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Re: Linux Becomes Female?

Roy Schestowitz (newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
> __/ On Saturday 27 August 2005 23:24, [johnny bobby bee] wrote : \__
> 
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>> When advising somebody to install Ubuntu, for example, being rock-solid
>>> and user-friendly, what will the first step be? Send them to the Web site
>>> to order a CD, right? What will they see? Three half-naked people holding
>>> hands. What will they see in ms.com? A guy in a suit holding a tablet,
>>> for example? Which one will a naïve user be more likely to /trust/?
>> 
>> I can understand what you're trying to do here. But trying to homogenize
>> GNU/Linux and OSS product names to something more sanitized is not the
>> answer. What drove *you* here?
> 
> 
> I imagine it was the neat programming environment and SSH (i.e. less leg
> work). Honestly. That's how I became dependent on Linux and learned to love
> it not for being "not Windows", but for doing exactly what I needed.
> 
> 
>> Were the names more 'professional' then?
> 
> 
> The names never appeared professionals to me. Persistent use and experience
> taught me to dispose of the naming stereotype. It is a peril that many, not
> just myself, must overcome.
> 
> 

Of course, the naming began in the days of AT&T when Unix was young.  The
days of Teletype machines, so better to make a utility's name short (so
you get things like umount instead of unmount).

But Dennis Ritchie has reminded us in alt.folklore.computers that an
early use of Unix was in word processing, specifically in dealing with
patents, at AT&T.  So almost right from the start non-computer types
were using nroff and ed and all that.

Decades later, I would think that is some of the foundation of recent
naming trends.

  Michael


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