Viktor Dukhovni:
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 09:08:53AM +0530, Amarjeet Anand wrote:
>
> > What?s the story behind choosing the name as ?Postfix??
>
> One of the stories can be found here:
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/ibm_takes_on_sendmail_with_secure_mailer
>
> ...
> IBM calls the new mail program Secure Mailer, but it is actually one and
> the same as Postfix, which is the same product as VMailer. IBM?s lawyers
> nixed the VMailer moniker because it was too similar to another
> company?s product.
> ...
>
> This sounds plausible. As for why "Postfix" and not, say, "Platypus", I
> don't know.
We tried a bunch of names for which I could register a domain name,
and each time the IBM naming authority would reject our choice.
Changing the name of a program is a lot of work; it is worse than
changing the name of the main character in a story.
Then we found out that a different IBM team had open-sourced their
PKIX code under an external name "Jonah". So we gave my code two
names: the approved internal name "IBM secure Mailer", and the
external name "Postfix". "post" was a different word for "mail",
and "fix" was for Sendmail, the inspiration for my efforts.
Wietse
