[ide-dev] Photon IDE, by Eclipse

[Mickael Istria <mistria@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

See the title, how do you feel about it?

I'd like to start a brainstorming about the interest, benefits and drawbacks of rebranding the Eclipse IDE to end-users. Currently, the Eclipse word has a lot of definitions (IDE, community, Foundation, IoT, Science...), and most only know the IDE meaning. Although it's not a big issue for the IDE, I believe it can be an issue for other parts of the ecosystem and for the Foundation whose name and goals are eclipsed by the IDE.

Moreover, the Eclipse IDE name has suffered from bad image a few years ago, when it lost a big part of its users, and doesn't sound so hype as it was 7 years ago. Maybe changing the name and branding could help in making things a bit better and get rid of some bad legacy perception. (although the trend is already positive on that topic, without a rename).

So what about "simply" renaming Eclipse IDE to Photon IDE 4.8?

By renaming, I mean mostly EPP should rename the launchers and have a new splash and icon. Technically, I don't think it's a big issue (1 day of work maybe?_.

The splash screen would show "Photon" in big in place of "Eclipse". The Eclipse logo would appear on the bottom right, prefixed by a "by". Again, no technical challenge.

Platform wouldn't necessarily have to adopt this convention and could keep being called "Eclipse" if it's better for it. But maybe there are some parts of the doc that would need to be reconsidered. I don't know how much effort that represents. This effort, to be evaluated, would definitely be a drawback for such a change.

Why is Photon a good name?

An Eclipse is an exceptional phenomenon that prevents us from seeing the Sun and the light it products. That's a cool thing.

Photon are also related to light, they're more or less what carry and bring light, it's an enlightning particle. It's one of the fastest things of this unverse, it's a very light thing. Going from Eclipse to Photon sounds like getting from obscurity to plain light.
Those are very positive adjectives that we'd like user to associate with our IDE.

So, is it a good or a very good idea? :P

--

Mickael Istria

Eclipse IDE developer, at Red Hat Developers community