Yeah that does happen, however sun didn't buy GNOME (I don't think they could anyway) you're also right about the image, I couldn't say how much sun is actually putting into GNOME, but it would seem that anything they put in is good, it does project the image that GNOME is a capable environment and corporate types won't be so scared of it cause sun is behind it. GNOME still has the advantage of being community driven, they just happen to have corporate support behind them aswell. GNOME is not owned by sun so the worst they could do is back out... and that wouldn't hurt the project much, but would hurt the project's corporate image and appeal. That's really the only thing GNOME is going to get out of this anyway, I really don't think the few people sun puts on the GNOME project is really going to make that big a difference in what is produced, but now maybe GNOME will have a little more corporate respect. KDE has also managed to gain some corporate respect, so it's high time GNOME did aswell.
You're right it's not necessarily a good thing, and it doesn't mean success but what it does mean is commercial credibility. Having a large successful company behind suddenly makes the project seem more professional. Very few corporations would use a community driven app simply because there wouldn't be any support for it and they wouldn't know from one day to the next if the app would still be around. With the backing of a large company suddenly there's stability added to the project, along with financial backing, and I'm sure what most companies are worried about is they now have someone to blame/sue if there are any problems;)
Alright granted, but what about fordsucks.com I mean if I've had a bad experience with a ford (say the Explorer;) and I want to make a web site voicing my complaint should ford be able to take the domain away just because it sort of looks like their's?? and is obviously bad press for them and the real reason they'd want it taken down, not because they actually plan on using the domain for anything. There's been several cases exactly like this in the past and the companies won (remember guiness, mmm beer), it's wrong and rediculus.
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Yeah that does happen, however sun didn't buy GNOME (I don't think they could anyway) you're also right about the image, I couldn't say how much sun is actually putting into GNOME, but it would seem that anything they put in is good, it does project the image that GNOME is a capable environment and corporate types won't be so scared of it cause sun is behind it. GNOME still has the advantage of being community driven, they just happen to have corporate support behind them aswell. GNOME is not owned by sun so the worst they could do is back out... and that wouldn't hurt the project much, but would hurt the project's corporate image and appeal. That's really the only thing GNOME is going to get out of this anyway, I really don't think the few people sun puts on the GNOME project is really going to make that big a difference in what is produced, but now maybe GNOME will have a little more corporate respect. KDE has also managed to gain some corporate respect, so it's high time GNOME did aswell.
You're right it's not necessarily a good thing, and it doesn't mean success but what it does mean is commercial credibility. Having a large successful company behind suddenly makes the project seem more professional. Very few corporations would use a community driven app simply because there wouldn't be any support for it and they wouldn't know from one day to the next if the app would still be around. With the backing of a large company suddenly there's stability added to the project, along with financial backing, and I'm sure what most companies are worried about is they now have someone to blame/sue if there are any problems ;)
Alright granted, but what about fordsucks.com I mean if I've had a bad experience with a ford (say the Explorer ;) and I want to make a web site voicing my complaint should ford be able to take the domain away just because it sort of looks like their's?? and is obviously bad press for them and the real reason they'd want it taken down, not because they actually plan on using the domain for anything. There's been several cases exactly like this in the past and the companies won (remember guiness, mmm beer), it's wrong and rediculus.