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TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGoMichael Sheldon writes on his blog about TizMee, a library for MeeGo to implement Tizen's Web API. "This first early release should support general HTML5 apps fairly well (although there are still a few that have issues), some aspects of the Tizen API (this is by no means complete however) and pretty much all of the Cordova/PhoneGap API." Packages are built for Nokia's MeeGo Harmattan (the N9 and N950 devices) and the community-built Nemo. (Log in to post comments)
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 19:41 UTC (Mon) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Crappy names galore. IOS, Android, WebOS, Windows good names. Windows Phone, Meego, Maemo, Tizen, TizMee etc bad names.
BTW how is Tizen pronounced? As in the video Tisen? or Ti-Zen?
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 19:49 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
I agree. Android is a pretty bad name with really good marketing.
Free Software needs better naming because it doesn't have the marketing dollars. I'm really tired of trying to remember what all of these things are.
Some great names for Free Software:
- digiKam
Some terrible names:
- Phonon
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 20:23 UTC (Mon) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Android is a good name. With or without the marketing. People know how to pronouce and write it and the little robot is everywhere so association is strong. Even non-techies get what an android app is and know to look for the the little green robot.
I personally think Digicam would have been a better name than that childish KDE capital K crap, but that is just me.
Libre Office is pretty awful in my country, OpenOffice was/is much better. Clang does not need a good name, only projects that consumers might need to know profit from having a good name. Clang is hardly something big parts of the population need to know about.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 21:47 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
"Android" conveys nothing about what it actually *is*, though. That's why the marketing is important. That little great robot is great. It's great because it's marketing.
I don't care so much about the "K" KDE stuff as long as I can guess what it is. digiKam is certainly one of the lesser offenders as far as silliness goes. :)
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 22:04 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Plus, Motorola has swamped the brand. Only geeks talk about Android. Everybody else just asks "hey is that a Droid??"
"No... well, yes, it's an Android phone, so it's similar to the Droid, but it's made by HTC."
"Wut?"
"Fine, yes, it's a Droid. Nice, huh?"
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 22:29 UTC (Mon) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
BS. Thats not Motorola. It is Verizon and they have Droids from HTC.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 0:13 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
You're probably right, I haven't looked into it. But you agree with my point? Most regular people refer to the entire Android ecosystem as "Droid".
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 3:57 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
I have never seen that. Dozens and dozens of regular folks have mentioned Android to me however.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 3:58 UTC (Tue) by LightDot (guest, #73140) [Link]
Perhaps in your part of the world, how big that my be. My parts of the world suffer from no such generalizations. Even more, saying "droid" to anyone would most likely produce a blank stare, while "android" most likely will not.
Thus taking either your or mine impressions and assuming we now have an insight into the worldwide product recognition seems to be a bit premature.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 14:18 UTC (Tue) by joeldillon (guest, #86199) [Link]
As everyone else is saying, you mean 'most Americans'. Verizon doesn't have a whole lot of European (or Chinese, or African, or South American) customers ;p
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 15:48 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Very true. It might even be just Californians, or wherever Verizon sloshed all their marketing dollars.
OT: Android vs droid vs FDroid Posted Aug 14, 2012 15:39 UTC (Tue) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
I have never heard anybody referring to Android as "droid". I wasn't even aware of the word "droid" and would have probably assumed a pronounciation error or typo. I like FDroid, though :~)
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 11:21 UTC (Tue) by dodocaptain (subscriber, #44818) [Link]
Interesting, what region of the world is that?
Over here in New Zealand, Android has pretty strong recognition with consumers who tend to understand that there is a range of vendors selling Android phones with different hardware styles and software capabilities.
It may start to change as marketing of specific models gets more aggressive, there's been a huge amount of advertising for the Samsung Galaxy S3, more so than any model in the past, will be interesting to see what effect it makes on consumers over time.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 1:23 UTC (Tue) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
> "Android" conveys nothing about what it actually *is*, though.
Names of things need not (and perhaps should not) evoke the essence of those things. The reverse happens: The name of a thing comes to mean the thing that it does.
Most people google things instead of searching for them. Google doesn't have the name because it means search, it means search because it does the thing. If your purpose is strong enough any name will become natural and right--provided you can both read it when written and pronounce it out louad.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 17:35 UTC (Tue) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Android is not a fitting name. It has nothing to do with robotics.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 21:50 UTC (Tue) by teknohog (guest, #70891) [Link]
> Android is not a fitting name. It has nothing to do with robotics.
There used to be a company called Zendroid that actually dealt with robotics. Google and Lucasfilm asked the company to change its name because of trademark issues.
I have no connection with this company, but somehow this incident is incredibly sad and stupid.
At least Windows has something to do with graphical user interfaces.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 21:16 UTC (Mon) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
I can't see at all how you're dividing that list between 'great' and 'terrible' names.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 13, 2012 21:44 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
I look for whether the name conveys what the software actually does. Can I guess at what it does just from the name?
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 1:08 UTC (Tue) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link]
By that definition Phonon should be in the "good" pile.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 3:20 UTC (Tue) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
Huh?
Wikipedia: "In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, such as solids and some liquids."
Unless there is some other audio-related meaning to "phonon" that is more specialized, I don't see how it fits.
And even if there *is* such a meaning, it is certainly isn't the first thing one thinks about when encountering the word.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 3:43 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] Continuing from that same Wikipedia article:"The name phonon comes from the Greek word φωνή (phonē), which translates as sound or voice because long-wavelength phonons give rise to sound." Maybe it's just because I'm old enough to remember earlier usage, but to me "phonon" immediately signals something related to sound. According to the OED, the original coinage (1932) was: J. Frenkel, Wave Mech. vi. 267: It is possible to associate the acoustical waves with certain particles which we shall call ‘phonons’, and to replace the study of the heat oscillations forming these waves by the study of the motion of the corresponding ‘phonons’. Closer to on-topic. Is "TizMee" to be pronounced tease me or 'tis me?
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 4:06 UTC (Tue) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link]
The phone, not to mention the phonograph http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph both sound very similar to Phonon, and they both have something to do with sound :-)
That certainly is the first meaning that comes to my mind. I wasn't even aware of the physical meaning, and neither are most people, I am sure.
How about Git as an example of a bad name that is also very good :-)
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 7:51 UTC (Tue) by renox (subscriber, #23785) [Link]
Very funny: this "collective excitation" is the movement of atoms/molecules which transmit sound in a solid/liquid..
So phonon is related to sound, which makes it an "on topic" name, its mains drawback is that not a lot of people know what is a phonon (as you've shown).
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 14:39 UTC (Tue) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
Most people don't listen to sound through a solid or liquid...
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 15, 2012 1:49 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
I imagine "fluid" would be better than "liquid" which includes air and gases.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 2:02 UTC (Tue) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
Then why are 'Linux' and 'Clang' in the good pile?
Linux is just a totally made up name, that's only mildly similar to 'unix' (which even fewer people likely know these days). Nobody's going to be able to guess what Linux is just by the name.
Clang is DEFINITELY not obvious at all. I only JUST NOW realized that 'Clang' could be read as a combination of 'C' and 'lang' (and I've used it as a compiler/analyzer a fair bit!). Maybe the people that run the project pronounce it as 'c-lang', but I doubt most people would read it that way.
On the other hand, most people would likely guess that Phonon has /something/ to do with audio, even if they aren't familiar with the word 'Phonon' itself. People might not guess that 'Amarok' is a music player, but the 'rok' at the end of the name is something they'd likely be able to use to help them remember what it is.
(Personally, I also don't like the name 'Libre Office' either, simply because saying it feels like the vocal equivalent of banging the keyboard randomly)
As sorpigal (and others) have said, I'd disagree that a name must instantly say what the software's function is. It can work, as long as you're consistent with the pattern (Apple having done a fairly good job with i<Word>, although they also have <Word>
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 3:25 UTC (Tue) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
> Then why are 'Linux' and 'Clang' in the good pile?
"Linux" is an obvious play on "Unix" to those familiar with the field.
I'll grant that "Clang" is a bit of a stretch but it is easy to remember upon understanding "C lang(uage)."
"Libre Office" works better in some languages than others but the fact is that "Open Office" (another good name) was already taken.
I understand the whole Google/Search branding argument but again that is largely a function of marketing and Free Software doesn't have enough of that. We have to have good naming.
I'm much less concerned about naming components like "Clang" than I am with user-visible tool names. Some of my own projects have terrible names but at least they're libraries. :)
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 5:38 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
I don't know. The first time I've seen it in my packages I've actually started to type 'reoffice' in Google search to find out what is it before I dawned on me that it's LibreOffice, not lib-reoffice.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 29, 2012 13:06 UTC (Wed) by philomath (guest, #84172) [Link]
Funny. reminds me of libiberty (-liberty).
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 15, 2012 2:07 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
"Amarok" is the title of a Mike Oldfield album which is what the application is named after. It's also the name of a mythic Inuit wolf which is where the logo comes from.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 15, 2012 11:55 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
I saw a Volkswagen Amarok pick-up truck in the parking area on my way in to work today.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 15:59 UTC (Tue) by gbraad (guest, #42498) [Link]
Tizen is pronounced as taizen. And I guess TizMee is a pun for Tease Me...
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 16:12 UTC (Tue) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link]
"Tizen is pronounced as taizen." ...english or Deutsche? ("tah-zen" or "tie-zen", respectively). really? "Tizen" rhymes with 'raisin'?
oh well... for my money as long as the name has a good search discrimination i class it as a good name. avoid common nouns, and single letters (or single letters followed by punctuation; "C..", "C(#|++|etc)", "R" (yes i know about "cran")). so "spirit" is bad, but "xkcd" is good. pronunciation? meh, who actually vocalizes anymore? who pronounces "Linux" the *proper* Linus way?
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 17:17 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>who pronounces "Linux" the *proper* Linus way?
Almost everyone except Americans and Japanese.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 22:04 UTC (Tue) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
I've never heard Linux pronounced in improper way actually.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 22:47 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
There's some ambiguity in pronunciation of 'u' letter. Most Americans pronounce it as 'u' in 'mud' while in Finnish it's a very clear 'u' sound as in 'doom'.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 23:25 UTC (Tue) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link]
i thought that was the way Linus pronounced it too (roughly: lee-nooks)
then i just had this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IfHm6R5le0 pointed out to me he seems to have 'adopted'? the (ghastly) murkun way. (roughly: lin-ucks) which is the way i've heard every person in the states pronounce it (Dutch and German folks... not so much) [shrug]
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 15, 2012 8:00 UTC (Wed) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link]
At least most people manage not to say "line-ucks" any more...
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 22:03 UTC (Tue) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
I thought it's pronounced as ti-zen (not Ay, but I like in ticket).
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Aug 14, 2012 18:43 UTC (Tue) by doogie (subscriber, #2445) [Link]
Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds -> how do you know these are food related products?
Windows -> These are not the glass variety.
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Dec 21, 2012 20:08 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
I'm sure these names in particular enjoy a certain level of ubiquity to have most of the population associate them with food and drinks. I suppose, though, that the rapidly evolving nature of software kinda puts a damper on establishing this ubiquity for various application software packages.
I believe Microsoft named it "Windows" because it was/is like a window into your computer. Or something like that. Starbucks (the coffee shop chain) is named after a character in the Herman Melville novel Moby-Dick. P.S. Any criticism of Gnome (as a name for a Window Manager) can be re-assessed when you consider it's an acronym of GNU Network Object Model Environment (whatever that means).
TizMee – Tizen compatibility layer for MeeGo Posted Dec 21, 2012 20:21 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Microsoft names it "windows" because it allowed you to have multiple windows on your screen, each with their own app running in it.
At the time, this was not the normal mode of operations
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