José Alburquerque wrote:
I just want to make it clear that with the above explanation I'm in no way endorsing or promoting neither redhat or its founder. In a way, I just sort of wanted to (if I at all succeeded) make a point (I would hope relevant to the thread) that one person's way of understanding something positively may be another's of seeing it in a bad light. I didn't mean to enter the thread as it evolved. I apologize.Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:I think we should not add meaning to the names chosen for things outside of the context in which they were chosen. If the name was specifically chosen to imply something, then that's what the name means; if not, then it simply doesn't have those connotations.BTW, I remember someone who was not interested in the Red Hat distro "because I don't like that stupid red hat". I now know that 'red hat' has more meanings and symbolism than just a red colored hat (Google for 'red hat' without the word 'linux'), and I suspect that there are many such things that non-native English speakers don't know about.The redhat reference above, is a good example. When Marc Ewing founded his company the name was taken from a "red hat" his grandfather had given him (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies#R). Any meaning beyond that is simply illogical.
-- Sincerely Jose Alburquerque