Freax [LWN.net]

Freax

Posted Mar 24, 2009 5:27 UTC (Tue) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246)
Parent article: It's *Not* The 15th Birthday of Linux - and Why That Matters (Linux Journal)

I've seen a couple people say here that Linus' first name for Linux was "Freax". Is that actually correct? My understanding was that he initially wanted to call it Linux, but he changed the name to Freax because he thought the name Linux was a bit too egotistical.

So wouldn't Freax be its second name?

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Freax

Posted Mar 26, 2009 21:52 UTC (Thu) by nio (guest, #53157) [Link]

Lemme look that up for you:

"
Honest I didn't want to ever release it under the name
Linux because it was too egotistical. What was the name I reserved
for any eventual release? Freax. (Get it? Freaks with the requisite
X.) In fact, some of the early make files --the files that describe
how to compile the sources-- included the word "Freax" for about
half a year. But it really didn't matter. At that point I didn't need a
name for it because I wasn't releasing it to anybody.

And Ari Lemke, who insured that it made its way to the ftp
site, hated the name Freax. He preferred the other working name I
admit that I didn't put up much of a fight. But it was his doing. So
I can honestly say I wasn't egotistical, or half-honestly say I wasn't
egotistical. But I thought okay, that's a good name, and I can
always blame somebody else for it, which I'm doing now.
"
-- Linus Torvalds p84 and p88 "Just for fun"

Okay, so I copied that from freax.org :P

Anyway, it seems that the kernel's full name would be "Freax Linux" :)