4 ms·

What I don't get is people complaining about the name "LibreOffice". "OpenOffice.org" including the .org, a web-related indication for a website, in the name of

• glhaynes 16y ago
  Couldn't they have gone from bad to good (or at least neutral) rather than from bad to bad, though? It just makes it even more disappointing when someone gets a chance to fix something that everybody's hated for a long time and they come up with something that's arguably even worse.
• rmc 16y ago
  "The GIMP" is a worse name.
  • sqrt17 16y ago
    I think Gimp (or 'The GIMP') is perfectly fine for something people see and use. Do you really think it's worse than PhotoPaint, Paint.NET or any of the other names out there? OTOH, having "Avahi" and "Plymouth" as names for semi-obscure system components that users don't get a word in choosing, but occasionally have to diagnose, is a terribly bad idea.
    • Natsu 16y ago
      > Do you really think it's worse than PhotoPaint, Paint.NET or any of the other names out there? Yes, I think it's a worse name because of the minority of people who know nothing about it, but who get offended anyhow. We can argue all day about why they shouldn't, but they do. Not to mention the fact that nothing about the name tells you what it actually does, something the rest of your examples manage.
      • Mithrandir 16y ago
        I do agree with some of what you said. There are still people who have never heard of Gimp. Tell then that it's an alternative to Photoshop and they say "What's Gimp?" or "What's Photoshop?" followed by a lengthy explanation, tagged with questions like "What's GNU?" "Isn't Microsoft Essentials free?" and so on. It ends up with "Well... I don't know... hmm..." long silence "Oh, well it's free so it must be worse." and "Adobe made Flash, so Photoshop must be better." IMHO, the name does imply that it has some sort of flaw in it (like a real gimp) even though it does not. I like "GNU Image Manipulation Program" better in that respect, but it's of course much longer. GIMP is much shorter, and when you hear the full name, not just the acronym, it makes more sense. And in no way am I saying it's a bad program. Quite the opposite, actually. :)
        • Natsu 16y ago
          Oh, I use it and I like it just fine as a program, though I sometimes wish they didn't hide certain things in context menus. The name, though...
        • sqrt17 16y ago
          > that it has some sort of flaw in it (like a real gimp) I don't think that most non-native speakers have come across the sense of a 'gimp' as a cripple. I for one always thought that a gimp was some kind of rodent (probably prompted by the GIMP's mascot). The most common uses of the word "gimp" in Internet-visible English seem to be (i) in reference to The GIMP and (ii) to the "gimp thread", which seems to have something to do with sewing machines. > "Adobe made Flash, so Photoshop must be better." Well, they made enough money from Photoshop to be able to buy Macromedia. Close enough :-)
• jdub 16y ago
  This was due to a trademark conflict with another product called "OpenOffice". Instead of choosing something better, they tacked ".org" on the end.
  • DougBTX 16y ago
    Exactly - a train wreck, a collision between two parties leaving a mess behind. OOo.
• Mithrandir 16y ago
  No worse than the X.Org server, which some people (for awhile, myself included) end up calling "xorg". 8|
• benmccann 16y ago
  Both are awful names. The only time I've ever heard libre used is in the phrase lucha libre. I don't know why they'd want the WWF to be the first thing people think of when they hear the name of a professional office product.
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
• parbo 16y ago
  Cuba Libre works, so maybe Office Libre had been better?