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Shuttleworth: P is for
Curious readers can follow along as Mark Shuttleworth figures out what to call the Ubuntu 12.04 release. "I also like punchy and perky (the Perky Penguin is a nice nostalgic option) and persistent (better than permanent, peerless or penultimate) and playful and plucky and poised. Others like prescient and peaceable and pervasive (!) and pivotal. Pukka rings a nice old-world bell, but its possibly pejorative.
As you can see, its been something of a challenge to get this right." We'll not ruin the suspense by putting a spoiler here.
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Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 5, 2011 22:57 UTC (Wed) by bshotts (subscriber, #2597) [Link]
"Ponderous Pig?"
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:22 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Pokey Porcupine
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:31 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
or Penurious Pachyderm
... but really, I lost interest back when they rejected Hirsute Hippo.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 5, 2011 23:22 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] These code names just add a pointless level of indirection to versioning.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 5, 2011 23:33 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Uhm the animal naming is brilliant for selling t-shirts tied to the release cycle. From a graphical design standpoint there's so much more to work with there than just the numbers. It's marketing gold.
And let's be honest, for Canonical the release specific apparel in the store has got to be the most reliable revenue stream they have on a release to release basis. Every six months fans pony up for the new animal inspired t-shirt design to proudly wear to show their support. The value of a limited run of a physical object like a t-shirt is so much easier a sale to make than the software product itself.
-jef
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 5, 2011 23:37 UTC (Wed) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
They must have some really dumb users to keep ponying up money for more "apparel".
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 5, 2011 23:45 UTC (Wed) by Hausvib6 (guest, #70606) [Link]
That's it: Ponied People
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 5, 2011 23:52 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Paying for clothing is dumb? Hmm, that is an interesting world view.
-jef
[Waaaay OT] Paying for clothing Posted Oct 6, 2011 0:02 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] I can handle the concept of paying for clothing, even on an LWN salary. There are some nice thrift stores hereabouts...stuff the homeless people didn't want anymore.On the other hand, the idea of paying for a Linux-oriented T-shirt, when my existing collection of same threatens to overflow the house and send the family away screaming (and all those shirts were free), seems like a strange concept indeed. It would have to be a really good shirt - this good, perhaps, before I would consider it. (That said, the code names have an obvious community-building value; I don't know why anybody would question it, silly as it seems sometimes).
[Waaaay OT] Paying for clothing Posted Oct 7, 2011 22:38 UTC (Fri) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
Well, to be fair, your basis for comparison of relative desirability is probably a bit out of joint with everyone else. Most people probably don't have quite the level of exposure to swag that you do.
You have lots of shirts, and not as much money as you should have, where most hackers are okay on money, but low on clothing.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 17, 2011 11:55 UTC (Mon) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
Why ? I need to be clothed anyway, and given a choice of paying to run around like an ad for Nike or Levi, or paying a similar (actually mostly lower) amount to run around like an ad for Ubuntu, there's not much question that running around with Ubuntu makes more sense. (assuming you're more inclined to support them than you are of supporting Levi)
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 1:34 UTC (Thu) by geuder (subscriber, #62854) [Link]
> These code names just add a pointless level of indirection to versioning.
Not only pointless, but plain harmful to the Ubuntu mission to be the Linux for non-geeks available in whatever language people happen to speak
1. While not being a native speaker of English, I have never had any problems with my understanding of English as far as computer software is concerned until I hit Ubuntu codenmaes. Native speakers, please remember your offshore English.
2. If the non-geek browses a forum somewhere, people will talk about running Natty, this was already fixed in Intrepid etc. etc. What??? Must be some geek speak
I have given "Linux" courses to non techies and I always need a whole slide and 15 minutes to tell them there is no reason to be afraid of the code names. Effort that could be spent much more productively.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 6:25 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
So which was first? Vista or XP? Millenium or 2000? Why is 7 after 98?
I dare say Windows users already know how to deal with a completely illogical naming scheme. And those are a huge part of the population. For complete newbies to computing, version numbers may be just as confusing. What is the difference between 1.1 and 1.10? Aren't those the same numbers?
As a non-Ubuntu user, these names don't speak to me. But the version numbers don't make much more sense either.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 22:30 UTC (Thu) by geuder (subscriber, #62854) [Link]
> I dare say Windows users already know how to deal with a completely illogical naming
I hope you don't advocate that all other great properties of M$ products should be copied to Ubuntu;) If others make user's life difficult it's no excuse to do it, too.
XP just celebrated its 10th anniversary and has only around the same time lost its rank as the most used Windows variant. Most users never upgrade a Windows system. There are ~7 times more Ubuntu names to memorize. Of course the average LWN reader might soon observe that they are sorted alphabetically, but I don't think that LWN readers are the main target group for Ubuntu.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 8, 2011 12:47 UTC (Sat) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]
>>I dare say Windows users already know how to deal with a completely illogical naming
>I hope you don't advocate that all other great properties of M$ products should be copied to Ubuntu;)
Wanting to replace Microsoft (see bug #1) can only happen if you become the new Microsoft in the process.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 7, 2011 20:53 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]
> As a non-Ubuntu user, these names don't speak to me. But the version numbers don't make much more sense either.
Huh? YY.MM makes perfect sense to me. What could possibly be any clearer?
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 9, 2011 11:16 UTC (Sun) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
Y2K and I18N. In France the normal order is dd/mm/yy, so when you see 11.04, at best you think 2004/11 instead of 2011/04, at worse you wonder why it moves from 10.10 to 11.04, so 2011.04 would be clearer.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 9, 2011 11:21 UTC (Sun) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
Thanks for explaining before I could come up with a good answer :)
Of course, one even has to recognice two dual-digit-numbers separated by a period as something date related first.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:23 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] 1. While not being a native speaker of English, I have never had any problems with my understanding of English as far as computer software is concerned until I hit Ubuntu codenmaes. And that's a problem because... why? You don't like learning new words, or new animal names? I'm a near-native speaker of English, probably better than most native speakers; I didn't know "oneiric" either, and it didn't particularly bother me. In any case, the animals and their preceding adjectives have nothing to do with the release itself. Shuttleworth perhaps tries to choose the more "sober" adjectives for LTS releases, but please don't go by that. It is perfectly fine if someone doesn't know what those words mean. Most of us don't know what Arrandale, Beckton or Clovertown are either, but it doesn't stop us using those processors.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 14:58 UTC (Thu) by pataphysician (guest, #73773) [Link]
There' no need to understand the words, there just fun and can be used as a mnemonic device to remember the alphabet sequence, so Intrepid is I and Natty is N and since I comes before N, you know which came first and how many releases were in between, this was not true in the first three releases.
Most users, regular or even geeky, have a hard time remembering version numbers or even version letters, and so would have to look to make sure they remember correctly, whereas names, especially with alliteration, stick in your head.
I use arch so I don't have to remember any version numbers or names ;), but I don't find Ubuntu, Debian, OSX or Androids use of names harmful.
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 6, 2011 5:06 UTC (Thu) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
At least with ubuntu you knwo which version you have, or if it is very old or not.
Other naming schemes are really a disaster, not to speak of totaaly dumb (childish?) debian name, that are not understandable for someone outside western world (and did not see the movie, what a reference for a professional tool!)
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 6, 2011 5:31 UTC (Thu) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
Speaking of dumb names that are totally unprofessional, can we add "RedHat", "Debian", "SUSE", "Gentoo", "Mandriva" and even "Linux" to the list? They are all so meaningless and some have very dubious origins and uncertain pronunciation.
They should just be OS-A, OS-B, OS-C etc. These are much more user-friendly - they must else Apple would not have set the lead with OS-X.
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 6, 2011 6:43 UTC (Thu) by colo (subscriber, #45564) [Link]
I've been advocating leaving "natural language"-names behind completely, and just referring to entities by an officially assigned UUID for quite a while now. Oh, that'd be so damn practical!
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 6, 2011 6:52 UTC (Thu) by mp (subscriber, #5615) [Link]
OS X, which, by the way, certainly does not use any animal-related codenames.
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 8, 2011 6:00 UTC (Sat) by speedster1 (subscriber, #8143) [Link]
> OS X, which, by the way, certainly does not use any animal-related
> codenames.
Of course Apple would not use animal-related codenames. OS X has releases named after sports teams -- much more dignified. It's not their fault that geeks don't tend to follow sports well enough to realize that Cheetah was a reference to a rugby team.
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 6, 2011 14:12 UTC (Thu) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] I like the naming conventions for the various Java thingies. You can generate them easily enough:
$ echo Java-{A..Z}{A..Z}
But I have to admit, I don't know what any of them mean.
ubuntu codename is easy and useful Posted Oct 10, 2011 0:54 UTC (Mon) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Just as dumb as Sun, or Oracle, or Apollo, or ...
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:15 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
It's a fun idea. Like Debian's toy story names, or Android's dessert names, or Apple's big cat names. If you don't like the name, don't use it... all these products have numbers too.
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:53 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
I would like to add to what has been already said that code names for releases help enormously when looking things up with Google.
If you're having problems with your graphic card in the latest Ubuntu, "graphics problem in oneiric" will get you much closer to the resolution than simply "graphics problem in ubuntu", or simply "graphics problem in linux".
And given Shuttleworth's predilection for "uncommon" animals, you get to learn zoology :-)
Why not call it "Ubuntu 12.04"? Posted Oct 6, 2011 8:25 UTC (Thu) by zsitvaij (guest, #66284) [Link]
This is exactly what I wanted to say. Googling a little-used adjective plus your problem gives excellent results. (jaunty, karmic, lucid, maverick..)
I'm not so sure about 'precise', though. Unless people also add the animal name to their posts, something frequently omitted with the previous releases, this won't be such a googleable term.
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 6, 2011 10:52 UTC (Thu) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link] How sad that Pusillanimous Platypus will never be... I have to say that many of the considered options are a lot better than the one he actually went for. It just doesn't flow well.
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 7, 2011 11:43 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Polished Penguin!
Or Pink Pony.
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 13, 2011 17:44 UTC (Thu) by wtanksleyjr (guest, #74601) [Link]
I like it.
But why did he mention, and then skip over, "possibly pejorative"?
-Wm
Shuttleworth: P is for Posted Oct 17, 2011 10:57 UTC (Mon) by ajft (guest, #52749) [Link]
prolapsed pangolin
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