[ocaml-biz] Some logo for your OCaml related websites

[Brandon J. Van Every]

> This is a wee bit fuzzier.  I read the O'Reilly pages on this
> matter (the above page and the Perl camel
> FAQ
> <http://perl.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/perl/usage/faq.html>),
> and it is unclear to me whether
> the domain that O'Rielly has the trademark under is
> programming languages in general or Perl
> specifically.

Another programming language advertized with a realistic camel would
cause confusion for the consumer.  Trademark law is designed to protect
consumers, not companies, so there's nothing fuzzy here.  It would be
like someone selling a different kind of PC with a different variety of
apple for the logo.

> > Not every animal is created equal,
> >  however.  There are at least 3 ways to treat an animal:
> >
> > - realistically
> > - comically
> > - abstractly
>
> Just personal preference speaking here, but I'm not a big fan
> of comical representations.

Nor am I.  I think they're appropriate to children's games, educational
materials, and entertainment works whose intent is comedy.  Programmers
often like 'cutesy' stuff, but the problem is, one has to market to more
than just programmers.  In fact, programmers need the least marketing
because OCaml has technical merit.  It's technical merit that sways a
programmer, not some touchy feely logo.  Suits have pretty much the
opposite disposition.  The business appearance is important to them.
The underlying technology is often a black box they don't understand.
That's what they hire programmers for.

> However, even
> if it were legally clear for us to use a
> camel as the image for OCaml, I don't think it's a good idea.
>  Perl already has the association with the
> camel, and any use of the image with OCaml could likely be
> seen as an attempt to: Hijack the image;
> Ride the coattails of Perl; Represent Caml as a Perl
> wannabe...  none of these are too positive.

I agree as far as *realistic* camels go.  I don't agree as far as
abstractions of camels.  I think it would be foolish to blow off the
mnemonic value of caml == camel.  Screw the Perl crowd.  The whole point
is to take market share from other languages anyways.  "Hey you're
stepping on our toes!" could even work to OCaml's advantage, so long as
the logo is legally clear and above board.  Some programmer's whiney
perception isn't gonna hold up in court.  What matters is whether it's
an infringing mark or not.  That's the whole point of trademark law: one
mustn't just ride the coattails of someone else's trademark.  First the
consumer thinks realistic camels are about Perl, then they think
realistic camels are about OCaml.  So the logo has to clearly look
totally different from the O'Reilly logo.

One should also consider the hardcore mercenary aspects of the law.
*Perl* doesn't hold a trademark on camels.  O'Reilly does.  This split
identity could mean that a legal challenge is never mounted, so long as
we're not obviously stepping on O'Reilly's book turf.

> > Analogously, the first order of business for an OCaml logo
> is securing INRIA's support and buy-in.
> > Failure to do so spells doom.
>
> Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far.

I've been through death on this issue before, and I *will* go that far.
INRIA buy-in has to be secured at the outset, or we are wasting our
time.

> It seems to me that
> OCaml is still at the stage that a de facto logo
> could be imposed upon them

I wouldn't bank on it.  It's better to popularize a logo *and* massage
INRIA to accept it.  If you don't persuade and make them feel like it's
their idea, then later on they could very easily say "We're INRIA.
Screw you."

And as a practical matter, I'm curious how you'd get any marketing
materials onto caml.inria.fr without their buy-in.  It may turn out that
it's impossible to secure such buy-in, that they will forever have a
frumpy website.  In that case one has to go make a decent 3rd party
website and market the heck out of that instead.

It's difficult to take on such matters without the support of the
language founders.  Python failed to do it, and it's got far more
business-oriented critical mass behind it than OCaml does.  The
marketing-python mailing list had these CEOs of multi-million dollar
companies, who still haven't shown the chops to get a simple logo past
the Python Software Foundation, nor a decent website.  I suppose they
all threw up their hands and vowed to put their marketing budgets to
their own companies' efforts.  The debacle happened in November 2003.
Last I checked with them was April 2004.  I don't see any evidence that
anyone's done a damn thing.

>   2) Some may view the use of a pearl as a logo for Caml
> (where Perl itself uses a camel) as a snarky
> swipe at Perl.

Preamble: in terms of roles in a team, I'm a Shaper archetype.
http://www.teams.org.uk/shaper.htm  This I learned when trying to get
the Python logo going.  So please don't take it badly or personally when
I say:

This idea is DOA.  The message it sends sounds Kewl to some programmers,
but as you said, it's 'snarky' and doesn't resonate with other
programmers.  It also means nothing to people who aren't up on Perl.  We
need to send a message that's much broader than a programmer in-joke.
It needs to be about OCaml, on a standalone basis.

> I, on the other hand, love the irony, and
> actually view it as a bit of an homage to Perl

And why should we be wasting marketing bandwidth on homages to Perl?
Personally I think that's exactly the opposite from what we'd want to
communicate about OCaml.  OCaml is this abstract type safe thing.  Perl
is hacker crap.  You can debate the incendiary nature of my
characterization, but on the spectrum of what's what, I'm not far off.
(Yes I was working on the *Python* logo, so you should see my bias.)

One of the first things we spent time on, when designing Python logos,
was what connotations we wanted our logo to have.  We eventually arrived
at "simple, elegant, and powerful."  That's what we wanted to
communicate about Python, so we rated logos as to whether they were
accomplishing that.

I'm not sure what the pitch for OCaml should be.  I don't have trouble
thinking of OCaml as powerful, but it's not simple.  I debate elegance:
some parts are, other parts are baroque.

I have arrived at one concept we definitely want to push somehow: TYPE
SAFE.
I am not sure how to push that, and leave it for the discussion of
greater genius.

ABSTRACT might be another thing worth pushing.  Maybe ABSTRACT, TYPE
SAFE, POWERFUL.  Maybe 'robustly engineered' is a proxy for 'type safe'.
One might design logos that show 'solid engineering' somehow.  But
again, discuss.

PERFORMANCE might be another characteristic worth highlighting.
Certainly, something Python doesn't have.  Maybe not Java or C# either.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
                          - anonymous entrepreneur