Proposal request for ideas on naming Fedora releases.

[inode0]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Joe Zeff <joe at zeff.us> wrote:
> On 08/11/2012 12:41 PM, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. wrote:
>>
>> As far as I can see, there's no imminent harm to giving a new release of
>> an OS a name, if anything it gives it an identity, something to
>> associate it with, such as when two developers are talking and one says
>> have you seen the splash screens for "Verne"?....with the two of them
>> BOTH knowing what Fedora 16's "name" is. If someone doesn't think an OS
>> release shouldn't' be named they can just ignore the name and go ahead
>> and call it by whatever makes them happy! Remember Linux is all about
>> "Freedom Of Choice"...whatever you choose to do, (within bounds of
>> course!) is fine!
>
>
> I have no problems, personally, in naming releases.  I'm sure it's  much
> easier for the devs to refer to them by name, especially in conversation.
> And, for some distros, such as Ubuntu, the userbase tends to use the names,
> not release number, making the names even more important.  My objection to
> the name for F17 is that it sounds immature, rather as though it had been
> picked by a thirteen-year-old boy suffering from testosterone overload for
> the first time.  Yes, I understand that it was picked to honor the memory of
> a well-liked Fedora developer, but that's what it looks like to me.

I don't think it was picked to honor anyone, but if you want to know
who the immature testosterone overloaded contributor was you can see
who nominated the name Beefy Miracle here:

https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Name_suggestions_for_Fedora_16&diff=224955&oldid=224952

I think you will be surprised.

> Names can be a good thing, but an ill-chosen one can be a PR nightmare.  I
> think that the only reason we've not had trouble over Beefy Miracle is the
> fact that most people who know anything about Fedora tend to ignore the
> names and those who don't mostly know why it got the name. This time, we got
> lucky and didn't end up with a metric butload of bad publicity.  In the
> future, I think that some of the more mature devs might want to take a
> little time to make sure that we use a little common sense and avoid such
> names.

While I originally felt the way you seem to feel about Beefy Miracle
the facts proved both of us wrong. Those who said it would inject fun
into the community, be good for marketing, and show we have a sense of
humor were right.

John