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Re: Ubuntu developers are also contributing to the HURD

Posted Aug 19, 2008 20:34 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648)
In reply to: Re: Ubuntu developers are also contributing to the HURD by mbanck
Parent article: In defense of Ubuntu

PS: It's Hurd, not HURD.

I was taught that acronyms are capitalized. Accordingly, HURD would be appropriate for Herd of Unix-Replacing Daemons (at least that's what I read HURD stood for some time ago). But if we're in the habit of renaming all-caps acronym project names, then be sure to change GNU to Gnu.

;-)

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Re: Ubuntu developers are also contributing to the HURD

Posted Aug 19, 2008 21:54 UTC (Tue) by hildeb (subscriber, #6532) [Link]

`Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' 
stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my 
knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive 
acronyms.

Re: Ubuntu developers are also contributing to the HURD

Posted Aug 20, 2008 15:36 UTC (Wed) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link]

No wonder it's still not ready...

Re: Hurd typography

Posted Aug 23, 2008 18:35 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

Then I guess Hurd isn't an acronym; it's just a proper noun that was invented in an acronymal way.

I don't think acronyms stand for anything, by the way. An abbreviation stands for something, but an acronym is a word in its own right. Unlike with an abbreviation, if you were to "spell out" an acronym, you would change the sentence and probably require the user to translate back to the acronym to figure out what you're referring to. I say "is derived from" instead of "stands for" for an acronym.