[GLLUG] software naming (was: meeting announcement)

[Charles Ulrich]

Thomas Hruska wrote:
> You use 'ls' and other commands without thinking.  Sure.  But there
> wasn't ever a vote about the name by those who would use it.  Microsoft,
> for example, probably had several (internal) business meetings about the
> name choice for the 'dir'ectory listing command.  Most of those people
> were probably technically inclined, but there was some semblance of
> coordination, direction, and customer analysis involved.*

I'm going to be obnoxious and speculate that the 'dir' command most
likely came from CP/M, the OS from which DOS was derived. Also,
Microsoft didn't actually write DOS, they bought it from a company
called Digital Research for the sole purpose of reselling it to IBM to
be bundled or sold with the very first PC. So there's two important ways
that their business model hasn't changed in over 20 years. :P

> Unfortunately, most of the good names are taken anymore.  And, if I may
> make one case in point about weird names.  The "Linux Registry" project
> changed its name to Elektra.  It had a perfectly good name at the #1
> position on Google and switched names to something no one would ever
> find again (esp. since there are a movie and comic book character by the
> same name).  Granted only programmers care about that particular
> project, but once a name has been chosen, stick with it through
> thick-and-thin.

I partially agree with you. A unique name can have a positive effect on
your marketing. Witness Linux, Firefox, and Apache. All are simple and
memorable. Even better when the name can fit the purpose of the
software, as it the case with Subversion, Inkscape, and Picasa. Better
yet is when the name of the program states exactly what the program is
or does as in Google Earth, Fetchmail, or GNU Privacy Guard.

I think the worst software namers in history have to be KDE developers.
If it's not something generic like KEdit, KWrite, or KMail, then its
some unpronounceable thing with a K bolted onto the front like Kopete or
K3b. As much as I like KDE, this is one thing about it that drives me mad.

> Thus, changing something like 'ls' to something else would be bad.  I'm
> just trying to say that users should be able to have a say in the naming
> of projects instead of leaving it to programmers who have no clue.

This is a chicken-and-egg problem here. You say that users should have a
say in the naming of projects, but how do you get a project going and
accumulate users if the project doesn't have a name? The devs are forced
to pick something, anything, just to get the code out the door and into
the community. But then they wouldn't be able to change the name later
if they're supposed to stick with it through "thick and thin". Ideally,
you would change the name just as you approach a critical mass of users
but devs are sometimes either really bad at realizing when critical mass
has been reached or are too busy to worry about such a trifling thing as
changing the name to something sensible. More commonly, perhaps they've
grown fond of the project's name, even when everybody else thinks it sucks.
-- 
Charles Ulrich
Ideal Solution, LLC -- http://www.idealso.com