What goes in a name?

[hometue]

Hi guys. I just wanna ask all of you, how did you guys name your OS? I too have a name for mine, until I realized it was already used (I don't even know who else wanna name their OS CookieOS , I did that for pure fun). So now I am stuck racking my brain for another original name, so I am curious, how did you guys come out with your own?

[sortie]

I replaced the last character of my nick name with an x and I had a Unix system.

[Jezze]

I wanted something that didnt end in x or os.

Also I don't know what the fudge I'm doing most of the time....

[b.zaar]

Put your personality into it, your code and style will show up in the OS at points so make it something you feel.

I've always liked the darker side of life...

[qw]

One day I realized that "Hobbes" sounds quite a bit like "Hobby OS".

And Hobbes is one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time.

BTW I think it is silly to call an OS something with "OS". It sounds to me like "Mercedes 500 Car", "Metallica Band", or "McDonalds Fast Food Restaurant".

[b.zaar]

One day I realized that "Hobbes" sounds quite a bit like "Hobby OS".

And Hobbes is one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time.

Agreed =)

BTW I think it is silly to call an OS something with "OS". It sounds to me like "Mercedes 500 Car", "Metallica Band", or "McDonalds Fast Food Restaurant".

Technically OS is never part of the name or it would be venom OS Operating System...
The name is venom, OS is the description.

I write it as venom OS as it sounds like venomous...

[qw]

I write it as venom OS as it sounds like venomous...

Dark side indeed!

[Brendan]

Hi,

Hi guys. I just wanna ask all of you, how did you guys name your OS? I too have a name for mine, until I realized it was already used (I don't even know who else wanna name their OS CookieOS , I did that for pure fun). So now I am stuck racking my brain for another original name, so I am curious, how did you guys come out with your own?

I haven't given my OS a name. At the moment I've only got a temporary "project name" (BCOS); and if/when the OS is ready for actual use then I'll try to find a proper name for it.

The reason is that finding a name is complicated:

• you have to find something that will sound good when it's released (in multiple languages). You don't want to call it something like ANWS (Advanced Numeric Working System) and then find out later on that "anws" means anus in Welsh. You also don't want something that sounds good now that will sound bad when its released (for example, I like having a golden gaytime).
• you have to find something that isn't used by anything else when its released. You can call it "foo OS" today, but someone else might decide to release an OS called "foo OS" next year and you'll be forced to change the name because you won't be able to prove that it's become a recognised brand name for your OS (until after its released and it does become a recognised brand name for your OS).
• when you do decide on an official name, you should register the DNS name. Sadly, there are jerks who will register DNS names that they think other people are likely to want in future, in the hope of making profit by selling the DNS name later. You should probably also consider registering it as a trademark for the same reason.

Basically, you could just slap the letters "OS" onto the first part of your name and use that as a temporary place-holder without caring too much, and you shouldn't worry about giving it an actual/official name until much later on.


Cheers,

Brendan

[Antti]

A temporary place-holder is the best option but there is one serious problem. It may end up being the official name. It can be avoided if

1. It is so bad that it really can not be the official name. It may be surprisingly hard to have a name that is bad enough. Perhaps "Linux" was something like this at the beginning.

2. Do not tell anyone. If you are the only one who knows the place-holder name, there are no problems. This is quite hard also if you are planning to have an OS that has users at the development and testing phase.

It takes time before an OS is ready for actual use so there probably are people who are used the temporary name too long (if there are test releases, documentation made by others, and discussions about it) and it might be surprisingly hard to adopt a new name. People will probably dislike the new name anyway no matter how good it is and think the old name was the real thing. Naming is really complicated unless you happen to have a perfect name from the very beginning. It is not very likely so the place-holder name is the best option but not without problems, unfortunately.

[Jezze]

Haha this thread is starting to be a lesson in over-thinking.

[bluemoon]

Code name is there for a reason, although those names of commercial OSes actually sound like internal code name.

[skeen]

My OS is currently going under the name "os_dev", because I'm that original!

I kinda planning to change this, whenever (if ever) I'm going for a release.

[mathematician]

If you want a temporary name, how about Longhorn?

Perhaps not, considering what happened to that when it was eventually released.

[codertom]

Off topic but what do you guys use as (if you use) C function prefix's for public/internal API's? if you don't have a OS name yet? e.g myos_lock() etc...

obviously for kernel specific stuff it'l just be kernel_lock() etc... right?

[Kevin]

Why not just lock()? In the libc you need to be somewhat careful to avoid polluting the namespace too much, but in the kernel or an application, there's no reason to avoid short names like this.