9 ms·

If you have to keep correcting people about your product's name, you made a poor name choice. Names, like everything else, have a U/X aspect to them.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
The first release of gnuplot was only three years after the GNU operating system was first announced to start development, and long ere it became widely known.
- jazib93 6y ago
  sadasdasdas
  - jazib93 6y ago
    sasda
josefx 6y ago
Look a bit lower in the FAQ, apparently they were at some point associated with the FSF. Their license also seems copy left to me. So the name wasn't that wrong and since most end users don't care about these details it probably doesn't make sense to rename it now.
- sandyarmstrong 6y ago
  > So the name wasn't wrong I'm not sure what you mean by this. The name is a pun on the name of the gnu animal. Just because GNU also made the same pun doesn't mean they are related, or that they have anything to do with each other. gnuplot's history goes back to 1986, when GNU was in its infancy. The name was fine then, and is probably fine now. > Their license also seems copy left to me. The license is interesting! I'm surprised they've stuck with it. But yeah, it does appear copyleftish.
Asraelite 6y ago
I think this applies to LaTeX as well. The fact that people pronounce it "lateks" is entirely the creator's fault.
- notRobot 6y ago
  Even Google gets it wrong: https://imgur.com/a/nswxueq https://imgur.com/a/nswxueq
  - owl57 6y ago
    It gets TeX just as wrong. Interestingly enough, GNU and SCSI get reasonable "featured snippets" instead.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  Also PNG, which in an attempt to prevent another gif/jif debacle wrote in the specification that its pronounced "ping"
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    I’ve always pronounced it like that. Do some people pronounce it differently?
    - EE84M3i 6y ago
      I've mostly only heard Pee-En-Gee
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        Fair enough. The comparison to GIF was leading me to the idea of a different pronunciation rather than just simply reading the letters.
        stjohnswarts 6y ago
Jgrubb 6y ago
Naming things so that people can try to understand what they are and do from the name is the most fundamental act of UX. I feel like too much software goes for a cute brand name, marketing approach.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Do you think the same applies to other products too or just software?
- kaba0 6y ago
  What is a Linux? Android? Google? We are not living in a neatly planned world, can’t just name things General Kernel(tm), General Mobile OS and Search Engine. And people like to give names to even inanimate objects, it is marketing, but at the same time you do remember them better that way. Would you rather start Image Editor, or Photoshop? In the former case it may very well just be Paint, while you do know what to expect from the latter. Also, should we as well get rid of icons/logos?
  - II2II 6y ago
    As a product name, MacOS did not exist until version 7.5 if I recall correctly. Prior to that, it was Macintosh System Software, the system software, or simply System <version number>. Neither icon, logo, nor typeface were associated with the system software throughout most of that period. That seems very out of place for a company that is very much conscious of the value of brand image.
    - kaba0 6y ago
      I’m fairly sure people referred to it as Macintosh, simply.
      - II2II 6y ago
        Quite possibly. The 80's and 90's were an awfully a long time ago, so I can only refresh my memory from what's on the screen and in the manuals. For what it's worth, the about box on my older PowerBook shows "System Software 7.1" and the manual simply says "system software" (i.e. not a proper noun).
Waterluvian 6y ago
I've always wondered what would happen if you gave a popular product an impossible name. Can you name a company with Unicode symbols? My guess is that a popular made up name by the user base would emerge. Which makes me guess that a bad name is worse than no name. Gnuplot misleads.
- Litost 6y ago
  There must be other examples, but you're right in the famous case of Prince changing his name to an abstract symbol to get round a contractual issue he was having with his record label. Apparently journalists started saying "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" though apparently it didn't stick? Unfortunately I'm not enough of a Prince fan to know what his fans did? https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/prince-name-change-love-symbol-25th-anniversary-explained-warner-brothers-dispute-a8385801.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/featu...
  - arp242 6y ago
    There is also a band named , or something to that effect. I used to have quite a nice album from them but I can't find it now (I'm not even sure if those are the correct Unicode block symbols). I think intentionally being obscure is kind of the point for a lot of these things.
  - LukeShu 6y ago
    It stuck enough. I'm not really a Prince fan, but "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" is what people called him for pretty much my whole childhood. He didn't use the name "Prince" 1993-2000, but it's my recollection that a lot of people kept calling him "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" well in to the mid 200x's. Sure, eventually people went back to calling him just "Prince" once he was using that name again, but "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" absolutely did stick for a number of years.
- dls2016 6y ago
  Prince changed his name to a symbol. “ After the change, Warner Bros. had to mail out floppy disks to news organizations featuring a font that allowed for reproduction of the new Prince symbol, because the symbol itself cannot be replicated in the fonts most publications use.” https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11481686/prince-name-change-symbol-why https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11481686/prince-name-change-sy...
alpaca128 6y ago
> If you have to keep correcting people about your product's name What product? It was created by two people in a lab that didn't know whether it would ever have more than a dozen users. Gnuplot as a name is fine imho, barely anyone cares whether it's a GNU project or not. JavaScript still has Java in the name and all you see about it are jokes.
- jahewson 6y ago
  GNU cares.
jedimastert 6y ago
My guy, gnuplot came like 3 years after the GNU project. It's like saying Charlie Chaplin chose a poor moustache because Hitler made it look bad

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

The first release of gnuplot was only three years after the GNU operating system was first announced to start development, and long ere it became widely known.

jazib93 6y ago
sadasdasdas
- jazib93 6y ago
  sasda

josefx 6y ago

Look a bit lower in the FAQ, apparently they were at some point associated with the FSF. Their license also seems copy left to me. So the name wasn't that wrong and since most end users don't care about these details it probably doesn't make sense to rename it now.

sandyarmstrong 6y ago
> So the name wasn't wrong I'm not sure what you mean by this. The name is a pun on the name of the gnu animal. Just because GNU also made the same pun doesn't mean they are related, or that they have anything to do with each other. gnuplot's history goes back to 1986, when GNU was in its infancy. The name was fine then, and is probably fine now. > Their license also seems copy left to me. The license is interesting! I'm surprised they've stuck with it. But yeah, it does appear copyleftish.

Asraelite 6y ago

I think this applies to LaTeX as well. The fact that people pronounce it "lateks" is entirely the creator's fault.

notRobot 6y ago
Even Google gets it wrong: https://imgur.com/a/nswxueq https://imgur.com/a/nswxueq
- owl57 6y ago
  It gets TeX just as wrong. Interestingly enough, GNU and SCSI get reasonable "featured snippets" instead.
wongarsu 6y ago
Also PNG, which in an attempt to prevent another gif/jif debacle wrote in the specification that its pronounced "ping"
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  I’ve always pronounced it like that. Do some people pronounce it differently?
  - EE84M3i 6y ago
    I've mostly only heard Pee-En-Gee
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      Fair enough. The comparison to GIF was leading me to the idea of a different pronunciation rather than just simply reading the letters.
      - stjohnswarts 6y ago

Jgrubb 6y ago

Naming things so that people can try to understand what they are and do from the name is the most fundamental act of UX. I feel like too much software goes for a cute brand name, marketing approach.

bonoboTP 6y ago
Do you think the same applies to other products too or just software?
kaba0 6y ago
What is a Linux? Android? Google? We are not living in a neatly planned world, can’t just name things General Kernel(tm), General Mobile OS and Search Engine. And people like to give names to even inanimate objects, it is marketing, but at the same time you do remember them better that way. Would you rather start Image Editor, or Photoshop? In the former case it may very well just be Paint, while you do know what to expect from the latter. Also, should we as well get rid of icons/logos?
- II2II 6y ago
  As a product name, MacOS did not exist until version 7.5 if I recall correctly. Prior to that, it was Macintosh System Software, the system software, or simply System <version number>. Neither icon, logo, nor typeface were associated with the system software throughout most of that period. That seems very out of place for a company that is very much conscious of the value of brand image.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    I’m fairly sure people referred to it as Macintosh, simply.
    - II2II 6y ago
      Quite possibly. The 80's and 90's were an awfully a long time ago, so I can only refresh my memory from what's on the screen and in the manuals. For what it's worth, the about box on my older PowerBook shows "System Software 7.1" and the manual simply says "system software" (i.e. not a proper noun).

Waterluvian 6y ago

I've always wondered what would happen if you gave a popular product an impossible name. Can you name a company with Unicode symbols? My guess is that a popular made up name by the user base would emerge. Which makes me guess that a bad name is worse than no name. Gnuplot misleads.

Litost 6y ago
There must be other examples, but you're right in the famous case of Prince changing his name to an abstract symbol to get round a contractual issue he was having with his record label. Apparently journalists started saying "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" though apparently it didn't stick? Unfortunately I'm not enough of a Prince fan to know what his fans did? https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/prince-name-change-love-symbol-25th-anniversary-explained-warner-brothers-dispute-a8385801.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/featu...
- arp242 6y ago
  There is also a band named , or something to that effect. I used to have quite a nice album from them but I can't find it now (I'm not even sure if those are the correct Unicode block symbols). I think intentionally being obscure is kind of the point for a lot of these things.
- LukeShu 6y ago
  It stuck enough. I'm not really a Prince fan, but "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" is what people called him for pretty much my whole childhood. He didn't use the name "Prince" 1993-2000, but it's my recollection that a lot of people kept calling him "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" well in to the mid 200x's. Sure, eventually people went back to calling him just "Prince" once he was using that name again, but "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" absolutely did stick for a number of years.
dls2016 6y ago
Prince changed his name to a symbol. “ After the change, Warner Bros. had to mail out floppy disks to news organizations featuring a font that allowed for reproduction of the new Prince symbol, because the symbol itself cannot be replicated in the fonts most publications use.” https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11481686/prince-name-change-symbol-why https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11481686/prince-name-change-sy...

alpaca128 6y ago

> If you have to keep correcting people about your product's name What product? It was created by two people in a lab that didn't know whether it would ever have more than a dozen users. Gnuplot as a name is fine imho, barely anyone cares whether it's a GNU project or not. JavaScript still has Java in the name and all you see about it are jokes.

jahewson 6y ago
GNU cares.

jedimastert 6y ago

My guy, gnuplot came like 3 years after the GNU project. It's like saying Charlie Chaplin chose a poor moustache because Hitler made it look bad