-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Adam Moore wrote: > Also, "Herds" should be an acronym.
And it should be a recursive acronym, of course: Herds Exchanging Realtime Distributed Speech Or something. And the verb for participating should be "Yakking". - --Bob. On 11/01/15 05:10 AM, Adam Moore wrote: > Not the project! I'm actually quite enthusiastic about the > project. I think it's great; I use the software every day. I want > the fediverse to grow, and thrive, and obviate the big, closed, > commercial services. > > But the name sucks. > > Sticking "GNU" in front of the name of piece of software buys you > some interest with a small group of computer users who happen to > share a particular set of values, but the wider world couldn't be > made to care less. So, take the GNU away and you're left with > what? "Social." Ugh. > > "Social media" is a noxious catch-phrase. Naming > projects/products after noxious catch-phrases makes you look > *really lame*. Imagine a TCP/IP stack released under the name > Superhighway. Yeah. It would only be worse if you named it > Superhighway '95. Worse still, it's an ~old~ catch-phrase (Twitter > exploded in, what, 2007?). The term might stick around > indefinitely, but right now it's been overused, overhyped, and is > rapidly becoming quite passé. That's not good for attracting new > users, new interest, and growing the network. > > Furthermore, GNU projects have a long history of humorous, > whimsical, and punny names. 'GNU social' is boring as shit. > > I'm gonna make a bold proposition, here: the name should be changed > to GNU Herds. > > Now, Herds isn't the most inventive name in the universe, I know. > But it's got some strengths that "social" does not: > > * It's homophonous with "heard". As in, stand up and be herd! > Or, more simply, BE HERD. That's not only a solid tag-line, but > it's a dual reflection of what we want GNU social to be about: herd > to signify unity in opposition to proprietary corporate media, and > heard to signify free expression through free software. > > * It's an animal metaphor for what the software actually does: it > globally unifies the communications of a panoply of *local herds* > (what we now call instances). > > * It invites a thematically unified set of system jargon, and that > reinforces community. Right now we have people talking about > "statuses", "notices", and "dents" interchangeably, all of which > are artifacts of various incarnations of StatusNet. All are also > inadequate terms. "Notices" and "statuses" are inaccurate -- > *conversations* take place on GNU social, not just notifications > and status updates -- and "dents" is ...incoherent. A more general > term is needed: bleats. (Yes, it's like "tweets" only less > humiliating to say aloud. And, yes, I know that wildebeest do not > "bleat", but the unifying theme isn't "herds of gnu", it's simply > "herds".) So, a GNU Herds user might be ~grazing~ the public feed > of their local ~herd~, see a ~bleat~ they like, and ~rebleat~ it... > you get the idea. > > Also, "Herds" should be an acronym. Better yet, it should be > multiple acronyms, because I love when the names of projects are > understood to be acronyms, but no consensus has been reached about > what the acronym actually is. Here are some starters: > > Heterogeneous Exchange of Remote Data Subscriptions Humane > Ecosystem of Reticulate Data Stores Human Expression Relayed via > Distributed Servers > > You might be thinking, ah, but we don't want to confuse people by > calling it Herds when there's a 25-year-old GNU project that's > never going to be completed called Hurd. Listen -- NOBODY is going > to confuse Herds with Hurd. Of the billion GNU/Linux (and > derivatives) users on the planet, how many of them have ever heard > of the Hurd project? Probably no more than point-one percent of > them, and that's being generous. Moreover, those who ~have~ heard > of it know that a Hurd is a Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons and is > nothing to do with herds. It's a non-issue. > > Alright, that's my rant/proposal concluded. Let's hear the yays > and nays and their rationales, shall we? STAND UP AND BE HERD! > > Or remain seated, whatever's more comfortable. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.15 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Ensure confidentiality, authenticity, non-repudiability iEYEARECAAYFAlSypocACgkQuRKJsNLM5epxWQCgn1jvhUqpAZLRv0ksEMNVxQ4M adcAoLbEGts2elX0ryA758oQFmoJMkUR =vBw2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
