On Dec 13, 2003, at 3:27 PM, Branden Robinson wrote:
4) The Debian port name will become 'Debian GNU/KLNetBSD(i386)'.
Well, no offense, but that's ugly as hell, and is going to square the
amount of confusion people experience when trying to decode our OS
names.
We might use names from Christian demonology (since the BSD mascot
is the cute and devilish "daemon"), with the first letter shared by the
demon's name and the corresponding BSD flavor.
Thus:
Debian FreeBSD -> Debian Forneus (BSD)
Debian NetBSD -> Debian Naberius (BSD)
Debian OpenBSD -> Debian Orobos (BSD)
While at first I did like these names (better than the tolkien ones
being tossed around now), but I fail to see how this addresses:
2) the comprehensibility of our OS names to the pubic.
And it does not necessarily address how there can be multple versions
of these when you differentiate by the libc used as well.
I think sticking closer to the original idea of Debian GNU/KNetBSD is
actually the way to go, but perhaps the punctuation is what needs
tweaking. I know the first time I saw the uppercase K it immediately
made me think of KDE. For whatever reason this is what immediately
comes to mind when ever I see a uppercase K infront of an otherwise
familar name. And now the Gnome community has also started in the
practice of taking things that started with K to imply KDE and putting
a G infront instead[1].
What I propose to solve this is to lowercase the K. I think Debian
GNU/kNetBSD reads a little better. It takes the emphasis off the k. And
when adding the l for libc as well, Debian GNU/klNetBSD. Another option
may also be putting the k/l after the BSD. Debian GNU/NetBSDk and
Debian GNU/NetBSDkl.
[1] Knoppix vs Gnoppix.
--
Paul Baker
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
