Connotation analysis for Fedora Project codenames

[Jason Brooks]

On 03/23/2012 07:24 AM, seth vidal wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:14:36 -0400 (EDT)
> Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> there's ongoing discussion about the connotation analysis
>> of Fedora Project code names (so not only for Fedora itself
>> but other sub-projects too) started by Rajesh Ranjan (thanks
>> for ticket!). 
>>
>> It's a right time to get an input from community as there's 
>> currently running Fedora 18 codename process [1].
>>
>> As Rajesh posted to Fedora Board Track ticket, connotation is
>> "the emotional and imaginative association for a word, where
>> denotation is the strict dictionary meaning of a word."
>>
>> Current process for selecting next code name is - community 
>> members suggests the name, there's publicly accessible list for 
>> everyone, then Board goes through the suggested names list to 
>> remove the clear examples of names breaking the policy (yeah, 
>> usually it's one search term in Google to find out the name has 
>> to be ruled out, but that's Board deal ;-) and this list is 
>> sent to Red Hat legal for proper legal review. Then the voting
>> is opened for everyone with valid FAS account and only names
>> that passed the process are allowed.
>>
>> In Fedora we believe in freedom and openness, we don't have to 
>> stick to the strict "corporate-like| rules but on the other hand we
>> should respect our community and we don't want to offend anyone
>> consciously.
>>
>> Usually, we use the common sense to rule out offending stuff but 
>> also we (and Board neither) don't  have a degree in sociology,
>> politics, religion and our geek culture is also from the another
>> universe :).
>>
>> As I already pointed out - the process is open. Anybody can step
>> into in the early phase of naming selection and comment the 
>> potential problems. And I believe the Board members will think
>> about the concerns raised (at least me ;-). 
>>
>> So personally I'd like to avoid any strict rule/policy as it could 
>> hurt our community, we don't have a proper set of skills to do 
>> the full analysis during the Board turn and I really hope with help 
>> provided by community we  can avoid the naming problems in the 
>> future - just we need your, community, input.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
> 
> I think we should drop the naming process altogether.
> 
> For the following reasons:
> 
> 1. the names do not serve any use

In the ubuntu world, I find the names very useful as search keywords.
It's much easier to isolate material associated with a certain release
with a not-too-common keyword.

Ubuntu uses their names a lot more heavily than Fedora does, though --
people rarely refer to Fedora releases by name, and the names aren't
part of the repo structure or anything like they are with Ubuntu.

Names can be useful, but Fedora hasn't made much use of them.


> 2. the names are a waste of time and effort to administer the process
> 3. no one remembers the names.
> 4. the names are potentially divisive.
> 
> Let's do away with naming releases altogether and side step this entire
> issue.
> 
> Thanks,
> -sv
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