Huh. A fan of a beloved ¡°product¡± thought it would be great if it had a name. Like someone who really loves their car might give it a name. He respectfully asks the ¡°parents¡± if they have something in mind.
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Oleg defers the idea to Georgy, who makes a fun quip about variable names and then comes up with a jokey name. He even solicits others to join in on the fun. So the current developer of the software has explicitly asked people to play with him.
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This playfulness is one of the longstanding traditions of computers and tech in general. So much software is named with in-jokes, fandom references, puns, or whimsical nonsense. I think it¡¯s something wonderful about geek culture. We like to play. We giddily share the delights we find in our hobbies.
Career businesspeople have serious meetings developing strategies for cornering market segments. Cutthroat competition can make people at the top of a big company millions, and drive other, often small, companies out of business. Their goal is to make money and it¡¯s serious work.
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Open-source developers write non-commercial software because they love it. They work a crazy number of hours on their ¡°product,¡± almost always without any expectation of pay or profit. They come up with tools for themself, then excitedly share it with others. They make for the joy of making and share for the joy of friendship. The names of their creations often reflect this. Users often have such a love of a tool they embrace a whimsical name, making up logos, t-shirts, and making new tools with fun derivative names.
I had previously thought of it as ¡°Oleg¡¯s firmware,¡± but now that it has dual-custody, I agree the name has gotten unwieldy. It¡¯s not an ¡°invented problem.¡± The idea of a descriptive or fun name is great and timely. I¡¯m glad that Georgy, the keeper of the flame, is the kind of playful nerd that respects this tradition, and also the tradition of involving the community.
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Absolutely no one has mentioned ¡°litigation or legislation or decree¡± except for the one odd comment above. What they have talked about is further enhancing the project by giving it its own name. Think about all the new x6100 owners being told ¡°Oh, you need to try out the CanaryNest firmware.¡± Isn¡¯t that more tempting (and easier to remember¡± for someone already intimidated by all the Ham radio jargon than R1CBU/R2RFE?
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I thought about it a bit, and I actually like the name CanaryNest. But I bet I would chuckle at all sorts of other fun ideas.
Mr Wintle W1NTL