about it, so we want to be clear that it is something new.

    Correct, but I don't see how adding the word "CMS" to the name would help here. In the end, both are CMS'es. The association for those people what Drupal is/was will remain I think. I think if we're going to append a word to "Drupal", it should be clear there is a difference.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    both are CMS'es

    I was very happy when I heard about the split for many reasons. One of those reasons was that I will be able to bravely call Drupal a framework for once.

    I consulted AI, it provided a helpful overview about this idea. I attached a PDF file for those also interested about the difference.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    Drupal is not a true framework, but it can be used as a framework to build apps in practice. Drupal CMS is a good example of what Drupal can build.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom catch

    Calling 'Drupal core' 'Drupal framework' has come up elsewhere, but fwiw I'm quite opposed to that because we have subtree splits of Drupal's component directory already. There is not much in the component directory, but with not that much work it could have the database, cache, key/value, queue, flood, log etc. systems moved into it, which would then be available to use without the rest of Drupal Core - much more equivalent to components from Symfony or Laravel then.

    Because of that, calling Drupal Core, Drupal Framework, would cause another name collision in the future if we ever wanted to use it for the subtree split of components. Even if something like that was called 'Drupal Components' instead of 'Drupal framework' it'd still be confusing.

    Similar to @pameela I do see the benefits from using 'Drupal', if there wasn't the collision with what we already have. What about something like 'Drupal+' vs. Drupal core. It would not be googleable separate from Drupal, but from the perspective of not splitting things, that seems like a benefit rather than a drawback, and it would emphasise that it's Drupal core plus contrib plus recipes and not a split product.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    I like the idea of @catch!

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ao5357

    Keeping in mind that it would be something like drupal/plus in package names, then. It seems like there are two matters here: the marketing name and how it would appear in slash-separated git repos or composer packages. That's the reason for the one-word segments in #13

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ชGermany jurgenhaas Gottmadingen

    To me, Starshot brought the same relieve that @mindaugasd described: it promised to become easy to position Drupal out there in the market to new prospects and clients much clearer. There is Drupal core, the framework. And there are (will be) products, that are built on top of that, e.g. Drupal CMS.

    Having said that, I still believe that stands even with the concerns raised by @catch as I think we should distinguish between the technical naming (namespaces, etc.) and the naming for marketing.

    In other words, Drupal core is the technology, Drupal CMS is the product. That avoids the "framework" as it may confuse people on why there is the Symfony framework underneath.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    @catch to make things clear, I mean "Drupal CMS" + "Drupal" are great names, which also does not require any refactoring.

    I prefer this layout, because I use "Drupal" as a framework today. And for website building I use other simpler platforms, because I cannot afford Drupal to build websites as a regular person, while I am not an enterprise.

    I do want these separate installs as was in Starshot presentation: One minimalist framework (as today) called "Drupal" so I could continue use Drupal as I use it, and another "Drupal CMS" a new product regular people can quickly install and use, and afford, maybe even start building websites with again.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บAustralia pameeela

    I did not mean to suggest that we should use CMS / Framework, I just think it's solving the same problem we have here, and to me it is clearly presented. I agree that 'framework' is not the right term for Drupal core.

    I am not partial to Drupal CMS but I don't mind it. I also like Drupal+, I think we even discussed that in one of the earlier wireframe sessions.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ดJordan Rajab Natshah Jordan

    Maybe Drupal Website โ†’
    like "drupal/website"

    The logic is when I want to create a website with Drupal I use the Website General package

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    "Website" sounds nice.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ดJordan Rajab Natshah Jordan

    Drupal+ feels logical too.
    Starshot is the work progress shot to release the next Drupal+ in "Number of days" epoche

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    Even more:

    Drupal Express
    Drupal QuickStart
    Drupal Ready
    Drupal Suite
    Drupal Stellar (starshot:)
    Drupal Nova
    Drupal Boost
    Drupal Elevate

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic

    We are bike shedding this without a wide view of the world.

    I keep coming back to the idea that this is meaningful for our community only.

    Why isn't this as simple as calling our product "Drupal" and having it be powered by "Drupal Core" ? We might not need to replace the Starshot name, maybe we just need to remove it.

    I am still in favor of

    • Drupal Starshot -> Drupal
    • Drupal 8, 9, 10, 11, etc -> Drupal Core
    • Drupal 7 -> Legacy Drupal
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    Changing names means confusion.
    While creating new product means it is easier to experiment with new features and be more relaxed about it. Introducing no change to existing workflows and understanding.
    And leaving all the other names as it is also means less change and less confusion.
    Drupal 7 is deprecated anyway. Everyone knows it as Drupal 7, I talk about it using this name all the time, so it is good to leave it just as it is.
    Dropping numbers from Drupal is also a big change (such as rolling release). It is easier to communicate to the client, that version has changed (like Drupal 11), and now the Drupal major version need to be upgraded until a specific date.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ivanstegic

    @mindaugasd Please https://ten7.com/blog/post/just-say-drupal for rebuttal to your comments. I'll say though that the post now feels a little outdated with this conversation, so please take it with general intention of simplification.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    Dropping version numbers for marketing purpose is being discussed in a different issue. ๐ŸŒฑ [Discussion] Recommendation for dropping version numbers for external marketing of Drupal Active

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡นLithuania mindaugasd

    Thanks for referencing issue about numbers for avoiding going off topic, since I almost did :-)

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States ao5357

    There might be a little bit of talking past one another going on.

    As reiterated in #23, there's two aspects to the name:

    1. The marketing name for the product
    2. The name that follows drupal/ in git repos and composer packages

    I think there's merit in those being the same name, whether drupal/drupal in code and we call the bundled-up package just plain-old Drupal, or a new name for both.

    The marketing name is also sort of a guess at what people will call it informally, and Drupal is a pretty solid guess at that.

    Keep in mind that this issue isn't about renaming core or doing anything with version numbers. We're trying to name the new product, so while those aspects are small factors they shouldn't be determinative.

    A new name (that isn't just Drupal) could be simple, such as Drupal+ (with drupal/plus) or more involved. While so far we've all mostly aligned that it should either just be Drupal or something like "Drupal Start", it's probably worth discussing here whether there's marketing value in giving this a whole-new name. Specifically, for the persona of someone who had tried out Drupal in the past and been frustrated by that trial. That persona may be reluctant to try something that's still called Drupal without qualification, though a rose by any other name...

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States Kristen Pol Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Although I can understand the point of sticking with Drupal and Drupal Core as the names, I personally like Drupal+ because we are taking Drupal (core) and adding cool stuff on top. And then someone can build a distribution on top of that called Drupal++ ๐Ÿ˜†

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States hestenet Portland, OR ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ

    +1 to Kristen Pol's comment #38

    I like that idea - or something like: Drupal Accelerator

    Partly because both ideas help create the separation between 'just core' and 'starshot' - but they also still imply that you're using the same 'Drupal' in the end.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States Kristen Pol Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    While Drupal Accelerator is nice semantically, Drupal+ is much easier to say and type :)

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    +1 for easy typing. Personally also a fan of Drupal+

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ดJordan Rajab Natshah Jordan

    Yah, I like Drupal++ too. It could be nicknamed D++ as C and C++.

    +1 for Drupal+ is the best D+ tho.

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธUnited States Kristen Pol Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Suzanne (I think) mentioned in Drupal Slack that it's been narrowed down to:

    Drupal CMS
    Drupal Spark
    Drupal Plus

    and the team was going to move forward with user testing these against non-Drupal user personas.

    If I was choosing between these 3, I'd just go with "Drupal CMS" (or "Drupal" along with "Drupal Core" for core).

    I actually don't like "Drupal Plus" ... just "Drupal+" ;)

    "Drupal Spark" isn't in this issue so not sure where it came from...

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom catch

    I actually don't like "Drupal Plus" ... just "Drupal+" ;)

    As the person who suggested Drupal+ (not after a lot of thought, just after some of the discussion about only using 'Drupal' in this issue), I agree with this. I could live with it in a URL, but it looks awkward otherwise.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ชBelgium BramDriesen Belgium ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช

    "Drupal Spark" isn't in this issue so not sure where it came from...

    Probably linked to "starshot" in some way. Space, rockets, spark, ignition... ๐Ÿ˜‰

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom catch

    Quoted @Kristen Pol's notes into the issue summary so it's easier to see what the current status is here. Is there a rough timeline for the user testing?

  • ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณIndia prashant.c Dharamshala

    I completely agree with @kristen Pol #38 โ†’ .

    The terms Drupal and Drupal Core are straightforward and easily understood by both technical and non-technical users.

    Thank you.

  • Status changed to Fixed 3 months ago
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บAustralia pameeela

    We have a name โ†’ ! Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion.

    We're excited to announce that "Drupal CMS" will be the official name for the product developed by the Drupal Starshot Initiative.

    The name "Drupal CMS" was chosen after user testing with both newcomers and experienced users. This name consistently scored highest across all tested groups, including marketers unfamiliar with Drupal.

    More info in the post.

  • ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บHungary Gรกbor Hojtsy Hungary

    Moving to Drupal CMS!

  • Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

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