Open Stack

On 7 July 2015 at 15:44, Jeremy Stanley <fungi at yuggoth.org> wrote:
> On 2015-07-07 13:24:00 +0100 (+0100), Dave Walker wrote:
> [...]
>> I am interested to hear why the convention in documentation for it to
>> be lower case.
> [...]
>
> Seems like this question comes up once for every two or three new
> writers/editors who join the Docs effort. The most recent thread on
> it is from last month.
>
> http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-docs/2015-June/006796.html
>
> To summarize my understanding:
>
>   1. You should just avoid using project codenames in documentation,
>      in favor of official project names (e.g., use Compute rather
>      than nova) whenever possible.
>
>   2. There are concerns that capitalized use of project codenames
>      makes them more likely to present a high-profile/infringing
>      target for intellectual property (trademark, et cetera) claims.
>

I think it is probable that this question keeps coming back as the
Documentation style guidelines do not provide the justification, which
you summarised as above.

I agree avoiding the use of code names where possible is entirely
appropriate.  However, when introducing a project in documentation, it
seems agreeable to reference it such "OpenStack Block Storage
(cinder)" and there onwards reference it as by the official title.

However, the point on capitalisation of the code name seems crazy.
Pretending a project name isn't a proper noun by adopting lower case
seems odd.  Was this really based on guidance from OpenStack legal
team?

--
Kind Regards,
Dave Walker