Op maandag 20 september 2010 21:42:39 schreef Michael Scherer: > Le lundi 20 septembre 2010 à 17:30 +0100, Maurice Batey a écrit : > > I must have missed some posting that explains "mageia"! > > > > What is the origin of this name, please? > > There was some peoples ( primarily people at the origin of the fork ) > who proposed some names ( I estimated to 40/50 proposal ), and then we > removed all that were not suitable : > > - already used on .org domain name ( nebula, for example ) > > - unsuitable because it was too funny and not professional, ie mostly > private joke in French ( tartopom, for example ). > > - trademarked by checking inpi.fr for the various class of use we wanted > ( ie, while having a name trademarked for wine was not a issue, a name > used in book edition could have been ), for example, toucan was > proposed, but this is trademarked in France. > > - trademarked in the rest of the world. > > - already used by a old linux distribution, ( diamond linux ) > > - too similar to some big name in computing field ( ubun3 ) > > - already used by another software or company ( nexodus ) without being > trademarked > > - already used by people who could have enough money to sue ( mango ) > even in a different domain > > - unsuitable and seen as offensive in languages we check ( of course, > with 6900 languages on the planet, chances are high that every possible > name can be funny for at least one person, but problem is when there is > a lot more than one ), for example mirably ( too similar to miserably ) > > - not refused by ennael ( as I proposed ennalinux :) ) > > - not too similar to Mandriva stuff ( some people proposed BlueBird, > which I liked a lot, except this was the codename of Mandrake 8.2, and > traktopel, which was 8.0 ) > > - not too long > > - implicitly, we also tried to avoid everything outside of ascii ( even > if some people proposed a chinese name, they will recognize > themselves ). I say implictly because almost everything was ascii. > > We also tried to get a name which could be used for design ( ie, we try > to avoid turd linux ), with name not already taken everywhere, with .com > availiable, and with a possible good catch phrase but we had to relax > theses checks, as the twitter account was not available, and as the .com > domain name was already taken ( but that's not a issue, IMHO ). And I > think no one thought of the design/catchphrase stuff in the last run. > > And so basically, after removing more than 95% of the various proposals, > only 2 names survived after the selection. And we voted to keep one > ( and no, I will keep the other one secret ). > > Of course, this explanation is less sexy than the other one about "this > come from greek", which are true too, but I want to highlight that > choosing a name is neither easy or as fun as it sound. And that we > didn't start by saying "wow, greek is a cool language, let's find a word > from it".
This is an amazing explanation, and something that a lot of people could benefit from reading. I knew that it's not an easy task to get a name, and with explaning this process, i can only imagine the fun you guys musta had when brainstorming for a name "ubun3", "turd linux", ... thanks for the good explanation. _______________________________________________ Mageia-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-discuss
