Re: Changes in formal naming for NetBSD porting effort(s)
On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 09:09:37AM -0700, Joel Baker wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 10:54:15AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > [I am not subscribed to debian-bsd.]
> > On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 06:00:21PM -0700, Joel Baker wrote:
> > > Even so, I'm amenable to anyone who can come up with names which are less
> > > loaded to random fundamentalists, if possible; of course, most of the
> > > sources on daemons say that they are, as a rule, without names in the
> > > origional Greek usage.
> >
> > So? The Greeks were heretical pagans and some of them were even
> > (gasp!) atheists.
>
> *snicker* My sister is a neo-Classisist (with, oddly enough, a degree in
> Classics - one of the few things less useful when job hunting than an
> English degree). I'm quite familiar with the variety of religious beliefs
> in the culture. I was mostly pointing out (after having looked) that it
> may not be possible to find *daemon* names, which would be slightly more
> apropos (to the geek in me, anyway) than demon names. Very slightly. But
> slightly. :)
If you wanted Greek names, there are plenty of obscure nymphs, satyrs,
centaurs, etc. to choose from. Since the Greeks classified them as
neither evil spirits nor deities, many of them would qualify as daemons
in the classical sense.
If Homer isn't copyright and trademark free, nothing is safe.
> In my perception, there is a difference between "placation" and "tact";
> one of the primary points being the amount of effort that goes into it.
> Placating requires one to make changes that cost you something appreciable;
> tact is simply choice one of a number of otherwise equal options such that
> it has a reasonable chance of being less offensive to the target audience.
>
> We have DDs who are, clearly, offended - even if I consider that to be a
> rather silly thing, given my own beliefs. And if we didn't have another
> option, I'd probably say "tough noogies". But since we *have* had a couple
> of other options come up, which have yet to generate any statements of
> offense from anyone who's bothered to put it where I could read it, and
> those options work just as well in both a practical and a geeky sense, I
> have no problem with choosing one of them out of tact.
Tact is downright vital on debian-bsd. Otherwise, we'd have never got
anything done. Unfortunately, it seems to be largely unknown on
debian-devel, which is part of why I seldom read it.
> As may have become clear, my favorite bid so far is for Tolkien names,
> since the only opinions on d-l that have been cogently argued, or backed up
> with citations, indicate that using the *names* isn't going to get us in
> trouble - and because they're already in quite widespread use in the same
> basic context we intend to use them for. And Tolkien's estate appears to
> have had many opportunities to raise objections, and hasn't ever done so,
> to the best of my knowlege.
[snip]
> True. I think Tolkien's work is still covered under the ever-expanding
> Disney extensions, but then, as I pointed out and d-l backed up, we're
> using Disney character names for an even more significant naming scheme -
> releases. If we're really worried about being sued over such, I'd be far
> more worried about Disney doing it...
I think Tolkien's estate has specific interests, and people using the
names for hostnames or OS release names aren't the sort of thing they're
worried about. In fact, I strongly suspect they'll be occupied for the
next few years trying to squelch the commercial opportunism surrounding
the movies. I read that they're blocking making a movie of the Hobbit,
and haven't been at all happy about the movies that have been made.
If we're really worried about this, we can always use the names of the
Dwarves in the Hobbit. Most (all?) of those names are from Icelandic
sags, IIRC. So is Gandalf.
---Nathan
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