Slashdot Mirror
Cygnus Name Change
An Anonymous reader writes "Cygnus Solutions is changing its name. They're
doing that in a Open Source/Free Software way by
asking for net contributions. The selected contribution wins a fully loaded PII Linux workstation. Check it out.
" Name the Company. Thats a new contest.
Cygnus had to be one of the worst names ever. How much more unmarketable can you get?
Rule 7 is interesting:
7.All entries become the property of Cygnus. Cygnus might use submissions for anything from product promotion and advertising to incorporation into Cygnus products.
Sounds like an invitation to get spammed and junk mailed...
Whats with the name change anyway... has GNU become such a parriah that Cygnus would change it's name to distance itself?
Hmmm... I smell something, and it dont smell good!
Jono
cyGNUs - get it?
As for unmarketable names, what's the deal with Microsoft? Sounds like it needs Viagra.
So let's all suggest Megawoody as a new name for Cygnus.
... and additionnally, it nicely contrasts Microsoft
how about Macrohard?
strings /usr/lib/ispell/american.hash | egrep 'GNU|G.NU|G..NU|G...NU|G.N.U|G..N.U|GN.U|GN..U|G.N ..U|G..N..U' |sort | uniq | tr '\n' ' '
ALGONQUIAN ALGONQUIN ANDROGYNOUS ARGONAUT CONSANGUINEOUS CORRIGENDUM CYGNUS DISINGENUOUS DOUGHNUT EIGENFUNCTION ENDOGENOUS EXOGENOUS GAINFUL GARGANTUAN GENIUS GENUINE GENUS GINSBURG GLANDULAR GRANDEUR GRANULAR GRANULARITY GRANULATE GRANULE GRANULOCYTIC GROWNUP HETEROGENEOUS HETEROGENOUS HOMOGENEOUS IGNEOUS INDIGENOUS INGENIOUS INGENUITY INGENUOUS INHOMOGENEOUS INTERREGNUM LIGNUM MAGNITUDE MAGNUM MAGNUSON NITROGENOUS POLYGYNOUS SANGUINEOUS SIGNATURE
Or how about...
AlGoNqUin
ArGoNaUt
cartilaGiNoUs
consanGuiNeoUs
corriGeNdUm
CyGNUs
douGhNUt
eiGeNfUnction
eiGeNvalUe
endoGeNoUs
exoGeNoUs
ferruGiNoUs
GadoliNiUm
GaiNfUl
GalliNUle
garGaNtUan
GelatiNoUs
GeNeroUs
GeNiUs
GeNUine
GeNUs
GeraNiUm
GermaNiUm
GlaNdUlar
GlutiNoUs
GNU
GraNddaUghter
GraNdeUr
GraNdiloqUent
GraNUlar
GraNUlate
GraNUle
GreeNhoUse
GrowNUp
GymNasiUm
heteroGeNeoUs
homoGeNeoUs
iGNeoUs
iGnomiNioUs
iGNoramUs
indiGeNoUs
inGeNioUs
inGeNUity
inGeNuoUs
inhomoGeNeoUs
interreGNUm
leGumiNoUs
liGNUm
maGnaNimoUs
maGNesiUm
maGNitUde
maGNUm
MaGNUson
nitroGeNoUs
polyGyNoUs
puGNacioUs
sanGuiNeoUs
siGNatUre
sphaGNUm
Hmmm....GelatiNoUs software.
Or maybe even:
impregnuble
indignunt
malignunt
poignunt
stagnunt
repugnunt
They don't specifically say what they'll do with the names and addresses of non-winners, which is as much as admitting that they'll post them to alt.fan.psychokillers. Rule 7, in its most innocent interpretation, simply means that they may use any cool-but-not-perfect submission to name a future product or division or something. But they don't specifically say that, so I ain't entering. They'll just have to read this to realize that they should be called Sphagnum Lugnut.
Magnus. You have the gnu. It's scandinavian (like linux and qt). It's very beefy. I like it
Wrong. They already changed their name a few years
ago from Cygnus Support to Cygnus Solutions. I
guess they want to change the Cygnus part now.
I bet you're a lot of fun at parties, they way you always assume the worst about things.
Ack! Bad Rush reference, Bad, bad, bad Rush reference!
(For the benefit of all the kids who see that and say "Huh?")
gnusoft
gnuware
Duh. Cygnus gets all its fame and business from being associated with Free Software movement. And by the way it's Free Software, not open source.
(lower cases emphasized.)
Actually Microsoft was around long before Gibson wrote Neuromancer. I heard that when he wrote the book, Gibson would look through computer manuals for cool-sounding words. That's how he came across "microsoft".
We Are Not Gnu
But while the image thang is fairly important, much more important is that with going public in mind, way down the line, the name Cygnus is already taken - as jpick said. Boring but true. In fact there is even another company called Cygnus Solutions in Atlanta Georgia.
Its also not particularly memorable or spellable, especially over the phone ("what, Sickness?") or with foreigners.
And since I'm here, no, they aren't collecting addresses for spam - I think half the employees would strangle the management if they tried that :).
And to answer your question in my own humble opinion, the name change doesn't mean a change of direction for egcs or Cygnus. Free/Open source software is what makes Cygnus special. And the people that work there are very pro that. The best people in Cygnus would leave if that changed, but the company itself isn't changing, so it doesnt matter!
Love, someone with nothing to do with Cygnus management
CYGNUS was an ugly name.I mean, very ugly name.In fact, I don't know if one could come up with something worse than Cygnus. I think , whoever came up with that name should be shot...
Bummer. Netscape BACK button pops forward to the Thanks page. Do they not want all of the good ideas?
No, I know.. their new product line are solutions for repetitive motion problems, so they want us to retype things.
What the hell does this have to do with spamming?
They say clearly elsewhere that they only need your email address to contact you if you win. It says they'll use submissions for promotion purposes, not the contestants themselves.
Fool.
close, but the real answer is MICROprocessor SOFTware
The original name was "Cygnus Support".
Now it's the (weenie) "Cygnus Solutions".
Just change it back. Voila!
Magnum Opus. You have the gnu. It implies magnificence, musical grace and technical brilliance. And you've got the penguin!
Where did you get the idea they want to lose GNU?
and call it "the company formerly known as cygnus".
What's wrong with trusting egcs as the
cornerstone of free software? It's a great
compiler and all code added to the egcs
source tree has the copyright assigned to
the Free Software Foundation by various legal
papers. Your concern is unfounded.
Swan Magnetics Inc. (SWAN5-DOM)
3000 Olcott Street,
Attn I.S Department
Santa Clara, CA 95054
US
Domain Name: SWAN.COM
They've been moving away from free software for a while. At first, they named themselves Cygnus to emphasize GNU, and wrote all free software. Then they added proprietary software. Then they added sleazy marketting (selling a proprietary development tool under the name GNUpro). Then there were rumors about them developing a new, proprietary compiler from scratch. Now they're changing the name to kill GNU. They're still a good company (egcs does a lot for the community), but I'm worried about where they're going. As the industry moves towards free software, Cygnus moves towards proprietary....
If the pharmaceutical company is not called "Cygnus Solutions", how can this be a problem? They are even two completely different industries.
I followed the link to the contest page and it "sounds" like the reason the name is being changed is because you guys don't want "gnu" in the name. You want to be thought of as more of an open-source company than a free software company. There is no mention of this pharmaceutical company.
1. This would be damaging to GNU
2. Cygnus is a well established name - keep it.
Ok, I accept your case if wrong-cygnus isd advertising on TV. Right-cygnus would sound silly trying to advertise with a name that people have already heard on TV. Is this the case?
Well-known name, 10 years in the business. Let's change name and begin from scratch!
Isn't that odd, I thought brand recognition was something very important for a company. Why do away with it once you have it?
Look what happened with Borland-Inprise. After only a few months, the Borland name is back on their well known software products.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. I guess it helps to know that it means "swan".
I'd consider that to be fairly official, coming from the Cygnus web page.
I really don't see what's so unmarketable about the name Cygnus. It's not particularly confusing or unwieldy. I suppose the only problem with it is that it's a reasonably popular name, with a number of other companies sharing it.
Well, "Crynwr" sounds like a worse name to me. I could never remember the name! The way I get to www.crynwr.com was usually be searching on Altavista for something like "+packet +drivers", and then digging in the document, and lately (since the Lego mindstorms info came to Slashdot), something like: "+cybermaster +mindstorms +nelson". Not very effective...
RMS is not a good PR guy.
besides, GNU is silly and has an infinite recursive bug.
How about TransMeta?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
(And would this be pronounced /gn'uruco/, /gnur'uco/, or /gnuruc'o/?)
---
The new name was announced by the board in a worldwide broadcast to employees. They announced the word with great fanfare. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. "And the new company name is....... UNISYS."
And every single employee said at the same time, "Unisys????" with a mixture of extreme sarcasm and puzzlement.
It was a sign of things to come. Five years later, they had about a third of those employees left, after massive layoffs and several restructurings.
Kansas she said is the name of the star
I must say that page is singularly unenlightening about what their "new" direction is and how it differs from the old. Thus how could anyone pick a name to match it? The only thing I can get out of this annoucement is that they don't want to be associated with "GNU" anymore.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
What's wrong with the current name?
I always thought it was pretty clever.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Rent-a-gnuru?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Perhaps Guido the Aardmoose?
As far as I can tell, and I've looked pretty hard, the name "Cygnus" has nothing to with GNU, the FSF, or free software at all--it happens to share the same three letters, I think by chance. Cygnus just _happens_ to license some of its software under GNU GPL or other free software licenses. It's a practice they find keeps them competitive and strong, so they play with it.
The name Cygnus is taken from the constellation Cygnus, the swan, and it's a nice name. In fact, the constellation graphic is right there on the front page. Their web site could use a makeover, as I don't find it very pretty, but it's functional enough. The name is established and unique, at least in my frame of reference, but a fresh clean makeover could really make the marketability difference.
How about Wing Is Not Gnu
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Uranus Hertz
While I am not 100% sure about my interpretation (I would have to reread it more carefully, and I will), it looked to me mostly that Cygnus simply uses Open Source as a business modell that allows them (them being the first mover in multiplatform compiler technology with many many embedded system targets) to stay ahead of the competition.
Under this conditions it is neccessary for them to take control of the compiler development.
Question: Is this an evil thing in itself?
My answer: I cannot tell right now.
So far Cygnus has behaved well, taking from and giving to the net. If everyone is happy it is likely that they keep their leading position.
Crucial might be their relationship to the FSF, as happy as I'm about to see the progress on egcs, a starvation of gcc development would make me worry.
I would really like to know the FSF's point of view on the gcc/egcs issue.
Better not call it CygCo :-)
that's weird. there was one comment when i clicked on "read more" and it said there were over 100 comments, so i had to click on the only one comment there to read it. weird.
as for the namechange, kudos to them. it's about time...
SICKNESS... Something that just doesn't sound too appealing.
But then, I'm a geek...
<sound of furious grepping comes from behind the screen>
How about interregnum?
fish and pipes
Simple. They want to go public, but the name "Cygnus" is already taken by a pharmaceutical company.
http://biz.yahoo.com/n/c/cygn.html
Cheers,
- Jim
Summer Triangle?
;-)
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
I wanted to hail to the original "Cygnus" so I scratched my brain for a spell-out for "Swan". I got the spell-out from Cygnus' name for open source / free software ... sourceware. So my submission is "SourceWare ANswers". And to help matters, there does not appear to be a swan.com.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Well, I based my statement on not being able to locate their server.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
that sounds good as a name of a product...who knows-it could work
---
They must want a name that's not so GNUesque, so here are my suggestions.
I'm surprised nobody has suggested the obvious name comming from a web contest: Hank the angry, drunken company ;-)
print "yet another p{ython,erl} hacker\n",
Silly, but the first thing that popped into my mind...
What else can you think of with a stronger positive impression, and a connection with GNU (which is what their old name had going for it)?
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Well, does anyone know if Apollo is available, seeing as how the old Apollo got swallowed up by HP? How 'bout Dionysus? (OK, OK, just kidding...)
Windows is the Acme of computing -- in the Wile E. Coyote sense.
Ever seen that episode of Friends?
;)
Joey announcing himself as
Holden McGroin...
Sure it's more of a personal name, but aren't there plenty of companies named after someone?
- alex
The revolution will be mocked
: The counters that fronted the booths displayed
:hundreds of slivers of microsoft, angular
:fragments of colored silicon mounted
:under oblong transparent bubbles on squares of
:white cardboard. Molly went to the seventh booth
:along the south wall.
Anyone else able to shed some light on this, or know other plausible origins for the term "microsoft"? Wouldn't it be funny if Gibson decided to sue MS for use of the name? heh.
Incidentally, for all you copyright fiends, you're generally allowed to quote sections of a publication...
..that's basic small print from your typical contest entry. It's just there to tell the prizewinner that their name, etc., can be used in promotion. Not uncommon at all....
...by a drug company. So if they want to go public...
Search web for "cygnus"
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Cygnus, Inc
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
I guess they don't want to be so closely associated with the Open Source community that it alienates other companies. I can see the reasoning.
Of course, he couldn't possibly be expected to go through computer books and actually read them so he had a clue. After all, he's an artist, and way above all that technical stuff.
Heck, we're such lowly peons in terms of understanding art that the book "Difference Engine" will only be understood by us in 10-20 years or so.
I've read most of Gibson's books, but that doesn't mean I have to like him. :-)
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I hope the new name doesn't have it. BLECH! I suggested "Automagically Inc." because I couldn't think of anything else. I'm sure everyone will hate it. :)
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
New proprietary compiler? Where'd you hear rumors like that?
How about GoNadUs? It still has GNU in it
-- Game over man, game over!
Well, small confession here, but I never did notice GNU was in there :-] Gotta give 'em big points for subtlety... too bad they can't stick with such a clever name.
P.S.: I was going to suggest OpenWorks, something with some built-in allegory <g> But alas, it's taken. (You know, I worry sometimes, when it takes a good fifteen minutes to think up of something that isn't already in the InterNIC...)
iSKUNK!
I'm pretty stupid with egrep, but here's my version: /usr/lib/ispell/american.hash | perl -e 'foreach(){if(/\w*G\w*N\w*U\w*/){print;}}'|sort|un iq|tr "\n" " "
strings
ALGONQUIAN ALGONQUIN ANDROGYNOUS ARGONAUT CONSANGUINEOUS CORRIGENDUM CYGNUS DISINGENUOUS DOUGHNUT EIGENFUNCTION EIGENVALUE ENDOGENOUS EXOGENOUS GAINFUL GARGANTUAN GATLINBURG GELATINOUS GENEROUS GENEROUSLY GENIUS GENUINE GENUS GEOSYNCHRONOUS GERANIUM GERMANIUM GINSBURG GLANDULAR GLUTINOUS GRANDDAUGHTER GRANDEUR GRANDILOQUENT GRANULAR GRANULARITY GRANULATE GRANULE GRANULOCYTIC GREENHOUSE GROWNUP GYMNASIUM HETEROGENEOUS HETEROGENOUS HOMOGENEOUS IGNEOUS IGNOMINIOUS IGNORAMUS INDIGENOUS INGENIOUS INGENUITY INGENUOUS INHOMOGENEOUS INTERREGNUM LEGUMINOUS LIGNUM MAGNANIMOUS MAGNESIUM MAGNITUDE MAGNUM MAGNUSON NITROGENOUS OVERGENEROUS POLYGYNOUS SANGUINEOUS SIGNATURE
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
Microcomputer software.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
In fact there is even another company called Cygnus Solutions in Atlanta Georgia.
This is the same Cygnus Solutions as the one in California--we're just the Atlanta office. If you look closely, you'll find Cygnus Solutions in Toronto, Canada, and Cambridge, U.K., which are also part of Calfornia's Cygnus Solutions.
Wrong, Cygnus ("the swan") is the name of a constallation. Its brightest star is Deneb.
This has nothing to do with the FSF or egcs. (If it is, they are keeping something from us!) The main problem with "Cygnus" is that there are just too many damn companies named "Cygnus something". A lesser but real problem is that it is not obvious how to spell it given the pronounciation (it does sounds like "sickness") or vice versa. Our CEO was complaining about having to spell "Cygnus" everytime he calls up someone.
Cygnus is the name of a star.
Zagmar
Linux Uses GNU Tools
QWxsIHlvdXIgQmFzZTY0IGFyZSBiZWxvbmcgdG8gdXMh
Confuse-O-Cat?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
OK... Call me paranoid, but this Cygnus name change has me worried.
There is no official reasons given on thier web site as to why they want to change thier name... just a vague impression that they want to distance themselves from the FSF's GNU project.
IMHO, companies dont change thier name after 10 years -- after gaining prominent name recognition in the community -- without some VERY pressing reasons.
So it seems to me that Cygnus not only wants to distance itself from GNU but is willing to take DRASTIC measures to do so.
The most obvious reason to worry is egcs.
egcs (experimental GNU compiler system ??) has been positioned as the successor to gcc, and in fact is increasingly being relied on by distros like RedHat, Debian and others.
gcc -- the GNU C compiler -- along with glibc (which is also moving towards Cygnus control) are the cornerstones of the GNU project. These products are important to the future of free software.
Cygnus cannot deny that they have been seen in the past as a GNU friendly company... I think that much of the quick acceptance that egcs has enjoyed is due to this perception. egcs has been seen as a "friendly continuation" of gcc rather than a "bad faith fork" of gcc.
So to the folks at Cygnus I say:
Come on guys, this is a community you are dealing with here... sure it's not nice (or even professional) to air grievances in public... but in this case niceties should not stop you from making your case to the community.
If Cygnus has a problem with FSF, they need to inform the community about the problem... and give us some idea about where The-Company-Formerly-Known-As-Cygnus is headed.
If you answer only one question, try this one:
Q: Why should the community trust egcs to be the new cornerstone of free software?
J. Weesner