What a name! [LWN.net]

What a name!

Posted Jun 10, 2006 3:31 UTC (Sat) by anLWNreader (guest, #36915)
Parent article: Questions for deployments of GNOME

What contorted mind is required to name your product GNOME?

Would you buy a WheelChair[tm] brand car?

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What a name!

Posted Jun 10, 2006 13:43 UTC (Sat) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] (9 responses)

Would you query text with a tool as randomly named as "grep"?
Names are useful to reduce collisions in the symbol table of the mind.
Or do you actively fear betrayal by your Eggs Benedict?

What a name!

Posted Jun 10, 2006 14:50 UTC (Sat) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (8 responses)

grep isn't randomly named; check the Wikipedia article if you want to know where the name came from. That being said, I think the grandparent's point was that "GNOME" is simply not a positive name; you could just as well have named the whole thing "CRAP" or so. (Yeah, "CRAP" sounds worse than "GNOME", but you get the idea, right?) Most FOSS tools have names that are either neutral ("KDE", "grep" etc.) or "cool" ("Thunderbird", "Enlightenment", etc.); "GNOME", on the other hand, is decidedly unsexy.

What a name!

Posted Jun 10, 2006 16:42 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

From wikipedia:

A gnome is a mythical creature characterized by small stature and living underground. According to Paracelsus, gnomes are the most important of the elemental spirits of the element of earth. He wrote that they move as easily through the earth as humans walk upon the ground. The sun's rays turn them into stone. In other traditions, they are simply small, mischievous sprites or goblins. Some sources say they spend the day as a toad instead of as inanimate stone.

They're both seen as good or bad, not just one of them. To say that it's not positive isn't really correct. Unsexy? Maybe, but less so than a boring 3 letter abbreviation that you can't even pronounce. ;)

What a name!

Posted Jun 10, 2006 17:25 UTC (Sat) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] (4 responses)

> "GNOME", on the other hand, is decidedly unsexy.

It's nowhere near as bad as "GIMP" which is, in my opinion, a truely terrible name for a program.

What a name!

Posted Jun 11, 2006 22:04 UTC (Sun) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (2 responses)

Don't forget about "Hurd."

What a name!

Posted Jun 12, 2006 10:55 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Complaining about that name would be hurdful.

What a name!

Posted Jun 13, 2006 15:13 UTC (Tue) by danielpf (guest, #4723) [Link]

GNU is not better

What a name!

Posted Jun 13, 2006 6:25 UTC (Tue) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

"It's nowhere near as bad as "GIMP" which is, in my opinion, a truely terrible name for a program

But cinepaint has a nice ring to it. I don't think the gimp crew truly cares about marketing and that's their prerogative. That is what project forks are for, and to be sure, gimp is a highly respectable piece of work in spite of its dodgy interface and lousy marketing.

Now if only somebody would fork Gnome...

What a name!

Posted Jun 11, 2006 1:59 UTC (Sun) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] (1 responses)

"Google" is also unsexy (unless you're a mathematician).

What a name!

Posted Jun 12, 2006 14:18 UTC (Mon) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

Who can't spell googol

What a name!

Posted Jun 12, 2006 19:28 UTC (Mon) by proski (guest, #104) [Link]

Every time I go to lunch I get reminded that bad naming is not limited to software. Who would buy a house from Fox and Roach? Apparently, some people don't mind.