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Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 17:22:27 +0200
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Subject: Re: [NOTICE] Submissions for the new CouchDB logo are open
From: Javier Candeira <javier@candeira.com>
To: marketing@couchdb.apache.org
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I too have a logo and tagline proposal.

I'd like to submit them separately, because I think the tagline could (and
indeed should) be changed separately from the logo, so it's possible that
people might want to use someone's new logo and my new tagline, and
vice-versa.

I'm submitting the tagline in this message, and the logo in an upcoming
message.


## Suggested tagline:

"Sync. Shard. Rest."

It's short and memorable in the literal sense (easy to remember as-is,
without misquoting).

It explains the threee main qualities of CouchDB (it syncs, it shards since
2.0, and it is accessed via HTTP verbs).

It also has a connection with the previous tagline, "Relax", through the
ambiguity of "Rest/REST", and with the "Couch" name.


## Rationale for the change:

First, "Relax" can mean anything and be about any product. It refers to the
name of the project (Couches are for sitting on, and relaxing on, but
databases?).

Second, For a long time I thought CouchDB was a XML database related to
Relax NG: http://relaxng.org/.

But, most especially, it doesn't address CouchDB's strenghts. The fact that
it's a DataBase is in the project's name. But how is it different from
other databases? What does "Relax" tell us about CouchDB in particular?


## Rationale for the choice:

Let's look at the taglines for some other DBs and Free Software projects:

- MongoDB: "Agility, scalability, performance. Pick three." Never mind
whether it's true, it's a very good sell. It's also very heavily influenced
from...

- Sqlite: "Small. Fast. Reliable. Choose any three." There is a trend
emerging here. Three qualities, suggesting no compromise.

- PouchDB: "The Database that Syncs!"

- Postgresql: "The world's most advanced open source database."
Descriptive, literal, boastful but not cute. No attempt at rythm nor puns.

- Cassandra: None. Just a lot of text.

- Django: "The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines." I've
always loved this one. Right amount of boast, right amount of cheeky. But
above all, clear message.

- Ruby on Rails: "Web development that doesn't hurt". Not really a tagline
at the level of the logo, but it's been on their page forever. It also
communicates a clear message.

Describing what the product does is important, but it's also important to
say what the project does that other, similar projects don't do, or don't
don't do as well. Sqlite goes for small, fast, reliable versus Postgres,
which goes for "advanced" (ie more features). PouchDB syncs( (with
CouchDB), and both Django and RoR are about developers' good feels. The
emotional side is explained via light humour, as in the "pick three"
reversal on the commonplace "pick two" joke, or the exclamation point at
the end of "syncs!"

I thought there were three qualities that CouchDB that deservied
highlighting:

- syncing, which is central to the couchdb story, and could be claimed to
be "what we do better than anyone else".
- sharding, which is central to 2.0, our new thing we want to highlight.
- REST and HTTP, which is the uniform API for accessing our databases
locally or remotely, and defines the project.

There were two ways of combining these qualities in a sentence.

One, taking the descriptive route:

"The syncing, sharding database that speaks Web".

The second, taking the more oblique route:

"Sync. Shard. Rest."  or "Sync. Shard. REST."

The first one is good for a webpage, but not necessarily to accompany a
logo everywhere a logo can go. I'm thinking of merchandise and gear, but
also of logo buttons on some other projects' pages.

The second, shorter one is best for those secondary uses, so that's the one
I'm proposing.

I propose "Rest" with normal text capitalisation, avoiding all caps,
because people who understand what REST it will get it, and people who
don't will still get the "resting" bit. It's not worth it to break the flow
of the sentence in order to emphasise the initialism.

Regards,

Javier Candeira

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