Why Are Operating System Version Names So Absurd?

jfruh writes "Apple's spent more than a decade on version 10 — or, rather, X — of its flagship operating system, with .x versions named after big cats (and many of them, it turns out, after the same big cats). Ubuntu Linux is scrambling to find ever more obscure animals to alliteratively name its versions after. And let's not even talk about Windows, whose current shipping OS is sold as Windows 7 but is really Windows NT 6.1. Why is this area of software marketing so ridiculous?"

Comments

And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend Peter is not a rock, and my friend Thomas isn't even a twin.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Beardo the Bearded]

I've been shaving since 2004.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[hairyfeet]

Besides that, isn't TFA judging Windows by the exact same thing we are told NOT to judge by when it comes to Linux, aka 'Linux is just a kernel'? After all it is the kernel that is WinNT 6.1 whereas the distro (again using Linux terminology) is Windows 7.

Can't have your cake and eat it to, rules are rules and if you want people to call it Ubuntu Myopic Monkey instead of Linux then call Windows by the name and OSX by the name.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[beelsebob]

Strangely, you're bang on the money...

Version numbers are entirely arbitrary. It's not like version 2 actually corresponds to the 2nd build is it... no, more than likely the 3968th build. Why get upset when someone decides that OS 10 is something special, or that the first version will be 3, the second 3.1 and the third 3.14.

It doesn't matter.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[lonelytrail]

You insensitive clog. Now I'm all stuck on feeling old the rest of the day.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Sique]

It won't work that way, because there are only a few lines of Linux kernels and hundreds of distributions.
With Windows, you have a few lines of kernels too, but only a handful of distributions (a.k.a. home, professional, server, database server etc.pp.).

So yes, it's Windows NT 6.1 with the distributions Windows 7 Home and Professional and Windows 2010 Server. But look how many Linux distributions are currently shipping with Linux 3.0!

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Sique]

There is actually a software, where the first incarnation was called 3, the second 3.1, the third 3.14: TeX (currently being at 3.1415926).

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Obfuscant]

Version numbers are entirely arbitrary. It's not like version 2 actually corresponds to the 2nd build is it...

Version numbers are a lot less arbitrary than artsy-fartsy names like "Dapper Drake" or "Mangled Melon" or whatever Ubuntu is up to today. Nobody said that version numbers match the "build", but they do match the releases.

I find it much easier to understand that CentOS 6.1 is a newer version than CentOS 6.0, for example, than trying to remember that "Killer Kangaroo" is newer than "Sloppy Sloth".

Why get upset when someone decides that OS 10 is something special, or that the first version will be 3, the second 3.1 and the third 3.14.

I don't think anyone does.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Lorens]

I find it much easier to understand that CentOS 6.1 is a newer version than CentOS 6.0, for example, than trying to remember that "Killer Kangaroo" is newer than "Sloppy Sloth".

Well, you shouldn't try to remember that, since Ubuntu names in alphabetical order, just like Android. That will roll around in some half a dozen years, but Ubuntu also has YY.MM version numbers, so you know immediately that version 08.04 is over four years old. It's better than Debian where the name is not given alphabetically, but Debian also has a version number when you need it. Geeks make the OS. Geeks like the wacko names. Deal with it.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[narcc]

What you don't know is that user Beardo the Bearded is an old hippie who just never bothered to shave until 2004.

Needless to say, he's no longer bearded...

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Obfuscant]

Well, you shouldn't try to remember that, since Ubuntu names in alphabetical order, just like Android.

So you not only need to know the artsy name like 'Zippered Zebra', but that all the names are in alphabetical order? Still, if you want to go back one version from "Quaint Quacker", what's the name you need to look up?

And when I look at my android device and is says that it is version 3.2, how am I supposed to know what artsy name has been applied to that? Is there some reason that anyone should have to waste time looking up the mapping from "4.1.1." to "Jelly Bean" so that one can find the appropriate web blog to ask questions on?

That will roll around in some half a dozen years, but Ubuntu also has YY.MM version numbers, so you know immediately that version 08.04 is over four years old.

Why would I know that? Do you mean they also mandate that their major releases match the last two digits of the year they came out? Good to know. Certainly not obvious.

Just as it is not obvious how "Lazy Llama" fits into the nn.nn numbering scheme.

Geeks make the OS. Geeks like the wacko names. Deal with it.

I do. That doesn't mean I have to like it, and it certainly doesn't mean it is a good way of doing things. It is a fair question to ask whether this fanciful naming system is helping or hurting the adoption of Linux on the desktop. Do users like or dislike thinking about their desk computer running something called "Putrid Penguin"? Is it helpful if they have to wonder whether it would be good to upgrade from that to "Stagnant Sturgeon"?

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Beardo the Bearded]

I'm 35, you chronologically-insensitive clod. And I am recently separated, but she wasn't a beard.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[beelsebob]

You know, it's strange, I did use that example for a reason.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Donald Knuth has stated that after he dies, TeX's version number shall be fixed at pi and Metafont's version number shall be fixed at e. All remaining "bugs" will be reclassified as features at that time.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[wdef]

My friend Peter is not a rock, and my friend Thomas isn't even a twin.

Peter denies that three times and Thomas doubts it.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[jonadab]

> After all it is the kernel that is WinNT 6.1 whereas the
> distro (again using Linux terminology) is Windows 7.

Windows 7 is not a whole distro. It's more than a kernel, obviously, so I'm not sure exactly what the closest analogue would be in the Linux world (a base-system package, perhaps, but wouldn't a base-system package include a package manager that could be used to install everything else?), but whatever it is it is clearly not a whole distro.

What kind of distro would it be?

A desktop distro, for example, would have at least the really basic desktop features, such as word processing software (WordPad does not count, because it doesn't include basic features that all word processing software has had since the eighties, e.g., spellcheck) and an image editor (leastwise, not one that can do real transparency, layers, filters, etc.) Windows 7 does not have these things; ergo, it is not a desktop distro.

Rather obviously, it's not a server-oriented distro. It's not even a server OS, much less a whole server distro. It's missing even the extremely basic server-oriented features that *all* serious server operating systems (not just Linux distros, but also the BSDs, OS X, Solaris, you name it) have, such as perl and logrotate. You ever try to run a server without logrotate or perl? Haha. Good luck with that. Even Windows "Server" doesn't have the stuff it would need to really qualify here, and Windows 7 certainly does not.

It does not include any development tools whatsoever, so apparently it's not a developer-oriented distro. It doesn't even include a real text editor.

Windows is more than a kernel, but it's less than a distro. We used to have a term for these things. We called them "operating systems". That's what Windows is: an operating system.

We don't really have "operating systems" in the Linux world -- not as an independent component. We don't need them, because we have distros, which are much more. A distro is sort of like an operating system and package management system and a whole bunch of utilities and application, all rolled into one.

I've left out the thing that *all* distros have, no matter what their focus: a package management system, which can be used to retrieve and install a wide variety of software that is not installed by default, resolving dependencies along the way, and, more importantly, to upgrade all of them when desired (or, in the case of security updates, when necessary). This is, arguably, the *core* of a distro, the thing that makes it a distro. Windows has never had one. It's got Windows Update, but Windows Update does not install updates for any other software that you have installed, so you end up with umpteen billion separate "updater" apps running out of the system tray, each one individually checking for updates to its one program it supports, each one separately bugging the user every time there's an update, each one separately triggering an auth event for administrative permission to install updates, every time there's an update, until eventually the user goes insane and downloads a Sysinternals utility (called Autoruns) to turn them all off, at which point updates are no longer checked for automatically at all, which is insecure, but at least then it's possible to get half an hour's work done without being interrupted eight times by various updaters for software that isn't even currently being used.

If Windows were a *distribution*, it would have a package manager. Users who need development tools or word processing software or whatever could just bring up the package manager, search for what they want, click an install button, minimize while it downloads, and five minutes later they'd be using their new software. Even better, any software that's installed via the package manager would automatically be on the list, and any other software that's installed would only have to add itself to the list, and then updates for all the apps would be handled at the same time as the OS updates, by the package manager that comes with the distribution. Automatically.

That's what makes a distribution better than an OS.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[interkin3tic]

I find it much easier to understand that CentOS 6.1 is a newer version than CentOS 6.0, for example, than trying to remember that "Killer Kangaroo" is newer than "Sloppy Sloth".

Isn't that why they also usually put the numbers in? I remember that Ice Cream came after Gingerbread, and Jelly Bean is next, but if you really wanted to, you could refer to it as "Android 2.3, Android 4.0, and Android 4.1."

And of course, different designations are useful to different people. For instance, most people are merely concerned whether they have an iphone or an android, in which case it's safe to assume they mean android 2.3.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Havenwar]

Surely you've noticed that they go in alphabetical order, right? Which is a lot like numbers, except with letters. Which I'd hope most people are familiar with.

Not that I'm defending their naming scheme, I think it's pretty silly myself, but it's definitely not as hard to get as people seem to want to imply it is.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[jonadab]

In context, his comment implies less about his age than you seem to think. (Hint: Compare his username with the grandparent post.)

However, since you mention feeling old, I may as well point out that the kids who will graduate from high school this coming spring probably do not know who John Kerry is, or what hanging chad is for that matter. (They were about ten years old at the time, and most people don't really start noticing politics until circa junior high.)

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Mike Buddha]

Who's on first?

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[jonadab]

> (They were about ten years old at the time

I should clarify: they were about ten when Kerry ran for President, more like six during the Great Florida Chad Controversy, and about two when Clinton left office.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[antdude]

I am an ant.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Mr. Slippery]

more like six during the Great Florida Chad Controversy, and about two when Clinton left office.

Nice trick, that, since Clinton left office after the Great Florida Chad Controversy.

Someone who was ten years old in 2004 would have been two in 1996, when Bubba got re-elected, and six in 2000; Clinton's term ended after the massive fraud of the 2000 elections.

Just a little historical review for the younglings.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[CFTM]

lol ...
That's what Rock Hudson said!

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Kittenman]

I'm here for you. (Curses - no modpoints)

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Heh.

True, but I haven't ever seen a man I've found attractive that way. The inverse has occasionally been true, and it's been pretty cool to hear, but it's just not my preference.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[balouderbaer]

That will roll around in some half a dozen years, but Ubuntu also has YY.MM version numbers, so you know immediately that version 08.04 is over four years old.

Why would I know that? Do you mean they also mandate that their major releases match the last two digits of the year they came out? Good to know. Certainly not obvious.

You would know that if you cared enough to look it up. It is of course much more comfortable to assume that the numbering is arbitrary and stupid. Feel free to explain any numbering/naming convention that is easier to understand than YY.MM and is at the same time so intuitive that no one could ever ask "Why would I know that?"

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Obfuscant]

You would know that if you cared enough to look it up.

You're right, I don't care enough to look up the rules a group uses for making up silly names for their software or how they decide when to switch major version numers. It's good enough to know that version 13 comes after version 12, and if I want to upgrade from 12 I look for 13.

It is of course much more comfortable to assume that the numbering is arbitrary and stupid.

it is of course much more comfortable to assume the person who disagrees with you has said something he has not, like that the version numbering system Ubuntu uses is "arbitrary and stupid", and then attack him for something he didn't say. The fact that it isn't obvious that the major verion number they use is tied somehow to the current year is nowhere close to saying that it is either arbitrary or stupid. Arbitrary and stupid would be if version 13 came out next after version 10, and then version 11, and then version 1.

Feel free to explain any numbering/naming convention that is easier to understand than YY.MM and is at the same time so intuitive that no one could ever ask "Why would I know that?"

Version 1 is called "version 1". Version two is called "version 2". Minor releases between version 1 and version 2 start at 1.1, then 1.2, 1.3, etc.

I know that might seem complicated and capricious, but it's really pretty simple. Most people understand how to count. Most people have an intuitive grasp of where "1.4" falls in the system.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows were a *distribution*, it would have a package manager. Users who need development tools or word processing software or whatever could just bring up the package manager, search for what they want, click an install button, minimize while it downloads, and five minutes later they'd be using their new software. Even better, any software that's installed via the package manager would automatically be on the list, and any other software that's installed would only have to add itself to the list, and then updates for all the apps would be handled at the same time as the OS updates, by the package manager that comes with the distribution. Automatically.

That's what makes a distribution better than an OS.

Except it's not actually better, and the combination of Linux "package management" and the distributions has actually been a huge problem for Linux on the desktop. Possibly a permanently fatal one for mainstream acceptance if nobody works up the will to fix it. Ingo Molnar (hopefully you know who that is so you don't just dismiss this) says it better than me:

https://plus.google.com/109922199462633401279/posts/HgdeFDfRzNe

The OS should be independent of and separate from apps. App developers should be able to package their application once and distribute those packages any way they like rather than being forced to persuade distributions to integrate, then deal with all the pain that entails.

You've got yourself firmly convinced that Linux style package management is pure win just because you can punch one button and update OS and apps in one swell foop, but it's not that great when evaluated by other measures. Including but not limited to the net productivity of the Linux ecosystem. Time wasted on the pointless makework that is package integration is time not spent on developing great new OS features or great new apps.

It's also dumb and broken and obsolete on the technical level. Just look at OS X. Merely by adopting different conventions for how GUI apps are structured, OS X makes it trivial to "package" 90% (or more) of OS X apps as single bundle objects (one folder which contains a bunch of subfolders and files). The bundle doesn't have to live at any fixed location in the filesystem. This means the "package manager" is the user dragging and dropping the app bundle wherever they like. "Uninstallation" is dragging it to the trash. Dependency tracking is not required because the system includes a rich set of highly polished standard libraries with stable interfaces. If you (as a developer) need a nonstandard library, you just chuck it into your application bundle.

As for updating, the horrible Windows nightmare you mention is not how it has to be. Look at Sparkle on OS X. Mac third party devs solved the auto update problem without any help from Apple. Basically you just link Sparkle, a very lightweight open source library, into your app. You then point it at the URL where you plan to put a RSS feed of updates. Wham, you've got lightweight non-intrusive updating (complete with installation in place wherever the user put your app bundle). No "system tray" bullshit, just an automatic check when the user runs the application (and an interval check if they keep it open all the time).

I use Linux in one of the few places where it has succeeded on the "desktop" -- as an engineering workstation OS. Do you know what the commercial world's average response to Linux package management is? They just say "screw it" and distribute tarballs or custom installers. Furthermore, almost without exception, they support nothing but Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. Want to use Ubuntu or Mint or whatever? Good luck, sucker! They need a stable OS platform to design for so they're not always playing catchup to the flavor of the hour, and RHEL is the closest Linux approximation. So long as they bypass the nightmare that is package management, anyways.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[kiddygrinder]

actually ubuntu's distro names are way easier than others, they're on a six month release cycle coming out at the end of april and october so the latest version has to be 12.04. who bothers remembering those stupid code names?

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Runaway1956]

"The OS should be independent of and separate from apps. App developers should be able to package their application once and distribute those packages any way they like rather than being forced to persuade distributions to integrate, then deal with all the pain that entails."

I have to agree. How else can we introduce vulnerabilities into a system, whereby blackhats can compromise your system with ease?

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Genda]

I heard "Windows: Twisty Nipples" was currently in development... Eeeeeewww can't wait!

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[spauldo]

Windows isn't like Linux in that respect, since the Linux kernel is developed seperately from the rest of the system. A Windows release is worked on and tested as one object (not counting media center, premium, etc.).

There's advantages and disadvantages to both methodologies. The BSDs are similar to Windows in this reguard; OpenBSD 5.1 refers to the entire system, not just the kernel.

The Linux distributions use their own version numbers that are independent of the kernel, but since the utilities in the distributions are generally not distribution specific, not to mention the fact that a single distro version can use more than one kernel, the kernel version becomes more important than it would be otherwise. In Windows, you'd never run a Vista kernel with a 7 userland, so the point is moot.

Methinks the problem with Windows is the complete lack of coherency within versions. Think a bit:

DOS codebase: Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 3.11 for Workgroups, 95, 98, 98SE, ME
NT codebase: OS/2 1.x*, NT 3.x, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Vista, 7 (with server versions sprinkled in somewhat randomly)

If that's not a sure sign of corporate lack of attention span, I don't know what is.

MacOS X is kind of like X11 - it's been X11 for ages, but the R version keeps going up.

*OS/2 1.x is not Windows, but there was a lot of shared code before Microsoft pulled out and created NT 3.x.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[shiftless]

That will roll around in some half a dozen years, but Ubuntu also has YY.MM version numbers, so you know immediately that version 08.04 is over four years old

Why is that important?

Also, why is it so important to release two new versions a year?

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[shiftless]

You would know that if you cared enough to look it up [ubuntu.com]

Yeah, and most people don't want to do that, ignoramus. That's the point. You're wasting my fucking time with this nonsense.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[balouderbaer]

No need to get angry. The point is that the YY/MM scheme is sufficient to distinguish versions even if you do not understand the date represented in it. Intuitively users will understand that 11.04 is different from and came before 11.10, no matter what the numbers actually mean. For everyone who wants more information the next step is using google where they instantly find the link I posted. I do not see what kind of potential user faces problems from this system.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Stud McPeckChest]

Version numbers are a lot less arbitrary than artsy-fartsy names like "Dapper Drake" or "Mangled Melon" or whatever Ubuntu is up to today.

One day a coworker and I were engaging in one of our usual pointless debates about software trivialities. I said that I preferred well thought-out version numbers to version code names while he preferred the code names. The next day he came in and grudgingly admitted that I had a point. He wanted to download the most recent version of Ubunutu but had considerable difficulty finding it. It took him about an hour to realize that "Dapper Drake" was not a user name.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[dolmen.fr]

Pugs, an early attempt of implementation of Perl 6, was full circle: going towards 2xPi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugs#Version_numbering

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Maybe, all my favorite positions involve the phrase "woman on top".

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Obfuscant]

The point is that the YY/MM scheme is sufficient to distinguish versions even if you do not understand the date represented in it.

No, your point was that I was lazy for not bothering to look up in advance how Ubuntu manages its version numbers, and that somehow my failure to notice that the major version number followed the year was somehow calling that numbering system arbitrary and stupid. Neither is true. You're right, as am I, that nn.nn is sufficient to differentiate versions. What is arbitrary and stupid is using cute names that only create confusion and waste people's time.

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[Aizenmyou]

The original term to describe a kernel was the "Operating System Proper".

Re:And what's the deal with names anyway?

[jonadab]

There are some valid points there and some important improvements that could be made to the way things are handled in the Linux world. There *should* be a standard base against which packages can be developed. Apps should *not* have to be recompiled in order to be installed on a newer version of the OS. These would be improvements. There are others too.

However, I don't for one minute believe the presence of usable package management with a centralized update mechanism is the cause of these problems. There are other causes. Dynamically linking against absolutely everything, as opposed to just key stable system APIs, is one cause. The _lack_ of stable APIs for important things like widget sets, so that a binary compiled against one point release will frequently not work with another, is another cause. The culture that says it's normal for developers to distribute only source and let the downstream vendors each compile everything themselves is another cause.

There's nothing inherent about centralized application upgrade management that won't work with Windows, except for the fact that Microsoft hasn't bothered to implement it.

Marketing

[WillAdams]

Apple never would've been able to convince the Mac faithful to purchase OPENSTEP 5.0, &c.

Re:Marketing

[0racle]

Not very faithful then are they.

Re:Marketing

[Dogtanian]

Probably true, but they're going downhill on the feline names already.

I hope they don't change before we get "OS X Domestic Cat".

Re:Marketing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Probably true, but they're going downhill on the feline names already.

I hope they don't change before we get "OS X Domestic Cat".

OS X Kitty has a better ring to it.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X Kitty has a better ring to it.

How about OSX Dangerous Pussy?

Re:Marketing

[Mike Buddha]

Debian started using names from Toy Story (including cute animal names) in 1996. The Tux the Penguin has been around for at least as long.

Re:Marketing

[crazyjj]

Well, for some reason, they already rejected my suggestion: "OS X Pussy"

Re:Marketing

[chthon]

OS X Felix Domesticux

Re:Marketing

[JWSmythe]

I think I missed the punchline..

    OS x Pussy = ??

    Don't say profit.. Or sex robots..

Re:Marketing

[Daniel_Staal]

Apple's animal names started as internal code names (intended to obscure what was being worked on), that leaked out. Rumor sites would talk about the upcoming project 'Puma', not really knowing much about it, and then it became apparent that this was the next version of the OS, so the same sites would continue to refer to it as 'Puma' to keep things consistent.

Repeat again with 'Jaguar', but this time Apple's marketing department noticed that people liked the name, and decided to continue using it themselves. The next code name was then chosen with marketing's involvement....

Re:Marketing

[Nursie]

Yup, sure, nobody ever called anything after an animal before Apple released Mac OS X.

What colour is the sky on your planet?

Re:Marketing

[nschubach]

OS X Kitten, warm as a mitten?

Re:Marketing

[Dogtanian]

OS X Kitty has a better ring to it.

No doubt, but it's not really consistent with the existing scheme (i.e. the "proper English" names of cat species) and nor does the other suggestion of "Felix Domesticux" (whether that's correct Latin or not).

So they'll just have to go with my oh-so-amusing suggestion anyway ;-P

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X Felis Catus

FTFY.

Re:Marketing

[Beardo the Bearded]

It's whatever colour Apple wants it to be.

Re:Marketing

[sjames]

Certainly this couldn't come from Detroit in the '50s and '60s. Someone STOLE the idea from Apple and then jumped in their time machine and gave the idea to the big 3. Apple's crack legal team is working feverishly on bringing Gallifrey back again so they can sue. While they're at it, they'll be suing for design patents on the iTARDIS which they're quite sure they will eventually invent.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Linux has just been copying Windows Tablet-looking OS since before Windows 7. Makes total sense. Give it a fucking break. There's been work on Tablet-like interfaces for different Linux desktop environments (and each one doing it is taking their own spin on it, sometimes coming out similar to other OSs' approaches to it, sometimes not so much) for some time now. They're only now gaining any attention because everyone else is doing it, too.

Copying in the name is just a load of bullshit. There's several projects that have used animals for code names for some time now. Apple was not the first and they won't be the last. If anyone is copying Apple on that one, then Apple copied people before them just as well (as tends to be the case for the vast majority of any of the "They're copying this other company!" over such lame details as the name).

  What you're saying with that is equivalent to saying that Linux copied Windows Vista with the compositing window manager. Which is a load of bullshit as well. Linux had compositing window managers before Windows had anything of the sort at all, and in fact, Linux had composite managers (one of the simplest being xcompmgr) long before that even, which put in some of the basics for what we have today. Next, Mac and Windows will add the "Wobbly Windows", "Desktop Cube", etc. effects, and everyone will bitch that Linux copied those from them (which being that Linux is the only one with them at all, and Linux has had those for a long time now, long before any of the current iterations of them...).

Get off my lawn.

Re:Marketing

[Zero__Kelvin]

Alas, it turns out that if you want an OS named after you you'll have to design it yourself.

Re:Marketing

[mcgrew]

It's not just Apple and it's not just OSes, it's everything the suitpigs come up with. Ford FIESTA? Cheetos? Why "Dawn" dish soap when most people wash dishes in the evening? TIDE detergent? SATURN cars? TWAIN and GNU? WINDOWS? iPhone and iPad and iPod and iCantstanditanymore... marketers must be insane.

Re:Marketing

[Ralphus Maximus]

OS X Hello Kitty

Re:Marketing

[cpu6502]

Oh okay. I am only familiar with Ubuntu which started using names in 2005 or 6. Thanks for the correction.

Re:Marketing

[tomhath]

They're waiting for OS 30.0, a.k.a. OS XXX Pussy

Re:Marketing

[cpu6502]

>>>Yup, sure, nobody ever called anything after an animal before Apple released Mac OS X.

Well let me think. There was GEOS 1.0, 1.1, and then 2.0 Atari TOS 1.0 and 2.0 (and possibly a 3.0?). Commodore Workbench 1.0, 1.1., 1.2, 2.0, and 3.0. Microsoft Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, and 95/98. OS/2 and OS/2 Warp. Also System 7/8/9 in the 90s. No I can't say that I recall any major manufacturers using animal names prior OS X. Maybe in the world of linux, but I'm not familiar with it (being a linux newb).

Re:Marketing

[Intropy]

Felis silvestris catus

Wildcats and domestic cats interbreed all the time.

Re:Marketing

[PixetaledPikachu]

OS X Kitty has a better ring to it.

How about OSX Dangerous Pussy?

That would be OSXXX Dangerous Pussy

Re:Marketing

[acid_andy]

Well, for some reason, they already rejected my suggestion: "OS X Pussy"

or vagina.

Re:Marketing

[kusanagi374]

OS X Maru is way nicer

Re:Marketing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Don't be ridiculous. "OS X Kitty" can also be followed up with the inevitable maintenance release a year later, called "OS X Purring Kitty".

What do you follow "Domestic Cat" with, hmmm?

Re:Marketing

[Merk42]

GP said "anything", not just computers. If you want to talk computers, talk consoles. In 1993 there was the Atari Jaguar, 9 years before OS X Jaguar. Yes, that's the hardware, not software, but again GP wasn't just talking about the names of operating systems.

Re:Marketing

[pellik]

Perhaps Apple just envisions a world where operating system choice can be decided in bizarre martial-arts-esque battles.

'My Flying-Monkey-Crane will defeat your Prancing-Snow-Tiger!!!', and such. It would sure make big chain computer sales departments more enjoyable to visit.

Re:Marketing

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Mac OS X Cringer.
Then they can license "By the power of Greyskull! I have the POWER!!!!" as a marketing gimmick to promote the following release, Mac OS X Battle Cat.

Re:Marketing

[HornWumpus]

OS X tubcat.

Re:Marketing

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

OS X Soft Kitty
OS X Warm Kitty
OS X Happy Kitty
OS X Sleepy Kitty

But those are bug fix releases ... for a computer program, having a bug is kind of like being sick, right?

Re:Marketing

[pgpalmer]

OS X Soft Kitty Warm Kitty Little Ball of Fur?

Re:Marketing

[codemachine]

That makes sense. OS X 10.2 was a very substantial update, and arguably the first version of OS X that was truly ready to use.

I believe one of the reasons they picked 10.2 over 10.5 is that they wanted to keep the OS X branding around as long as possible. This has delayed them from having to figure out if 10.9 will be the last release of OS X, or if it is okay to call a release 10.10.

OS XI just doesn't have the same ring to it.

And when it comes to version numbers, I think Mandriva (then MandrakeSoft) missed out on a great name for Mandrake 10.

It could have been MS Linux OS X.

Re:Marketing

[Hazelfield]

There are two reasons why it will take a while for Debian to run out of Toy Story names. The first reason is that there are a lot of them.

Re:Marketing

[markdavis]

Perfect point.

Saying Mac OS X version 10 is just stupid. That is saying Mac OS version 10 version 10. When it becomes 10.10 then Mac OSX 10.10t would be "Mac OS version 10 version 10.10.

I can't wait for them to come out with Mac OS version 11. Maybe then they can drop the damn "X". Or perhaps they will call it MacOSXI and the cluless can say "Oooh, have have O S Echs Eye".

Re:Marketing

[dutchwhizzman]

I hear the next version is going to be called "ceiling cat" and feature an iKitty picture editing program so you can put captions on cat pictures to replace iMovie.

Re:Marketing

[desdinova 216]

OSX soft kitty?

Re:Marketing

[isorox]

OS X Kitty has a better ring to it.

How about OSX Dangerous Pussy?

OSX Pussy Riot

Re:Marketing

[kiddygrinder]

people would be shouting racist before you managed to print one disc

Re:Marketing

[KeithIrwin]

Once they run out of the name of real cats, the correct solution is clear: Thundercats. Personally, I'm looking forward to OS X 10.17 Snarf.

Re:Marketing

[Clsid]

They thought about CLOSESTEP but that didn't work either.

Re:Marketing

[Clsid]

They were trying OS X Nookie but then Barnes & Noble complained.

Re:Marketing

[captainpanic]

Trademark laws.

They're just running out of good names.

And I totally agree that the OSes are actually names quite ok, in comparison to other things. Cars are an excellent example.

Re:Marketing

[menno_h]

OS X versions are named after German tanks, not cats!

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot trademark numbers.

Also, for most non-techies, it is easier to remember "Tiger" than "10.4"

Re:Easy

[vlm]

You cannot trademark numbers.

Also, for most non-techies, it is easier to remember "Tiger" than "10.4"

I'd disagree on the latter. Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge? Damfino (well, actually I do, but,...) However every noob knows 2005 is more recent than 2000.

Where I work, internally, its all git-flow, and our releases have really boring, yet informative, names which are basically of the format:

release/`date +%Y-%M-%d`

Like today's heroic effort would be release/2012-09-11

This date structure also helps with git-flow features, obviously you can't have two "add some bs" branches but you can have "2012-06-01-add-some-bs" and "2012-08-13-add-some-bs"

If one of my coworkers gets outta whack about last monday's release I know exactly what he's talking about, that would be release/2012-08-27 Or I can even find 2012-06-18. But "Rumbly Rumpelstiltskin v2.1D" WTF is that? thats just unprofessional.

Re:Easy

[binarylarry]

Yes, Ubuntu 12.04 vs Ubuntu 11.10 is so hard to remember and perceive.

Re:Easy

[Anubis IV]

Indeed. Apple has even decreased the amount of marketing in the last version or two that's focused on the .x portion of the name, instead choosing to replace references to it in a lot of their literature with the codename for the version. In fact, if you go to the OS X page, you won't see a single mention of "10.8" anywhere, except for a footnote in one of the subsections where they specify what version of the OS they ran the SunSpider benchmark on.

Microsoft figured that out even earlier, with their shift to using years and then eventually distinct marketing names for the actual names of their products. But the important thing to remember is that there is a distinction between a marketing name and an internal version number.

I don't see what's absurd in the least of using codenames or marketing names to help reach consumers better. Looks at how well educated people are about the differences between versions of Google Chrome for how absurd using version numbers can get. Switching to marketing names alone wouldn't fix that problem, but grouping several versions under a common name might help somewhat.

Re:Easy

[jythie]

Non-techies?

I would wager the engineers play a big role in all these names. Just look at what happens when the are asked to start naming their servers....

Re:Easy

[OrangeTide]

The animal names are code words for the project used while developing it, when the release date is still a ways away. The real version number is the release date, and very easy to remember and provides some relevant information about that Ubuntu version.

Honestly, I think all software that is regularly released should use the versioning scheme that Ubuntu uses. Windows is not released often enough for the scheme to be practical for them, people would see the numbers as being out of date, and the Service Pack updates wouldn't be reflected in the version number even though they are pretty significant.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Ubuntu's versions are the year and month of release (10.04 was released April of 2010.) If you're referring to the naming convention (Natty Narwhal, Oneric Ocelot, etc.) They're in alphabetical order. If they're too difficult for you, just use your version number. I've never had a problem finding information using either, personally.

Re:Easy

[Ghostworks]

To say nothing of the fact that the version as a number doesn't matter. The purpose of the version is to distinguish between different version of the same product so you know what's compatible, what broke, where to start debugging, etc. Most major OS releases don't even come close to being "the same product" from a user perspective, and the other factors are all issues that developers care about and end users pretty much shouldn't have to.

For things like Windows and OSX, all the differentiation that matters to developers comes from long strings representing the most recent build/service pack. For customers buying software packages -- who can expect the software to work reasonably no matter when or if they got the latest upgrade to a component they've never heard of -- you only need one distinguishing name. Why _would_ you choose to use a number? Why not just a year? After all, you didn't drive to work today in your Ford Four Door Sedan v56.2.3.

Of all the axes to grind, I can't for the life of me figure out why the submitter would care about _this_.

Re:Easy

[Wyatt Earp]

Yes, Microsoft is the poster boy for bad naming schemes

Windows ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, but at the same time they have Office 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010

But then other suites like VB Studio went 97, 6.0, .NET, .NET 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012

Re:Easy

[Em Adespoton]

Exactly. See for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS
http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/history.html
http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/codenames.html

So the versioning becomes slightly obvious, as do the names.

Microsoft is a bit less so -- they keep a consistend internal versioning system, but the "product" names are pure marketing.

Linux distros tend to waffle between pure versioning and attempting to be like Apple or Microsoft -- which makes sense, as there's no one vision driving them all.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge?

Which came first, Debian Chicken or Debian Egg?

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were really smart, the would release every six months. Like maybe in April and October. Then they could follow a year.month format for their releases. So 11.10 could be released October 2011, and 12.04 could be released April 2012, maybe a 12.10 in October 2012.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

>However every noob knows 2005 is more recent than 2000.

Yeah, I guess guys at AMD (former ATI) and nVidia didn't get that memo.

Re:Easy

[osu-neko]

Also, for most non-techies, it is easier to remember "Tiger" than "10.4"

I'd disagree on the latter. Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge?

First of all, why would I care, and second of all, I'm not sure how the point is relevant to your disagreement on the unrelated point. "Tiger" is easier to remember than "10.4". The fact that I can't tell you whether "Tiger" came before or after "Jaguar" in no way contradicts this, although it does expose an advantage numbers have over names. How big of an advantage is questionable. I know neither "Tiger" nor "Jaguar" are the latest version. Knowing their relative release dates to each other is maybe a great geek trivia question, but I don't see why I would otherwise care beyond knowing neither is current. I'll bet more users can tell you whether "Mountain Lion" is the latest version of their OS or not than can tell you whether "10.8" is or isn't latest.

Re:Easy

[Andrewkov]

Still better than their other naming convention, "The New iPad".

Not sure what the next one will be called..

Re:Easy

[Russ1642]

I got my parents hooked on Battlestar Gallactica after I got the box set. Try explaining that season 3 episode 4 comes before season 3.5 episode 3. Unless you had a list of seasons that had been split in two you would have trouble. And who names seasons this way anyways? Until that set I had never seen it before.

Re:Easy

[Darinbob]

But it's harder to remember that Tiger is newer or older than Panther or Leopard.

Re:Easy

[rbrausse]

Just look at what happens when the are asked to start naming their servers....

HEY! this is _important_!

Re:Easy

[VGPowerlord]

VB Studio went 97

I've never heard of VB Studio 97. Visual Studio went from 1-6, then to .NET (2003 is an abberation; it was released to make people forget there was ever a .NET release in 2002), then to year versions from there.

Re:Easy

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You cannot trademark numbers.

Unless you're the IOC...

Re:Easy

[cusco]

I think Microsoft does it best, here. They have a consistent internal version.

Huh?

DOS 4, 5, 6.1
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.33 (Windows for Workgroups)
NT 3.0
NT 3.51
NT 4.0
Windows 95
Windows 98
Millennium
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8

Are you sure about that?

Re:Easy

[Nethemas the Great]

It really doesn't matter of the non-techie knows the order of release. The non-techie simply needs to tell the tech helping them out that they have Jaunty Jackalope. Even if the non-tech mangles the name it's still more likely to communicate to the tech--in spite of the data loss--what they have. You'll dance in circles all day if you're trying to coax a version number out of them from memory.

Non-tech: "I remember it starts with a 'J' and um I remember something about an antelope, no, that's not right, um..."
Tech: "Do you mean Jaunty Jackalope?"
Non-tech: "Yes that's it! Jaunty Jackalope."

Re:Easy

[Rob the Bold]

Ubuntu is, far and away, the worst of them. Make it as bizarre and hard to remember as possible, so long as it rhymes, and flip a coin to determine when it's referred to as the number or the stupid name. You know, just to make sure nobody knows what they're using and what they need.

It's not rhyming, it's alliteration.

Re:Easy

[amck]

Easy, Potato came before Sarge :-)

But Debian helps answer the original question: when Debian was first being developed, the pre-stable code was in a directory on an ftp site labelled "1.0". Unfortunately people didn't realise it wasn't ready yet, and got burned.

So after this, Debian came up with the naming system, with "Buzz" being the first. When it was ready for release, a symlink
1.1 -> buzz was added, and Debian 1.1 was born.

Yet people prefer the names.

Part of the reason names are preferable is that an OS consists of components that will be updated-in-time. Its not a static piece of software, but a "release" you "track". If you're OS is "Debian squeeze" then when Debian squeeze is updated with fixes, it remains "squeeze", (but a precise version number may be updated).

Re:Easy

[RaceProUK]

We at ACME Products Ltd apologise for the fault in your Sarcasm Detector, and have shipped a replacement for immediate installation. Please dispose of the old part responsibly.

Re:Easy

[nedlohs]

Why would that be hard to explain? Seasons first then episodes. 3.5 is larger than 3. Though of course BSG didn't have a season 3.5 since that season wasn't split.

But seriously your parents have trouble putting the following in numeric order: 1, 2.0, 2.5, 3, 4.0, 4.5?

Re:Easy

[DMiax]

Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge?

Potato, of course. While I remember hearing the name Sarge during my lifetime, I'm fairly certain that Potato was named around the import in Europe of its namesake vegetable, four centuries ago. So it's probably one or two releases before Sarge.

Re:Easy

[John Bokma]

Like today's heroic effort would be release/2012-09-11

But out of context and in the USA (and maybe more countries) is that the 11th of September or the 9th of November? And don't be surprised if people are going to write that as 12-09-11... Is that the 12th of September, 2011 or the 9th of December, 2011 ...

Re:Easy

[Intropy]

You're ignoring the word "internal" in the sentence you quote as well as AC's next sentence, "Starting with Windows 7, and followed by Windows 8, they have a pretty straightforward public-facing version."

Re:Easy

[Intropy]

Those dumb assonances with their consonant alliteration.

Re:Easy

[ZeroSumHappiness]

However every noob knows 2005 is more recent than 2000.

Unless it's 65 million B.C. "Why do the numbers keep getting smaller and smaller? I mean, what are we counting down for? What are we waiting for?"

Re:Easy

[EGSonikku]

Newer iPad. Followed by Newest iPad & Shut Up And Take My Money iPad.

Re:Easy

[jythie]

Damn right it is! Did you know some people are actually ok with mixing Star Wars and Star Trek when naming new servers? It causes confusion! Why don't they understand this!!!

Re:Easy

[jellomizer]

That and what we call and OS has became far more complex.

We have the Kernel, but the Kernel isn't the OS, We have the Boot Loader, but that isn't the full OS too. We have the default User Interface but that isn't an OS too....
It is a whole collection of stuff combined to make a full OS.

Now sometimes there is a redesign of the User Interface. But the kernel is left untouched, other times the kernel is greatly improved however the UI is near the same. There isn't really a good standard to say what count as a version change vs a minor number change.

Lets use Solaris.
They have been on Version 5 for a long time but they kept changing the name because they got stuck in minor numbers that wasn't that impressive.
5.2.6
5.2.7 (Became Solaris 7)
5.2.8 (Became Solaris 8)
5.2.9 ...

Re:Easy

[devleopard]

I believe the poster was referring to the real version number, not the marketing title. They've incremented more or less in the same way since v 1.0, and for years have included revision/build number (Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is 6.1.7601.17514)

Re:Easy

[Your.Master]

The ambiguity between years and months is going to disappear for a long time very shortly.

I'm not aware of any place that does year-day-month as standard. Are you? I'm used to day-month-year, Americans are used to month-day-year, that's legitimately confusing. Year-month-day seems pretty standard in my experience.

Re:Easy

[Cro Magnon]

I vaguely remember reading of some software that did decrease their version number. Unfortunately, I forget what it was. :(

Re:Easy

[PRMan]

But that causes problems too. When the old Rio Vista server gets repurposed as the second WebSense server, what do you call it? I've seen people include the OS, SQL, IIS versions (oops we upgraded it in place), the room number (moved that to our new location), physical vs virtual, etc. and within 3 years, it all worthless because it's all wrong (or wrong often enough not to be trusted).

I honestly wish that servers would be named after something like Star Wars planets or something, it actually gives them a character that you can remember instead of Win2008_IIS7_P_SantaAna (which is, of course, a Windows 2008 R2 instance running IIS 7.5 on a virtual machine in Amazon's cloud, but we can't change the name or everything will break). I would be much happier if it were just called OrdMantell.

Re:Easy

[fast turtle]

You mean like

• Mary_Jane?
• Gilligan?
• The Skipper?
• Thurston Howel?

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you people stop this? I'm, if not king of Apple-haters, at least a prominent lord, but that argument is just stupid and disingenuous. They dropped the number -- it's just called "iPad" now, like Ford's Mom-sedan is called Taurus, not Taurus 7.3. "New" was being used as an adjective, so the next one (which will then be new) will also be called the new iPad.

Does this leave people wanting to compare specs a little cold, compared to iPad/iPad 2/ etc.? Sure, a little. But they can use the year of introduction (as people do for cars) or keep count of iterations themselves (calling this one the iPad 3 -- just because Apple doesn't doesn't mean you can't). And if they quit now, and leave fans to number them logically, they can't fuck it up like the iPhone, where the numbering went (unnumbered), 3g, 3gs, 4, 4s., with no 2, no 1s, generally defying any logical classification easier than memorizing the whole list.

Re:Easy

[PRMan]

Spoken like a true auditor. Let's all make the world easier for the auditor instead of the people who, you know, ACTUALLY work here.

Re:Easy

[PRMan]

And another point. Security? Isn't it more secure not to tell your hackers things like EXCHANGE, SQL, MAIL, WEB?

And if you really must, there's this new technology called "DNS" which has "Aliases" so that the server named OrdMantell can have an alias of EXCHANGE or MAIL. And then, when it gets repurposed, you can, get this, MOVE the alias to the new mail server. Amazing I tell you!

Re:Easy

[PRMan]

Unless you're Android or Ubuntu...

Re:Easy

[cusco]

Whoops, WfW was 3.11, not 3.33.

Re:Easy

[vlm]

Like today's heroic effort would be release/2012-09-11

But out of context and in the USA (and maybe more countries) is that the 11th of September or the 9th of November?

And don't be surprised if people are going to write that as 12-09-11... Is that the 12th of September, 2011 or the 9th of December, 2011 ...

Don't need to say much more than:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

The reasoning is simple. Run a bunch of 8601 dates thru a simple sort function, you'll instantly see the appeal.

Re:Easy

[mikael_j]

2012-09-11 is ISO-8601 and makes sense since it goes from most significant to least significant (millennium, century, decade, year, month, day), makes for easy sorting. Oh, and it's unambiguous (or rather, if anyone out there interprets it as anything other than yyyy-MM-dd most people would consider them to be wrong, and anyone trying to switch it up and write yyyy-dd-MM would be looked at in the same way).

I absolutely detest finding comments, filenames and such in other formats, how is anyone supposed to know what 120911, 110912, 9/11-12, 11/9-12, 12/09/11, 12/11/09 et cetera mean? And yes, those are all different ways of writing the same date that are used by various people.

Just because you managed to get the year, the month and the day in there doesn't mean it's parsable.

Re:Easy

[HornWumpus]

95 and I think 98 predate NT 4.0

Re:Easy

[John Bokma]

Don't worry, I am aware of ISO 8601; use it most of the time. Besides, I am Dutch ;-). But I've little doubt that if "we" switch to dates that people use confusing ways to talk about their OS.

Re:Easy

[HornWumpus]

You should have seen the reaction when I added 'Carl' to 'Harpo', 'Cheeco', 'Groucho' and 'Zeppo'.

Just because nobody got the joke and millions died. You don't think he was serious did you?

Re:Easy

[John Bokma]

In no way disagreeing with you. There are clear and unambiguous ways (and standardized at that) to write a date. And like you wrote, there are various ways people actually write a date that's confusing. And what's to stop them from writing Windows 2012-09-11 as Windows 11/9-12?

Re:Easy

[cmdrbuzz]

You have confused the solaris examples a little.

The 5 is the version of SunOS and Solaris started at version 2 (The SVR 4 version of SunOS) with Solaris 1 retroactively meaning SunOS 4.

So Solaris 2.4 is SunOS 5.4, then after 2.6 SUN dropped the 2.x bit to leave Solaris 7 (which is SunOS 5.7) and Solaris 8/9/10/11 being SunOS 5.8/5.9/5.10/5.11 etc.

Re:Easy

[Yaztromo]

Windows ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, but at the same time they have Office 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010

Why leave out WIndows versions prior to these? They often weren't all that much better...

DOS-based line: Windows 1.0, 2.0, Windows/286, Windows/386 (two separate products that were both effectively Windows 2.1 for different processors), Windows 3.0, Windows 3.0 MME, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.1 for Central and Eastern Europe, Modular Windows, Windows 3.11, Windows 3.2, Windows for Workgroups 3.1/3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME.

NT-based line: too many to bother listing, with all the various "editions"; I'll just link to the list here.

Version numbering inconsistency isn't new to Microsoft. They've switched from an independent number to processor type to release year to names and back freely as they've desired, all with any number of different editions. Version numbers (when used) may start arbitrarily at any value (such as the first NT release being 3.1), and version numbers may be skipped (MS Office had no v2.0 on Windows, and skipped internal version number 13).

Not that anyone else is much better these days. Personally, I don't really care what the version number is, so long as it's logically ascending (which MS seems to be poor at) so you can determine at a glance what release of a software product is newer than some other release without having to look it up.

Yaz

Re:Easy

[Cid Highwind]

Hostnames stay with function (whether you use creative names like "ordmantell" or boring-but-obvious codes like "sql_payroll_london" is up to you) for the life of that function, and asset tags stay with the hardware for the life of the hardware. Why is this so difficult for some geeks to grok?

Re:Easy

[Stiletto]

Naming servers or releases based on what's easiest for the auditor to audit is like a restaurant choosing its menu based on what's easiest for the janitor to clean off the floor.

Re:Easy

[tenco]

"The Latest iPad"? Would be better, you could call the next one after that also "The Latest $foo".

Re:Easy

[jonadab]

> Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge?

That's not a fair example. Potato and Sarge were separated by Woody, which lasted for an aeon and a half. By the time Sarge came out, everybody who had used Potato was in a nursing home if not pushing up daisies.

(I jest. As it happens, the first Debian release I ever used was 1.3.1, and I don't recall the codename, if I ever knew it in the first place. This, however, is only possible because people live much longer than software releases. Actually, it's kind of like "dog years".)

Re:Easy

[serviscope_minor]

How about?

Non-tech: "I remember it starts with a 9"
Tech: Do you mean 9?
Non-tech: yes, that's it! 9.

Re:Easy

[rdebath]

Which came first the squeeze or the woody.

Re:Easy

[serviscope_minor]

The sysadmin at one place I was at many years ago called the marketing depatment's server "golgafrincham" which surved both purposes simultaneously. Also, they never got it.

Re:Easy

[Kittenman]

However every noob knows 2005 is more recent than 2000.

Unless it's 65 million B.C. "Why do the numbers keep getting smaller and smaller? I mean, what are we counting down for? What are we waiting for?"

[Oblig ID4 reference] Checkmate [/Oblig ID4 reference]

Re:Easy

[Kittenman]

You should have seen the reaction when I added 'Carl' to 'Harpo', 'Cheeco', 'Groucho' and 'Zeppo'.

Just because nobody got the joke and millions died. You don't think he was serious did you?

Should have been Gummo.

Re:Easy

[Nethemas the Great]

Except when the 9 is really an 8 or an 8.9. Numbers are a very weak mnemonic compared to names and they're far more susceptible to irrecoverable data loss. Internally version numbers are great and much easier to use but, believe me if my boss would let me version a public release as "Harry the Hamster" instead of 1.11.27 I'd jump all over that. It'd save a great deal of customer support hassles. Heck, it'd help internally as well with the sales team since we produce a number of products and they're always getting version numbers crossed up.

Re:Easy

[admdrew]

System requirements are a lot easier for a layperson to follow when version numbers are used instead of names.

Re:Easy

[isorox]

I'd disagree on the latter. Which came first, Debian Potatoe or Debian Sarge?

Sid

Re:Easy

[Ricwot]

Year-Month-Day is standard in Korea.

Re:Easy

[Jeremy Erwin]

Now,I need you think. Was it 9.04? or 9.10?

Re:Easy

[stepho-wrs]

Windows 95 came out in 1995.
Windows NT 4.0 came out in 1996.
Windows 98 came out in 1998.

Re:Easy

[shiftless]

Potato, of course.

What do you mean, "of course"? I guessed the opposite.

Which neatly illustrates the whole point, doesn't it?

Re:Easy

[Kalriath]

No, they don't.

Re:Easy

[Kalriath]

That's what goddamn inventory management systems are for. Do you have ANY idea how useless "generic" names are? Ours are all just boring numerics, in the form XXXX000 (XXXX being the company's abbreviation, and YYY being a sequence number). It's hopeless. Everyone has to refer to an Excel spreadsheet just to work out what it does. Then there's the servers in our other datacenters. Those are in the form XXXYYY00 (where XXX is the physical location, YYY is the purpose, and 00 is a sequence number). Equally useless, with the additional bonus of requiring that we never physically move a server. Sure, names like "Frodo" would be useless too, but no more useless than the current names. (We have over 1000 servers though, so there is no namespace sufficient to support our server naming needs anyway).

Re:Easy

[FienX]

Sigh, the two oldes systems at my (current) company (mainframes actually) are called Yoda and Vega. Then we moved to very arbitrary names like xyzapp201 (xyz being company name), and xyzVTapp201 for virtual systems. of course no one could tell you what exactly application was on app201. Now they're a little better about naming them after the system (xyzSQL05 is a sql server boxen), but - and get this - you only get 3 characters for your app name, because - according to our server guys - the maximum length of a host name is *8* characters.... Err... wha? And believe it or not, this apparently is being caused by the linux (RH) servers we're starting to buy. I have long since given up on arguing with them on it.

Re:Easy

[JonJ]

You should be angry at lacking documentation, not the names.

Re:Easy

[shiftless]

But seriously your parents have trouble putting the following in numeric order: 1, 2.0, 2.5, 3, 4.0, 4.5?

How do these people breathe?

Or Fifa 98

[Mr. Kinky]

Can you believe that Fifa 98 was really made in 1997?! WOOOHOO!

Solaris?

[Dog-Cow]

And Solaris 2.x is SunOS 5.x. There's the software version and then there's the marketing name. If you haven't noticed, Windows NT went 3.1, 3.5, 4.0, 2000, XP/2003, 7/2008, 2012, 8.

It's not really any more ridiculous than any other marketing effort.

Re:Solaris?

[wastedlife]

You missed a couple of NT releases, here is the complete list:

3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 2000, XP/2003, Vista/2008, 7/2008R2, 8/2012

I can't blame you for missing 3.51, although it was a separate release from 3.5. I also can't blame you for completely dismissing the existence of Vista, I know I would like to.

Re:Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really.

Solaris is or at least was a package of software which contained SunOS, Openwindows and ONC.

You could license just the SunOS separately for an embedded devices like Fore which did ATM switches etc. did.

Re:Solaris?

[interval1066]

Solaris? What's that?

Re:Solaris?

[Intropy]

An airborne empire run by Emperor Cain and the Gazel ministry.

Re:Solaris?

[alexo]

sounds like you wasted your life remembering all that crap.

Or 5 minutes googling it.

Huh?

[Missing.Matter]

Windows, whose current shipping OS is sold as Windows 7 but is really Windows NT 6.1

This is a distinction between a brand name and a kernel version number. Why is this more absurd compared to "Precise Pangolin" for instance?

Regardless, I think you'll find names of almost any product in a sufficiently crowded marketplace become absurd as they try to differentiate themselves and also avoid stepping on any trademarked names. You see this with domain names in particular.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, the silly codenames Ubuntu has are just that: codenames. They are for developers and testers, not end users, and certainly not "pundits".

Re:Huh?

[slapout]

"95 and 98 and 2000 and ME" No, 2000 was a workstation os not meant for home use.

Re:Huh?

[wastedlife]

98 and ME never mattered to "home users", but NT did? What planet were you on in the late 90s and early 00s?

The Windows Team did once make an announcement as to why it is 7, it makes about as much sense as your reasoning, but at least it is straight from the people who made it: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/archive/2008/10/14/why-7.aspx

To summarize:
1. Windows 1.x
2. Windows 2.x
3. Windows 3.x, NT 3.x
4. Windows 9x/ME, Windows NT 4.x
5. Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.1)
6. Windows Vista (NT 6.0)
7. Windows 7 (NT 6.1)

Re:Huh?

[chispito]

This is a distinction between a brand name and a kernel version number. Why is this more absurd compared to "Precise Pangolin" for instance?

Because otherwise the author would have to commend Microsoft for being sensible.

Re:Huh?

[Tarlus]

I agree, I've never heard of an OS whose version coincided with its kernel version.

Re:Huh?

[wastedlife]

As I mentioned, it didn't make sense, but at least it is supposedly straight from the people who made it.

Re:Huh?

[mikael_j]

I'm pretty sure that was the case with earlier versions of Windows NT, before they started calling it 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 2003 and so on...

Windows NT Releases

Re:Huh?

[serviscope_minor]

the silly codenames Ubuntu has are just that: codenames

Until you actually want to do something like:

debootstrap --arch ARCH natty /mnt/ubuntu

at which point you have to mess aronud with silly codenames. Which is 10.04 LTS again?

Yeah I can look it up, but I find it irritating.

Re:Huh?

[Phroggy]

Furthermore, the silly codenames Ubuntu has are just that: codenames. They are for developers and testers, not end users, and certainly not "pundits".

That's precisely how Apple's cat names started, until rumor sites caught wind and end users started using them. Then starting with Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", Apple's marketing team decided to just run with it.

Personally I'm really disappointed that Ubuntu didn't go with Hungry Hippo.

That nothing - what about phone names?

[Qwavel]

Personally, I'm waiting for Verizon to introduce the Droid Razr Super Maxxx HD LTE 2.

I'm a dedicated Android fan, but I'm sick of the overload of different models and ridiculous names. Some variety is great, but please....

One thing I like about the Galaxy line is that, though there are endless spin-offs, they are essentially delineated into generations I, II, III, etc.

Re:That nothing - what about phone names?

[CastrTroy]

Have you looked at the list of Samsung Galaxy phones? They are probably the worst offender of this that I know of. Also up there on the list are the LG Optimus products. And people wonder why iPhone is so popular. It's because people actually know what product they are buying. They sell exactly 1 phone at a time, with about 3 different storage space options, but that's about it. You know very easily which iPhone you are buying. If you purchase a Samsung Galaxy, You could either get a low-end touchscreen phone, a phone which resembles a blackberry with a full qwerty keyboard, a high-end iPhone equivalent, a gigantic 5.2 inch Galaxy Note, or even a 10 inch tablet.

Re:That nothing - what about phone names?

[Kalriath]

I think the LG Optimus is the worst actually, since the sub-version decides what OS is on the phone. I have an LG Optimus C900k. It runs Windows Phone. But an LG Optimus P720 runs Android.

Re:That nothing - what about phone names?

[CastrTroy]

I was thinking just in terms of sheer number of models. But that's a pretty interesting fact. I wasn't even aware that LG made Windows phones. Imagine going to the Honda dealership, because you drove your friend's Honda Accord and them offering you everything 50 different models from a sub compact, to a luxury sedan, to full tonne diesel pickup, as well as minivans, and even motorcycles all as the Honda Accord but with seemingly random sequences of letters and numbers tacked on the end as the only identifier..

Because Marketing != Version Control

[Aquitaine]

Naming a product to sell it in a commercial market has got nothing to do with internal release milestones, and you don't have to be a marketing expert to realize that 'Windows 11' doesn't sound especially cool, whereas 'X' or 'Wild Giraffe' both sound awesome.

The question is more ridiculous than the discrepancy.

Re:Because Marketing != Version Control

[0xG]

As opposed to "Domestic Giraffe"?

Re:Because Marketing != Version Control

[Aquitaine]

Nah, Domestic Giraffe sounds cool, too.

How does this fit?

[ArhcAngel]

NO

Re:How does this fit?

[hotdiggity]

> Why Are Operating System Version Names So Absurd?

> NO.

How does this fit?

Not very well.

Or, if I applied your cited "Law" to your own comment title:

How does this fit?

NO.

Newsworthy?

[kwerle]

Could we have a tag: 'newsworthy' - something to identify a story as being worth paying ANY attention to?

Re:Newsworthy?

[Nimey]

Pfft. They'd abuse it like the "story" tag that gets put onto non-stories all the time.

Re:Newsworthy?

[tool462]

Tags can be user defined, so one could add 'newsworthy' as appropriate. One could argue that the tag 'newsworthy' has been used exactly as often as appropriate.

Re:Newsworthy?

[Zero__Kelvin]

You mean so that you can save time by avoiding those and come directly to these to complain?

Re:Newsworthy?

[kwerle]

It's my understanding that 'story' is the magical tag that promotes submissions to post status.

I guess maybe what I need is a custom rss feed reader that can tag each article as 'interesting' or 'crap'. Maybe I'll write a bayesian filter.

Has anyone already done that, I wonder...
http://superuser.com/questions/188036/bayesian-filter-for-rss-feeds

Damn if Google hasn't already done it:
https://support.google.com/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=69980
A third option, Sort by magic will rank items by "magic." Personalized magic ranking is automatically generated, taking into account your past reading behavior (including liking and starring) and global signals. We'll do our best to display items in the most relevant and interesting order -- click the Like button on things you think are important or enjoy reading, and we'll learn to put items like that first.

Guess I'll have to check it out. I already use reader.

I'm a beefy miracle!

[Nushio]

It helps when you're googling to know which software version you're in. Sometimes it's easier to Google for "Ubuntu Boring Beaver" than "Ubuntu 11.04" or whatever. Likewise with Windows, noone ever calls it Windows NT so noone would bother searching for Windows NT 6.1 issues.

It's all in the marketing, as many have stated.

Re:I'm a beefy miracle!

[trigpoint]

Beefy Miracle (Fedora 17) has to be the dumbest name ever.

Re:I'm a beefy miracle!

[bmo]

Nah, that distinction goes to "Windows" which is so generic and "merely functional" that Microsoft nearly lost the trademark in a counterclaim by Linspire, wherupon Microsoft paid Linspire to shut up about it.

Beefy Miracle is leaps and bounds a "better" trademark.

--
BMO

Because...

[ilsaloving]

Operating Systems are fundamentally boring. Once you get past the fanboi-ism, they are just software that sits there on your computer. They are there to *facilitate* your work, but they don't produce anything in and of themselves.

So you have to jazz them up as much as you can, so people will take notice.

Re:Because...

[preaction]

Except if the OS wasn't there, you'd have to create it. Every layer of abstraction the OS provides is another layer that app developers do not need to invent themselves. Remember DOS games that made you choose your audio card and video card? The OS is the huge base that lets you build your app pyramids.

Re:Because...

[ilsaloving]

That is true, but it does not change the fact that an OS is boring. A user doesn't give a fig that the OS provides all these wonderful levels of abstraction to make it easier for developers to write their applications. Users care about what it does *for them*.

Re:Because...

[wastedlife]

I think you accidentally a word there.

Re:Because...

[Jonner]

Operating Systems are fundamentally boring. Once you get past the fanboi-ism, they are just software that sits there on your computer. They are there to *facilitate* your work, but they don't produce anything in and of themselves.

So you have to jazz them up as much as you can, so people will take notice.

Operating systems should be boring to ordinary users, including the PHBs that might be swayed by a name. Sysadmins and others who might reasonably be excited by particular operating system features should know better than choosing based on names.

what a waste of time

[cynop]

i suppose MsDOS 6.22, windows 3.11, system V and AmigaOS 3.1 were much more meaningfull, right? jeez, TFA is a waste of time

Re:what a waste of time

[Mike Buddha]

I concur. I think the author would have done better to complain about why we call the color of the sky on a sunny day "blue". What's the point of that?

Re:what a waste of time

[JWSmythe]

    That's actually one of my favorite games. I usually play it with women. They say something with a color, like "Grab that chartreuse bottle". After 30 seconds of dumb staring, I ask what a chartreuse is. They'll eventually point at the green bottle.. Then I get to explain, guys have a limited color palette. 8 base colors, 3 shades.

Color: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Black, White (and sometimes gray)
Shade: Light, Normal, Dark.

    That's it. No more. There's a little overlap with light black, dark white, and the 3 shades of gray.

    If you want something in sunny day blue, you'd better be very specific in the guy color palette. If you need more precision than that, RGB, CYKM, HSV, or YUV are acceptable substitutes, but they damned well don't have a list of names that everyone (or anyone) can remember. There may be 16.5 million names for the RGB spectrum, but no one knows what all the names are.

Re:what a waste of time

[Dogtanian]

People ran "Windows 3.11", "Windows 95", and "Windows 98" for a very long time, and were fine with names like that. Dumping marketing into this and giving the silly names only speaks to the audience they're trying to capture.

"Windows 95" (with its consumer-obvious and up-to-date-signifying year number) was already a more marketing-driven name than the previous version-numbered Windows releases.

Windows 7 is sort of crap, because its pseudo version number doesn't really signify anything meaningful. It's not version "7" internally, and one could argue whether it's really the "7th" release of Windows anyway. (You could probably argue for anything from 6 to 10 using similar logic, so it's pointless).

Vista is an *obviously* marketing-driven name, but at least it's openly so and doesn't really confuse with its clear vapidness. "Windows XP", on the other hand... nowadays it's been with us so long, we don't even think about that meaningless name, but even when it was new it never got called out on it.

I bet the vast majority of people don't even know what "XP" is supposed to mean. I *do* know what it's meant to represent (the user "eXPerience", ahem). If anything, knowing that makes it seem even more vapid and meaningless, a stupid, half-baked marketing-driven non-acronym that Microsoft never seemed to bother marketing, thus making one wonder why they bothered.

Also, XP represents a smiley with eyes screwed up in frustration sticking out its tongue... :-)

Re:what a waste of time

[Intropy]

XP is definitely market driven. Back then marketers thought starting with an X means cool to consumers. A couple of years before that everything had to be an eGadget. Apple appears to have appropriated that particular convention with with the next available vowel and so everything they make is an iDevice. I'm just glad we don't currently have to deal with .-=xXx PRODUCT xXx=-.

Re:what a waste of time

[rmdpgh]

There may be 16.5 million names for the RGB spectrum, but no one knows what all the names are.

Pantone does....

Re:what a waste of time

[Cro Magnon]

I thought the obvious name for XP should have been "Win Me2", since it was the next consumer OS after ME. However, the original ME had a bad rep, and "ME2", especially combined with Microsoft is too much like "me too".

Re:what a waste of time

[mikael_j]

I remember people complaining loudly about Windows 95 not being called Windows 4.0.

And then when they switched to "Millennium Edition" which became simply "ME" people complained about that. At about the same time people also complained about the renaming of NT 5 to 2000.

So no, a lot of people weren't fine with names like that, it's just that it was a relatively minor issue that only caused people to voice their opinion and then move on.

Re:what a waste of time

[Mr Z]

If you think about it, this isn't specific to computers. Look at car names and their goofy letter/number combos, for example. Hell, some consultant got a million bucks a letter selling Infiniti on the letters J and Q.

At least BMW's are usually rooted in functionality, at least for their sedans (series number and engine displacement in deciliters). But quick, which is bigger/faster/better/whatever: a Cadillac STS or Cadillac DTS? If I told you one was the Seville Touring Sedan and the other was the DeVille Touring Sedan, would that even help?

Re:what a waste of time

[JWSmythe]

metallic is a texture (or illusion of), not a color. :)

I like the CYMK argument though. Light blue, yellow, dark red, black. I'm sure someone will say how horribly wrong I am. People understand it, and I don't need to carry a dictionary and 16.5 million color swatches around to explain it. :)

Re:what a waste of time

[HornWumpus]

Point to the old mopar and say 'look at the plum crazy 'cuda with the 340-six pack, it's awesome.'

Give them a taste of their own medicine.

BTW you are wrong. We just don't care about 'interior decorator' type colors (like you say 'chartreuse' WTF, you mean 'baby shit green'?). Put them on a fast car and everything changes.

Re:what a waste of time

[JWSmythe]

    Actually, since you mentioned it, I looked around a little. Pantone does name a lot of colors. They consider that list intellectual property, and I couldn't just find a number of how many names there are. I'm sure if someone dug enough, they could come back with the number. Pantone does seem to have more number codes than names.. So I guess even they don't have all the names. :)

Re:what a waste of time

[drinkypoo]

Pantone does name a lot of colors. They consider that list intellectual property

This is because color names are just made up. Since two people's eyes and brains are a little different, you're going to get different amounts of different colors. A given color produces a given frequency response so two people who can see the same colors see the same colors, but two people don't have the same eyes, eh? It's therefore all a lot of bullshit because two people standing next to one another on a hill looking at the same piece of sky can reasonably come to different conclusions about what color it is and both can be right, until we get to a color like cobalt blue where it's based on an absolute metric.

All non-elemental color names are just made up by someone with the intestinal fortitude to believe they have the right to tell people what color something is.

Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[Revotron]

...because convincing people to pay $200 to upgrade from Windows NT 6.0 to Windows NT 6.1 is not as easy as telling them it's a whole new version of Windows.

Also, Apple uses the big cat theme for the same reason. Tell somebody you want $30 to upgrade them from 10.7 to 10.8 and you wouldn't have much success. On the flip side, there's not enough of a difference between each version of Mac OS X to warrant each getting its own major number. They're all based on the same underlying kernel and subsystems but have new features and UI improvements as the big selling point.

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[XxtraLarGe]

Tell somebody you want $30 to upgrade them from 10.7 to 10.8 and you wouldn't have much success.

Not to be pedantic, but the OS 10.8 update is $19.99, and covers every computer in your household.

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[Revotron]

Maximum pedantry achieved. :)

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[DRMShill]

It's only labeled internally as 6.1 for compatibility reasons. There's an article that I can't find that explains it better but this one comes close http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/archive/2008/10/13/introducing-windows-7.aspx

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[VGPowerlord]

The version checking that was taking place was actually this type:

if (majorVer >= 5 && minorVer >= 1)

Which fails on 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0, but not on 5.1 or 6.1.

It was used for applications that would run on Windows XP but not Windows 2000.

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[Dogtanian]

...because convincing people to pay $200 to upgrade from Windows NT 6.0 to Windows NT 6.1 is not as easy as telling them it's a whole new version of Windows.

It's also got a different consumer name from the previous version of Windows, because marketing it as what it really was- i.e. "Windows Vista Second Edition"- would have tainted it with the name of an irredeemably disliked failure, even if it *had* fixed a lot of the things people hated about the original Vista.

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[Dogtanian]

Not to be pedantic, but the OS 10.8 update is $19.99, and covers every computer in your household.

What? Even my Wintel desktop machine, my Commodore Amiga, Atari 800XL and late-1970s Prinztronic "pong" console?

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[admdrew]

I wonder how recursive his claim is too...

Re:Windows 7 is Windows 7...

[Phroggy]

The most important feature of Windows 7 is not being named "Vista". That alone generated millions of sales.

Because it is MARKETING

[falcon5768]

DUH!!!!!!! Version control numbers are completely beyond the need of the laymen when it comes to OS. All they care about is if its new or different from what they are running and thus why the OS has names like Win 8 or Mountain Lion. I almost never refer to Lion as Lion except to users. To me its 10.7.# Build ##### thats all I need thats all I care about.

Names not numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's why:

Windows 95, 98, 7, 42, whatever: These are the product NAMES, not version numbers. Consumers don't give a shit about the version number being 6.1

Mac OSX: Lion, Leopard, Big Cat, whatever: These are the product NAMES, not version numbers. Consumers don't give a shit about the version number being 10.7.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gibbon, Anonymous Asshole, whatever: These are the product NAMES, not version numbers. Consumers don't give a shit about the version number being 12.04.

Why are we discussing something so pointless?

Re:Names not numbers

[osu-neko]

Why are we discussing something so pointless?

Like you have something better to do. (If you did, you wouldn't be here...)

Re:Names not numbers

[RedDeadThumb]

These are the product NAMES, not version numbers. Consumers don't give a shit about the version number being 12.04.

I am a consumer and I care. The whole thing is just meant to confuse so people don't know what they are buying. As a consumer I want a simple naming scheme that describes the function, the version, and the feature set. If an item has a higher number it should be more advanced and/or have more features, but that is not always the case. Which cat is better/newer than the other cat? "This software only works in OSX 10.2" What cat was that again? What cat am I running now? Also, words should not be usurped to a different meaning for the sake of making your product sound more exciting (such as XBox Live). Put that Jelly Bean in your pipe and smoke it.

Drivers

[unlucky ducky]

I thought the main reason for Windows 7 being Windows NT 6.1 was because that way they could avoid breaking driver compatibility since most of the drivers should still work between these very similar architectures. Windows NT 6.0 - Windows Vista/Server 2008 Windows NT 6.1 - Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 Windows NT 6.2 - Windows 8/Server 2012

Re:Drivers

[cbhacking]

This is correct. MS changes the kernel major version number when they introduce major (sometimes backward-incompatible) driver-interface changes. They actually aren't always backward-incompatible; NT6.0 (Vista) would actually load most NT5.1 (XP) or even 5.0 (2000) drivers just fine... but it wasn't generally supported, and the installers would freak out at the changed major version number (this could be worked around by running in Compatibility Mode to spoof the version info, among other things). Besides, some drivers (notably network and printer drivers, which had significant interface changes) just *didn't* work correctly, if at all, with NT6.x. Windows 8 is still NT 6.2 because, although they've removed a few more of the old NT5.x driver interfaces, the 6.x drivers will still work.

Because...

[bmo]

...dear subby, marketing in itself is absurd.

--
BMO

Absurd?

[3vi1]

Absurd? I don't know what you're talking about.

[posted from Quantal Quetzal 12.10b1]

If they avoided numbers...

[msauve]

...the might end up with something like:
OS
OS:The Animated Series
OS:The Next Generation
OS: Deep Space 9
OS: Voyager
OS: Enterprise

Re:If they avoided numbers...

[Anonymous Coward]

The first one would be:
TOS

Re:If they avoided numbers...

[Hillgiant]

Stay away from OS: The Christmas Special

Really?

[TechHawk]

A better question would be "Why do you care?"

I like Androids concept

[na1led]

Pick a name in alphabetical order. That way you have an idea if you have the latest version.

Re:I like Androids concept

[gk_brown]

Can't believe I never noticed that before. OTOH, I think Android's dessert-based naming scheme is a bit silly, so I never really thought about it that much. :-)

Re:I like Androids concept

[tgv]

It's not only silly, as the other responder points out, it's also something that's not common knowledge in about 70% of the world population.

Re:I like Androids concept

[na1led]

Names are easier to remember than numbers. When you use your browser, do you type "216.34.181.45", or "slashdot.org"?

Because...

[puddingebola]

"Why is this area of software marketing so ridiculous?" Because the names are created by people in marketing who don't care about software. Get ready for the resourceful rat version of Ubuntu 14.

Not sure about external naming ...

[gstoddart]

Not sure about why these things get such odd names for people to use ... but years ago when I still coded for a living, if we were working on something, we specifically gave it a codename which a) the marketing guys would never ever use, and b) which made it not so obvious what it was.

We used to find that if the sales guys caught whiff of something, or liked the working name, it would end up being used in customer presentations and generally cause problems as they started selling something that hadn't been released (or even coded) yet.

So project anchovy or project firkin tended to keep them away. This was done throughout development, and I believe was actually a policy.

As to why Ubuntu comes up with such odd names ... that I can't even speak to. Because "Zitty Zebra" or "Punk-Rock Platypus" never seem to make sense as official names to me.

Re:Not sure about external naming ...

[vlm]

if we were working on something, we specifically gave it a codename which a) the marketing guys would never ever use, and b) which made it not so obvious what it was.

The almighty GOOG is failing me now but this explains the release of some software I was using from github with the release name "Cinco de who gives a f*ck". At least I didn't have to guess what day that was released, or what he though about having to "work" on his holiday.
There's another project out there using pr0n actresses names as "release names". Come on mighty GOOG, dont you index github?

Discussion not complete without car anology

[avandesande]

Are car names and model designations any less stupid?

Re:Discussion not complete without car anology

[Wyatt Earp]

Yes, it's so hard to tell the difference between a 1991 Camaro and a 2012 Camaro, who the hell thought that scheme up?

For people that work on cars/know about cars, they know a 1991 is a 3rd Gen F-Body while a 2012 is a Zeta platform

Re:Discussion not complete without car anology

[RaceProUK]

Possibly more stupid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Cedric
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Homy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpchi

Revision Numbers

[arachnoprobe]

Revision numbers just don't market well....

Trademark

[Blindman]

It is probably a trademark issue. The stranger the name (i.e., distinct) the easier it is to protect the name. If you named your operating system, Functional Operating System, you will have a harder time than if you had named your operating system, Big Slick.

Re:Trademark

[Spy Handler]

Unique trademark-able names are fine. Giving a different fruity name to every version isn't. The developers think the universe revolves around their product and everyone will remember all their little names and applaud them for their cleverness... but they're wrong.

Android 2.2, 3.0, 4.0 -- ok
Froyo, Donut, Fruitcake, Ice Cream Sandwich -- not ok

Debian 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 -- ok
Potato, Buzz, Woody, Blowjob -- not ok

Apple seems to have wizened up and does not give fruity names to every minor version of iOS. Maybe with MacOS XI they'll stop with the cat names.

Re:Trademark

[ulzeraj]

"No fun Allowed".

Re:Trademark

[Daniel_Staal]

There will probably never be a MacOS XI. That's a confusion of the marketing name and the version number. The marketing name for the series is 'Mac(OS) X 10.' (Where the part in parens is optional.) They are currently on version 8 of the series, and I'm fully expecting them to go past version 10.

The reason for the X/10 is because version 1 was the successor to MacOS 9, which was an entirely different product.

talk about it on /.?

[udachny]

Yeah, names. Like /.

http:///..com gotcha.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, names. Like /.

htp:///..com gotcha.

Little known fact: before it became a tech site, slashdot was originally a cruising site known as colonslash.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you type "/." in your address bar in Opera, it will take you to slashdot.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[OhSoLaMeow]

A site about proctologists???

Re:talk about it on /.?

[craigminah]

Type it in Safari on a Mac and it opens up a Finder window showing the boot drive.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Havenwar]

No, it takes you to a picture of two cinnamon buns with a pencil shoved through them.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Kittenman]

A site about proctologists???

Oh very droll. Mod parent up.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Mr Z]

...which to some, may be considered porn. Rule 34, after all.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Kalriath]

No, it runs a Google search.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[shiftless]

I sense a goatse joke approaching

Re:talk about it on /.?

[craigminah]

On my Mac it opens a Finder window showing my boot drive...FMMV.

Re:talk about it on /.?

[Isara]

Oh, given the cranial-rectal inversion around here sometimes, it's still a site for proctologists

Incrongruity

[carrier lost]

"Why is this area of [software] [marketing] so ridiculous?"

You has it

Re:Yawn, I don't care

[vlm]

I run debian/stable and debian/testing.
I think they were squeeze and wheezy, but I don't really care what the name is, why should I.

I know I've got the current most up to date in each tree, and that's all that really matters to me.

Some morning you'll wake up and your production boxes will have 500 packages waiting for installation and munin and nagios will be going bonkers due to pending packages because wheezy got released that night. No big deal, although I prefer that kinda stuff on my schedule not theirs.

The only problem I've had with squeeze->wheezy is the well reported ? perl sha hash issue where libdigest-sha1-perl has gone away so you get to go thru your source code and change all the use Digest::SHA1 statements to use Digest::SHA

Easily Google-able

[Ynot_82]

Only speaking for Linux here,
But googling for generic issues often throws up heaps of out-of-date or otherwise unhelpful hits
For a set of systems that move so fast (eg. 6 monthly release cycles for Ubuntu and Fedora), you need to get more taylored results

Including "Quantal", "Wheezy" or "Spherical" in your search terms is likely to pull up far more relevant results

Re:Easily Google-able

[Urza9814]

Never had any problems with that on, say, Mandriva 2010 (one of the few things I _didn't_ have problems with on Mandriva 2010...that was a terrible release...)

Hell, I don't even have any problems with that on Arch, which doesn't even have versions...

Re:Easily Google-able

[skrite]

might get better results, but i find it easier to remember the point release for whatever version i am running. 11.04, 11.11, 12.04 because it is the year.month of the release. Much easier for me to remember 12.04 than the word "Quantal". Maybe if the adjective / critter were less obscure.

Windows versions

[tgd]

6.1 is the kernel version, the full OS is Windows 7.

Its the same reason RedHat doesn't sell RedHat 2.3.125, but RedHat 6 or whatever.

Re:Windows versions

[Tog Klim]

Never mind that there was never a MS NT 1.0 or 2.0.... Those were from that OTHER company whose name we shall not name.

Re:Windows versions

[flink]

6.1 is the kernel version, the full OS is Windows 7.

C:\>ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

C:\>help ver
Displays the Windows version.

VER

Hmm, doesn't say anything about kernels in there...

Re:Windows versions

[tgd]

Never mind that there was never a MS NT 1.0 or 2.0.... Those were from that OTHER company whose name we shall not name.

OS2 was co-engineered, so technically speaking, there was.

Re:Windows versions

[tgd]

6.1 is the kernel version, the full OS is Windows 7.

C:\>ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

C:\>help ver
Displays the Windows version.

VER

Hmm, doesn't say anything about kernels in there...

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't putting forward a theory or anything, just stating an absolute fact from first hand experience.

ver is a DOS holdover, and there was a 1:1 relationship between "kernel" version with DOS and the release vehicle. The major/minor kernel versions all mean something with Windows -- if you actually want to know, I'm sure a quick intarweb search will edjumacate you.

Re:Windows versions

[Cro Magnon]

Speaking of that, I've always wondered why the next version was "OS/2 version 3", and not "OS/3". Someone must have been warped.

Re:Car Analogy

[PPH]

Yeah. Why not follow the tradition Pontiac established with their LeMans brand?

Personally, I like year based versions

[Cro Magnon]

I knew what year Windows 95 came out, and I knew Win 98 was 3 years afterwards. I know that "Prickly Penguin" is after "Jumping Jeroboa" (yes, I know those aren't real names), but I don't immediately know when each came out. And I don't have a clue which Debian toy was when.. At least with years, I know how old a given OS is.

Re:Personally, I like year based versions

[alphred]

The problem with that is when someone names the not-yet-released product and then it comes out late. I remember that Nantucket's Clipper used to have names like 'Spring 84' and 'Summer 85'. This worked well until 'Summer 86' came out in December of 86. The next release was something like 'Clipper 5.0'.

Re:Personally, I like year based versions

[Mr Z]

Well, for Ubuntu's version numbers, they go with Year.Month, so not only do you know what year something came out, but also what month. So, 12.04 came out this last April, for example. I couldn't tell you what animal is associated with it and don't even care.

Re:Personally, I like year based versions

[stepho-wrs]

In the southern hemisphere Dec 1986 was summertime. It would have been the only one with the correct name as far as we Australians are concerned.

What's the problem?

[MaWeiTao]

Far more egregious than OS names is the numbering convention for the Xbox and Firefox. Xbox went from 1 to 360, presumably because Microsoft's marketing department couldn't stand to be stuck at 2 when the Playstation was already on 3. I'd like how they're going to address that one when they get to the next gen model; they'll probably go with a name instead. Firefox is currently at 15 when every update since about 4 has been incremental. I doubt they'd even have gotten to 5 by now were they following proper version numbering conventions.

The numbering convention for Windows makes some sense. Apple does even better, at least in terms of consistency. From a visual and usability standpoint the OS hasn't fundamentally changed since 10.1. And the code names, regardless of semantics, are distinctive and consistent.

car++ analogy

[Fubari]

OS names are like car models... it's just that OS names haven't been around as long so articles like TFA still get written.

For example, Porsche911 has been around almost fifty years (since 1963).
I wonder if anyone in 1973 wrote an article on "Porsche '911' - A Nonsensical Naming Standard?"
Maybe people in 2052 will still be driving "OS X" or "Windows Server 2052".

Feature-wise, both OS makers & auto makes have arbitrary upgrade cycles. Industry observers for both often complain about minor do-nothing incremental changes, as well as sweeping wide reaching changes (vista, anyone?).

fwiw - I believe airplane manufacturers follow a similar naming convention (737, 747, Airbus, Cesna, ...). Spaceship manufacturers are still fairly new, but I bet in 2052 that SpaceX will still be building Falcons.

Re:car++ analogy

[PRMan]

The other day, my kids were amazed that there was actually a car called the "9/11". "Why would somebody name a car after 9/11?"

I had to explain to them that the model has been around for about 50 years and has no relationship to the US tragedy.

Re:car++ analogy

[Inda]

Whenever I see a Range Rover Discovery, I call it a P38 or a P38a. This was the inside name when it was being developed. I made a 25% weight saving on a panel somewhere near a rear seatbelt mount, some patterns for the tooling and a couple of checking fixtures.

The manufacture calls it a P38.

All the magazines, salesmen and dealerships call it a Discovery.

All the fan clubs call it a P38.

I'll take a +1 imformative for that please, Bob.

It is not just operating systems

[Alain Williams]

but also many other large 'projects' that people give names to, eg:
* Chips - Intel has fun names
* Police operations
* Military operations
* Cars have names

We just seem to like naming things rather than giving them numbers - that is why one degrading act of imprisonment is to refer to the inmate by number

Hardware, too

[OldSport]

iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5. iPad, iPad 2, the New iPad. iBooks, iPod, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iWork, iAmgoingtogocrazyif iWriteanymoreofthese

Because it's not about technical accuracy.

[roc97007]

It's about what sounds good at the time to the marketeers.

(Whenever I see the word "marketeers" I want to go "Emm eye cee (see you real soon) kay eee wye (why? because we like you)"...)

Linux Kernel Codenames

[Anonymous Coward]

'Man-Eating Seals of Antiquity' is not the wierdest.

Re:This might not be the place to bring this up

[Dogtanian]

but Firefox 4 is also called Firefox 12

In a sense, although I'm sure if they were being pedantic they'd argue that technically it *is* Firefox 12 because that's what it's called. :)

Anyway, what about Java's numbering... we started with Java 1.0 and 1.1... then we moved to Java 2 SE (J2SE), which still had the version number 1.2(!) Following that we had J2SE 1.3, J2SE 1.4 and then, er... J2SE 5.0. After which they dropped the "2" so it was "Java SE 6.0" and so on. That's not counting the stupid half-baked marketing driven brand dilution, sorry.... *extension* of the "Java" Desktop System.

Mind you, Microsoft are the experts when it comes to counter-productive, marketing-driven messing about with names. Witness "Microsoft Account" which Wikipedia tells us was "previously Microsoft Wallet, Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, Microsoft Passport Network, and most recently Windows Live ID". Unbelievable... how many people know all those names, or that they're all basically the same thing?

Another good MS example was their (then-)latest media-player compatibility scheme, "Plays for Sure"- obviously implying Apple-style "no brainer just works" straightforwardness. Except that they then proceeded to totally undermine this by renaming it to tie in with "Certified for Windows Vista" (which also encompassed *other* schemes) and launched a separate, incompatible DRM/compatibility scheme for their now-defunct Zune range.

In short, MS are the market leaders when it comes to creating a clusterfuck of overlapping, badly-defined brands where no-one has a clue what they're meant to represent because this week's corporate marketer wants to justify their pay packet by chopping and changing stuff for no reason at all, no doubt egged on by senior management with no focus.

Like CPU marketing is any better!

[scorp1us]

Starting with the Pentium (because 586 was no longer trademarkable) Intel has gone off in the weeds. They had the pro, and every CPU after were just minor tweaks on that platform. They were called the Pentium 2, 3, 4 and 5. The "Core 2" is the only true successor.

Now you have something called a Core I7. Well, there aren't 7 cores. But we know there is at least one core. I don't know the clock speed (because clock speeds stopped growing) I don't know the cores. AMD at least had reasonable model numbers based on relative Intel performance X2 3400 was a dual core preforming like an Intel at 3400MHZ.

Re:Like CPU marketing is any better!

[gagol]

I am pretty sure the successor to Pentium 4 was named "Core". I could be wrong...

Can't wait for OS 11

[Ranger]

Apple will finally be able to use "Ours goes to 11!" as a marketing phrase.

Like Carl Sagan says:

[freeze128]

"If you wish to make an OS from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

Re:Like Carl Sagan says:

[Genda]

Don't bother the kid, he's channeling... wait till you hear what Abraham Lincoln has to say about OSs...

Ubuntu Versions

[joaosantos]

Ubuntu versions oficial names are Year.Month the Adjective Animal are only codenames for development.

Re:new question for Slashdot readers

[Dogtanian]

Why do dogs lick their balls?

Please choose one of these two obligatory answers:-

(i) To take away the taste of the dog food.
(ii) Because they can.

Nicknames aren't Apple exclusive

[EGSonikku]

Not even animal names, as seen with Ubuntu names.

Even MS is on board, at least for internal betas. I remember installing a Windows 95 beta ("Chicago"; I was drunk, it seemed a good idea).

...Because it's marketing?

[sys_mast]

I think you're not taking into account the disconnect that marketing has with the technical groups. Maybe not by design, perhaps even against it, but that's the way the real world is.

I'm sure a dozen people or more will come up with valid counter examples. The above is a general statement and honestly more of a guess, am I wrong?

ME, XP, Vista, Windows7 : Brilliant

[sandoval88419]

Hey these marketing guys are fucking brilliant ! What a history of consistent names !

Remember when we reached the year 2000, they released ME : Millennium Edition, that was brilliant, not only you'd reached the year 2000 but it was more than that: a new Millennium, a future of brightness.

And then XP: ouch ! You got a kick in the balls. XP what did that mean ? Xtreme Punch or something like that : ouch brilliant !

And Vista, amazing ! Rock solid ! Vista, what did that mean ? Was it some kind of disease you get in south America countries ? No, it was a verb, it meant everything, it was everywhere. Families used it everyday: I'm gonna Vista to the mall. I caught my husband Vista-ing around ! Will you shut the Vista up ! And so on...

And Windows7, brilliant, very surprising, amazing : yes this one went to 7 ! It brought disruption, and surprise !

And then Windows8, very innovative ! You'd thought they'd go to Windows Falcon or some cat name : Windows Super Hyper Intrepid Tiger ? No, they avoided the trap, that was innovative ! Brilliant !

But I recommend they not go to far in innovation : Windows9 OK, still surprising, but not too far. Windows10 : no, very predictible, they'd risk some lame jokes : Hey, do you know there are 10 kinds of Windows10 users ? No ? Those who count in binary and those who don't !

I'm excited to know what will come next !

Uh... Android?

[asylumx]

How are you going to complain about "Windows 7" but not even mention "Honeycomb" or "Ice Cream Sandwich" -- or what about Raspberry Pie?

The real reason Windows has the version number...

[mystikkman]

The summary, folks here and the TFA(didn't read fully!) seem to be missing the point about why the internal Windows Version is 6.1 for Windows 7. The reason is that a LOT of software, drivers and other utilities have this kind of code in them:

if(first letter of Windows Version Number) is not 6 Print 'Error, OS not compatible'

Even though the software is fully compatible with the OS(because they didn't change the driver model from Vista), the non updated software from old CDs etc. throw up this error. To get around this issue, Windows internally names it 6.1, so the offending software thinks it's on some Vista service pack. Also, this is an *internal* version number compared to Apple's and Ubuntu's OSes which are the marketing names, so I don't even see why this was brought up except as flamebait.

Google Chrome insanity

[devleopard]

I prefer version number, but they rev so fast that it's irrelevant. Not to mention that when they released on iOS (which is merely a wrapper on WebKit, not a full app with some of the original Chrome bits), they didn't start at 1.0. Had Chrome on my phone for a couple of months, and it's telling me I have an update available for 21.0.1180.80.

Re:new question for Slashdot readers

[An ominous Cow art]

Year ago, the cat was sitting on the table, licking his genitals.

Friend 1: "God, I wish I could do that."
Friend 2: "Maybe you should start by scratching behind his ears and see where it goes..."

Windows 7 is 7- kind of

[mostlyDigital]

I figure that Windows 6 was the original Longhorn that never shipped. That makes Windows 7 Windows 7.

What I find frustrating about naming....

[pjr.cc]

I dont mind the naming conventions, they dont bother me in the least, let the marketing boys have their fun...

What i find a much larger irritation though (and im looking you here ubuntu) is when os's cross bread names and numbers. I remember numbers. At home i have every version of ubuntu since 10.04 and most version of fedora since 10, some are virtual some are physical. Everytime i go to do something to one of my ubuntu boxes that revolves around software i almost always end up doing the same thing: what is the name of version 10.04 (11.04, 11.10, 10.10, 12.04, etc) cause of the half-witted way ubuntu use version names and number interchangeably. This is something fedora (or redhat based os's) has gotten very right.

its really not hard to figure out (either go see wikipedia or whatever), but its one of my pet irritations with ubuntu - cross-breading of names and numbers in frustrating ways. When im trying to figure out "ok, i need this bit of software over here" and its in a ppa and theres a complex set of tasks im gunna need to perform (or ever just a case of doing the same thing on several boxes at once) i really dont ALSO want to have to decode names and numbers at the same time - its just adding a layer of "heres something else you can get wrong buddy" to the whole equation and i think ubuntu really should rethink that scheme (though obviously their not going to).

Re:What I find frustrating about naming....

[wdef]

What i find a much larger irritation though (and im looking you here ubuntu) is when os's cross bread names and numbers. I remember numbers. ..... i really dont ALSO want to have to decode names and numbers at the same time - its just adding a layer of "heres something else you can get wrong buddy" to the whole equation and i think ubuntu really should rethink that scheme

I agree. Same beef with OSX. About this Mac says I'm running 10.7.4 but I have to look at (eg) wikipedia to check that number represents the stable release of Lion. 'About this Mac' doesn't bother to mention the feline marketing name. If you're going to use these silly names, then at least be consistent and use them everywhere.

Search Engine Friendly

[tokiko]

The odd names of Ubuntu releases significantly help narrow Google search results. For a Linux distribution that uses alphabetically sequential animal names, I always assumed that they would use "penguin" when they got to the letter P. However, their usage of "pangolin" for the latest release turns out to be a far better choice. When I recently ran into a RAID bug, my Google for "pangolin" included far fewer results and allowed me to find the fix much faster than a more popular name would have allowed.

Re:The real reason Windows has the version number.

[SteveFoerster]

To get around this issue, Windows internally names it 6.1, so the offending software thinks it's on some Vista service pack.

Correctly, many would say.

It is really simple.

[GigG]

Names can be protected by Trademark law. Numbers can't be.

Microsoft Operating System Names, in Particular.

[gslj]

I did a recent blog post specifically on how the names of Microsoft OS releases were...lame...or odd...in one respect or another.

What were you expecting?

[boddhisatva]

Other names for commercial products are as bad or worse. Except perhaps the "Total Bitch" line of hair products. It would be great to work in marketing, coming up with names. Like working for the Onion or the National Enquirer. You go in a room with a box of botanical matter just shipped in from the Amazon and try to think up the weirdest stuff you can. "Pickup Truck Found on Moon". Name everything using the latin names of insect body parts. Quechua names for medicinal plants. Papiamentu words for female body parts. Those would be consistent.

Quirky is as quirky does

[Archenoth]

I find absurd names endearing in a way...

I personally much rather saying that my old Android ran "Cupcake" instead of claiming it used "1.5"... It's kinda cute in a way, and when used in conversation, it almost lightens whatever the topic is...

Really, try to sound disgruntled when saying that your phone runs on "Ice Cream Sandwich".

X?

[angel'o'sphere]

X = 10.

My latest "MAC SE 68k" System was System 7.3 or so.

On Power Macs I'm pretty sure there was System 8, and I know people that had System 9 developer versions installed.

So System X (aka 10) is nothing special.

Hm, you mean we had 10.1, 10.2, 10 .... and now 10.7?

What is so surprising? Unlike other companies, System X 10.1 versus X 10.7 is more or less still the same!

Re:X?

[Mr Z]

My wife's clamshell iBook (an original 3GB Blueberry) came with MacOS 8.6 as I recall and we upgraded it to MacOS 9. The "System" part of the name was already gone by then. They switched from "System" to "MacOS" with MacOS 7.6.

They have kept the numbers monotonic, but since arriving at OS X, they've only been incrementing the number after the decimal point. Whereas others started only incrementing the leading digit (witness Solaris 2.6 => Solaris 7, for example), Apple's been on 10.something for MacOS X / OS X for 11 years now.

Re:X?

[angel'o'sphere]

But there is nothing wrong to be on Mac OS X (10) *point* something for 11 years, or is it?

Frankly I don't see so much difference between 10.3 and 10.7 (or 10.8) it is Mac OS X ... all the time.

If you look at windows during the same period ...

Re:MUSIC IS REVERSIBLE !! BUT TIME ISN'T !!

[desdinova 216]

Perhaps the poster couldn't think of anything else to bash Apple on today. You're not a proper slashdotter unless you write one Anti-Apple post a day. to keep the Jobs away.

but isn't he dead? or is he just resting and Pining for the fijords?

Top That!

[Baby Duck]

I worked for a company who marketed their product's successor to "4.0" as "4.A". Not "4.0a". FOUR POINT A!

Java

[Baby Duck]

How did Java codenames go from Merlin to Tiger, Mustang, and Dolphin? They also love to drop the "1." from their version numbers.

Re:The real reason Windows has the version number.

[Richy_T]

Truth. 7 is truly a whole lot better than Vista but under the hood, it's pretty much the same engine.

Intel sort of started it

[bored]

When they decided to call the 80586 a Pentium to keep cyrix, harris, amd, idt, etc from naming their products the same.

But, now days for software it seems like if you hire a marketdroid they have to justify their existence by renaming your product/company/etc every year or two.

Re:Ecks Versis 10

[Kalriath]

Except that it's incorrect, as Mac OS does not use X-Windows as a window manager, and in fact no longer even ships with it by default any more.

Re:The real reason Windows has the version number.

[MarcQuadra]

This isn't why Windows 7 is 6.1, or why Windows 8 is 6.2.

The reason is that Windows 7 actually is just a minor revision on Vista, and 8 is a minor revision from that. Under the hood, the big changes were between NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5), then between 2000 and Vista (Windows 6). The changes from 5.0 to 5.1 (2000 to XP) or from 6.0 to 6.1 to 6.2 (Vista, 7, and 8) were incremental in nature as far as the inner workings of the OS are concerned.

The real reason 7 felt so much faster than Vista: When they made Vista, they planned on you booting up very infrequently, so they scheduled a lot of junk to happen at boot and login, thinking that users would just 'sleep' instead of rebooting. Windows 7 (And Vista SP2) backs off a bit and does the housekeeping when you're not using the computer. Vista actually wasn't really 'slow', it's just 'irrationally busy' doing stuff with the I/O (indexing, precaching, defragmenting, etc.) while you're just trying to get to your gosh-darned desktop.

Re:The real reason Windows has the version number.

[Phroggy]

The real reason 7 felt so much faster than Vista: When they made Vista, they planned on you booting up very infrequently, so they scheduled a lot of junk to happen at boot and login, thinking that users would just 'sleep' instead of rebooting. Windows 7 (And Vista SP2) backs off a bit and does the housekeeping when you're not using the computer. Vista actually wasn't really 'slow', it's just 'irrationally busy' doing stuff with the I/O (indexing, precaching, defragmenting, etc.) while you're just trying to get to your gosh-darned desktop.

Also, the reason people had fewer compatibility problems with 7 isn't because Microsoft fixed the OS, it's because software and hardware vendors fixed their applications and drivers.

If you tried to do anything useful on Windows Vista within the first six months after it was released, you probably had a miserable experience. If you tried to do the same stuff on Windows 7 within the first six months of that OS's release, it probably worked fine. What people don't realize is that if you did a clean install of Vista when Windows 7 was released, it would have worked fine too, because the apps had been fixed by then.

just a name

[pbjones]

11 sounds like a whimp,
what do you expect from a committee?
and Apple had so much success with System 7 that MS had to copy it.

It's just marketing.

Re:The real reason Windows has the version number.

[MarcQuadra]

And a reason for poor uptake of Vista over 7 was immature image deployment and customization tools. Half the options weren't documented, and the process was very unclear. By the time 7 came out, there was enough backfill on the documentation and examples online for people like me to actually work on customizing corporate images.

This is actually something that's woefully inadequate in the Linux world, real-world examples of the cool stuff you can do with HOWTOs for building a server and clients that are running off of shared volumes and centralized authentication. All the parts are there, and they work fantastically, but you sort of have to figure it out yourself how to put it all together.

visit

[nicolemorrow35]

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Ubuntu names

[tadas]

I'm personally waiting for "Wascally Wabbit".

hot topic back in the day

[epine]

And that day was when Intel followed the 486 with the Pentium after a fairly modest architectural change (limited dual issue) and then followed that with the Pentium Pro, which I regard as the largest architectural change (at the execution layer) in the history of x86.

The Pentium went pretty fast on selected benchmarks whereas the Pentium Pro went pretty fast on everything but a Microsoft OS != Windows NT (it also went pretty fast on everything at once--the server workloads). It just happens that the code generation strategy used for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were particularly loathsome to whole-register dataflow.

Aside from trademark issues with 586, Intel faced the problem of convincing people that a 60MHz 586 was faster than a 90MHz 486 (this was only true on selected benchmarks and at significantly higher power consumption levels, but who's counting?) When the Pro came along, on consumer Windows there was very little ILP performance gain to upsell with a disjoint name. If you were buying NT 4.x, you could do the math yourself.

Microsoft was coming up with weird names for a different reason: to distance themselves from their own product history. And also to keep the rubes away from the hardship of running an OS that actually worked (and therefore necessarily broke all your crapware device drivers).

I suppose this is why Henry didn't just number his wives, or keep the first one around for a long time. Or maybe it was just the wife who got the shivers when beckoned as "seven of nine" (evidently he died before his time).

at least ubuntu and android are consistant

[fredthomsen]

while using new animal and desert names in alphabetical order is a bit obnoxious (they could do without making them alphabetical), at least it is consistent. What microsoft's naming convention is for windows, i'll never understand...