451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Red Hat branding police outlaws RHEL
Matthew Aslett, March 6, 2008 @ 11:54 am ETI just noticed an article from last month’s Red Hat Magazine that states: “It is never correct to abbreviate ‘Red Hat Enterprise Linux’ as ‘RHEL’.” As one of the commenters states, it is about fours years too late for that, and Red Hat’s branding police will have their work cut out editing the 47,400 uses of the term RHEL on Red Hat’s own web site, not to mention educating the company’s own executives.
One of the implications of this new ruling is revealed by the snappy title of the article in question: “Tips and tricks: How do I properly refer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in documentation and when conversing with fellow users and customers?”
Meanwhile it appears that the new rules do not extend to Red Hat Magazine’s own URLs. The address for said article is http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/04/tips-and-tricks-rhel-ref/
However, word has spread to Wikipedia, which informs us that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is “often incorrectly abbreviated to RHEL”.
You have been warned.
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Perhaps it’s some new marketing executive’s clumsy attempt at brand positioning to differentiate RH Desktop and other products from RHEL ES, AS or WS?
I have a hard time believing that the architects or support engineers at RedHat are running into technical issues because of the nomenclature…
Their own instructors and sales people have been saying “RHEL” since it first got on the market,
If they can come up with an equally quick way to express the same thing in 4 letters or less I’m game for that too. But they’ve not thought that far ahead, which again leads me to believe it’s a marketing decision,
To be fair I can see why Red Hat would want to promote Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a brand, rather than RHEL, but given the company’s salespeople and executives have used the terms for years it is too late now. I’m sure they’ll have fun trying though.
[…] 451 CAOS Theory » Red Hat branding police outlaws RHEL hilarious. i never hear it referred to as anything but. (tags: rhel redhat linux branding) […]
We all know it’s really RHEGL…
They care very little about the low and middle markets so they have done little about them, but it is mostly about keeping the “Red Hat” name out in the public eye… It has become so common for people to refer to RHEL that I often hear them saying “Red Hat’s RHEL” which would suggest someone else also has something called RHEL otherwise there would be no need to specify “Red Hat’s” Which in the end is like saying “Red Hat’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux”… Basically, the loss of meaning for the RH part of RHEL is the point of concern and taking action to reinforce that part, as it is the company name, is valid branding logic…
This is crazy on Red Hat’s part. It’s just like how nobody that I know says “the International House of Pancakes” when speaking of the restaurant. Most of us just say, “let’s go to IHOP!”
Same with McDonalds. I routinely hear, “hey, let’s go to Mickey-D’s” from people of all ages–teens to their 70’s. McDonalds even once had a burger they they called “the Mickey-D”. It was actually one of their better burgers.
Both companies embraced their nicknames and have profited from it. That’s what Red Hat should do with RHEL, and for similar reasons.
–TP
[…] One of the implications of this new ruling is revealed by the snappy title of the article in question: “Tips and tricks: How do I properly refer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in documentation and when conversing with fellow users and customers?” Read more at 451 CAOS […]
[…] This is about a month old, better late than never…Red Hat Magazine has put up a “tips and tricks article” on a question which must be on the top of everybody’s list: How does one properly refer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux? They provide a couple dozen verbose alternatives, then assert: “It is never correct to abbreviate ‘Red Hat Enterprise Linux’ as ‘RHEL’” A search for “RHEL” on redhat.com suggests that a few in-house people haven’t gotten this memo yet. (Seen on 451 CAOS Theory). […]
what about RpmHELl
[…] 451 CAOS Theory » Red Hat branding police outlaws RHEL More proof that as time passes these open-source companies get more and more like their closed-source brethren, one moronic decision at a time. Everybody on earth knows what RHEL is. […]
Actually there are not that many RHEL references on redhat.com - if you exclude email list archives and use of RHEL in URLs, there are just 500 according to http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.redhat.com+RHEL+-inurl%3Arhel+-inurl%3Aarchives