So. While things aren't by any means decided yet, I would like to propose
a straw poll, solely for those who're actually doing work on the BSD ports
(honor system, for anyone else reading the list, but if you actually read
the list, you probably have a reasonable argument for inclusion :) as to
what naming convention we should use.
I haven't found any documents on how to use the voting system for a straw
poll, if it's even possible, but since the number of votes should be fairly
small, I'll just tally them by hand.
The proposed naming schemes of which I am aware are as follows:
1) Christian demonology
2) Discworld gods
3) Tolkien Valar/Maiar
4) Greek mythology
5) Famous physicists
Ashort set of pros and cons, at least as I see them, follows:
1) Pros - daemon, demon, close enough; extensive catalog of names
Cons - at least one BSD developer protest, likely to cause political
fallout at some point, BSD world tries hard to avoid 'demon'
associations
2) Pros - Not likely to offend anyone, geeky reference
Cons - Not many names for a given letter, may (but probably won't) have
hassles from Pratchett's lawyers.
3) Pros - Lots of names, Valar/Maiar are a very direct analogue to daemons,
unlikely to offend anyone, uber-geeky reference
Cons - Many aren't US/ASCII, not widely known, Tolkien's estate might
cause hassles, uber-geeky reference
4) Pros - Lots and LOTS of names, Greek
Cons - Many names are trademarked in a (possibly) relevant field of
endeavour, not really all that associated with daemons
5) Pros - More than ample names for nearly any letter, unlikely to object,
most of them are dead and have no estates to object anyway, well
known outside geek circles (well, relative to any other option so
far, anyway)
Cons - Only linkage to daemons is uber-geeky
For the straw vote, there are six categories (the 5 above, plus 'further
discussion'). Rank them in order of preference, with lower numbers having
a higher preference. You may have ties or unranked entries. All unranked
entries are considered equally, as the least preferred. To object to an
entry, rank it *behind* 'Further Discussion'; for the purposes of this
vote, a win by 'further discussion' implies that no option is sufficiently
appealing, and we should continue to try to find other options.
Feel free to include a rationale section, if you wish; all rationale
comments will be included in the summary. If you wish your name attached
to the rationale, please include a statement to that effect; rationale
sections without such a statement will be presented without attribution.
The ballots with be manually processed, so as long as I can read it, it's
valid. But I'd really appreciate it if you'd stick to the following form:
-=-=- cut here -=-=-
[ ] Christian demonology
[ ] Discworld gods
[ ] Tolkien Valar/Maiar
[ ] Greek mythology
[ ] Famous physicists
[ ] Further discussion
-=-=- cut here -=-=-
Polls open now (roughly 2003-12-19 03:30 +0000), and will close at
2003-12-22 03:30 +0000 (or roughly 3 days hence).
--
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
Debian GNU/NetBSD(i386) porter : :' :
`. `'
`-
Attachment:
pgp3A3kjqf4Uy.pgp
Description: PGP signature