I'd agree to some extent, but actually I'd say OpenOffice is an example of a good name. It's memorable, describes exactly what the product is, and doesn't sound weird. And everyone ignores the "dot org" anyway. Just like nobody says GNU/Linux.
The GIMP, on the other hand, is an example of a name that is not just strange, but is actually doing harm to the adoption of the software. Definitely time to change it. And not to "GnuIMP" as suggested by the poster above - that's even worse!
This is just retarded. Do the GIMP developers actually want their software to gain wider acceptance? It does not need a new splash screen, it needs a NEW NAME! Imagine trying to get someone to try the GIMP:
User: Can you get me a copy of Photoshop?
Advocate: No, but I can give you a copy of The GIMP, its a free alternative to Photoshop, and its really good!
User: The GIMP? What kind of a name is that? I'll get hold of Photoshop thanks!
I mean come on, GIMP developers - we all know its a great piece of software but you have to admit that marketing matters. Look at FilmGIMP - they changed their name to CinePaint. Why? "This change will present a more professional name", it says on their site.
The GIMP team would be much better off holding a new name contest than a splash screen contest.
I think you're missing the parent poster's point. The comparison with a cli pipe isn't literal, its just saying that the pipe allows you to combine lots of small cli programs to do what you want, while konqueror is a framework that allows you to combine lots of smaller gui elements however you want.
In an essay titled, tediously, "Crashdot?", an anonymous reader wonders how long the popular technology discussion forum Slashdot can survive in the face of its editors' blatant ignorance of grammatical errors that a child of 5 would find embarrassing. "Slashdot is going to fail this year if it does nothing but post duplicated articles, week-old news and obvious trolls", says the author. He adds: "If you are someone who never gets tired of misplaced apostrophes, mixed tenses, and generally incomprehensible prose, then subscribe to Slashdot and read as many of their article summaries as you can stomach." But it isn't just Slashdot, surely. This is a failing of online journalism in general. Hmm, doubtless we can all come up with our own examples far equally awful as those seen on Slashdot. Who can come up with worse?
Let's review the facts:
1. Linux was written by Linux Torvalds.
2. Linux has a lower TCO than Windows on the same hardware.
3. Windows causes billions of dollars in lost productivity every year due to viruses, instability and willful lack of interoperability.
4. Linux will inevitably destroy Microsoft's parasitic monopoly grip on the IT industry.
5. Despite this, the best Microsoft can come up with to defend itself is baseless lawsuits, quotes taken out of context by known shills, and FUD that was discredited years ago.
Make up your own mind, folks...
Try looking at a map sometime - the world is not just America and "some other little bits". Get a clue - the population of the EU member states totals 376 million making it a larger market than the USA.
When Munich defected, Balmer flew over there personally to try and talk them out of it, as I recall. And thats just one city - do you think they are going to let (almost) a whole continent go and use something other than MS?
This is one article that is definitely worth reading. I had my reservations, thinking an article in a Salt Lake paper would be backing SCO, but no. Just a very well laid out, easy to follow description of the entire sordid affair that clearly shows just how ridiculously SCO are acting. My favourite part:
"I want to walk the Court through enough of our complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what it is," Kevin McBride told the court, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
So, imagine your car is stolen, and you go to the police. "What kind of car was it?", they ask. "I don't know, but tell me what cars have been stolen recently and I'll tell you if any of them are mine", would apparently be SCO's response.
Anyway, this article can be highly recommended for lay people wanting to understand what this is all about, or worried if SCO might have a case. They won't be worried after reading this.
I tried to switch a user to OpenOffice.org at a company I do support for, just to see how it would work out. This was over a year ago.
Unfortunately the experiment didn't last long due to a show-stopper in OOo - importing AutoText from a.dot file does not work, it just says "no autotext entries were found". This was confirmed as a bug by the mailling list.
Just tried it again on OOo 1.1, and its STILL a completely broken feature. Anyone out there know if this is ever going to be fixed? Autotext is not one of those features that "nobody uses", its absolutely essential.
- I'm tired of getting wet when it rains. Are there any lightweight, collapsible devices available to keep the rain off? - My car has run out of petrol/gas. Where can I buy more? - My cat is hungry. What food is available for cats? How much is it? - My clothes smell. Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere I could take them where washing machines could be used for a small fee?
OK, here's your answer, and its something a lot of people seem to regard as completely irrelevant in the OSS world... marketing. Apache is a known, easy to remember name. Its the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a webserver. I can't even remember the names of the other servers you mention without looking at your post.
This applies to a lot of other things too. FreeBSD being an obvious example - the name sounds technical, needs explanation, and contains the word "free" which immediately puts PHBs off. And then there's GNOME vs KDE - what kind of name is "GNOME" for a desktop? And they even expect you to pronounce the G!
OK, rant over. Don't even get me started on the ridiculous "FLOSS" acronym that has recently appeared from nowhere...
Slashdot Mirror
I'd agree to some extent, but actually I'd say OpenOffice is an example of a good name. It's memorable, describes exactly what the product is, and doesn't sound weird. And everyone ignores the "dot org" anyway. Just like nobody says GNU/Linux.
The GIMP, on the other hand, is an example of a name that is not just strange, but is actually doing harm to the adoption of the software. Definitely time to change it. And not to "GnuIMP" as suggested by the poster above - that's even worse!
This is just retarded. Do the GIMP developers actually want their software to gain wider acceptance? It does not need a new splash screen, it needs a NEW NAME! Imagine trying to get someone to try the GIMP:
User: Can you get me a copy of Photoshop?
Advocate: No, but I can give you a copy of The GIMP, its a free alternative to Photoshop, and its really good!
User: The GIMP? What kind of a name is that? I'll get hold of Photoshop thanks!
I mean come on, GIMP developers - we all know its a great piece of software but you have to admit that marketing matters. Look at FilmGIMP - they changed their name to CinePaint. Why? "This change will present a more professional name", it says on their site.
The GIMP team would be much better off holding a new name contest than a splash screen contest.
I think you're missing the parent poster's point. The comparison with a cli pipe isn't literal, its just saying that the pipe allows you to combine lots of small cli programs to do what you want, while konqueror is a framework that allows you to combine lots of smaller gui elements however you want.
"This wasn't an ARTCC. Besides, the ARTCC's are all on DSR now, and a bunch have URET on top of that."
Well, I'm glad you cleared that up!
In an essay titled, tediously, "Crashdot?", an anonymous reader wonders how long the popular technology discussion forum Slashdot can survive in the face of its editors' blatant ignorance of grammatical errors that a child of 5 would find embarrassing. "Slashdot is going to fail this year if it does nothing but post duplicated articles, week-old news and obvious trolls", says the author. He adds: "If you are someone who never gets tired of misplaced apostrophes, mixed tenses, and generally incomprehensible prose, then subscribe to Slashdot and read as many of their article summaries as you can stomach." But it isn't just Slashdot, surely. This is a failing of online journalism in general. Hmm, doubtless we can all come up with our own examples far equally awful as those seen on Slashdot. Who can come up with worse?
A Microsoft employee keeps a record of his ever-increasing levels of spam and viruses?
Aargh! My irony meter has gone off the scale!!
Yeah sorry, I noticed that as soon as I posted! Seems I can't follow threads today... :-S
Who mentioned desktops?
I mean, its not rocket science... oh, hang on.
In Soviet Russia, rockets explode YOU!
etc.
> everyone knows McDonalds uses SCO Unix for many of their POS terminals how appropriate!
Let's review the facts: 1. Linux was written by Linux Torvalds. 2. Linux has a lower TCO than Windows on the same hardware. 3. Windows causes billions of dollars in lost productivity every year due to viruses, instability and willful lack of interoperability. 4. Linux will inevitably destroy Microsoft's parasitic monopoly grip on the IT industry. 5. Despite this, the best Microsoft can come up with to defend itself is baseless lawsuits, quotes taken out of context by known shills, and FUD that was discredited years ago. Make up your own mind, folks...
"...red glowing lights in front and back what will make it stand out in the dark."
yeah, I am gonna got me one off these so I can be alot more cooler than what you are with you're boring PC's, you loosers!
Try looking at a map sometime - the world is not just America and "some other little bits". Get a clue - the population of the EU member states totals 376 million making it a larger market than the USA.
When Munich defected, Balmer flew over there personally to try and talk them out of it, as I recall. And thats just one city - do you think they are going to let (almost) a whole continent go and use something other than MS?
I'm not sure this technology is ready for the enterprise.
Oh, hang on...
This is one article that is definitely worth reading. I had my reservations, thinking an article in a Salt Lake paper would be backing SCO, but no. Just a very well laid out, easy to follow description of the entire sordid affair that clearly shows just how ridiculously SCO are acting. My favourite part:
"I want to walk the Court through enough of our complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what it is," Kevin McBride told the court, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
So, imagine your car is stolen, and you go to the police. "What kind of car was it?", they ask. "I don't know, but tell me what cars have been stolen recently and I'll tell you if any of them are mine", would apparently be SCO's response.
Anyway, this article can be highly recommended for lay people wanting to understand what this is all about, or worried if SCO might have a case. They won't be worried after reading this.
Why would anyone want a one-handed keyboard?
Oh... hang on...
I tried to switch a user to OpenOffice.org at a company I do support for, just to see how it would work out. This was over a year ago.
.dot file does not work, it just says "no autotext entries were found". This was confirmed as a bug by the mailling list.
Unfortunately the experiment didn't last long due to a show-stopper in OOo - importing AutoText from a
Just tried it again on OOo 1.1, and its STILL a completely broken feature. Anyone out there know if this is ever going to be fixed? Autotext is not one of those features that "nobody uses", its absolutely essential.
- I'm tired of getting wet when it rains. Are there any lightweight, collapsible devices available to keep the rain off?
- My car has run out of petrol/gas. Where can I buy more?
- My cat is hungry. What food is available for cats? How much is it?
- My clothes smell. Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere I could take them where washing machines could be used for a small fee?
Stay tuned folks...
OK, here's your answer, and its something a lot of people seem to regard as completely irrelevant in the OSS world... marketing. Apache is a known, easy to remember name. Its the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a webserver. I can't even remember the names of the other servers you mention without looking at your post.
This applies to a lot of other things too. FreeBSD being an obvious example - the name sounds technical, needs explanation, and contains the word "free" which immediately puts PHBs off. And then there's GNOME vs KDE - what kind of name is "GNOME" for a desktop? And they even expect you to pronounce the G!
OK, rant over. Don't even get me started on the ridiculous "FLOSS" acronym that has recently appeared from nowhere...
- Pope found to be Catholic. - Scientists conclude sky is "blue". - Evidence found of bear defacating in woods.