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Doesn't linux stand for "linux is not unix"?
by willis936 5y ago
Doesn't linux stand for "linux is not unix"?
- rovr138 5y agoNo. >Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.[13] >In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.[13] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux". >To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (audio speaker iconlisten (help·info)) with the kernel source code.[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming
- rileymat2 5y agoWhen crossing languages shouldn’t pronunciation change?
- blowski 5y agoPronunciation changes even when crossing accents, let alone languages. The prescriptivists will say there is a correct pronunciation, and any deviation from it is wrong. But the descriptivists will ask why it matters if we all understand that we’re referring to the same thing. It’s an age-old debate.
- jagged-chisel 5y agoI find it amusing that Linus himself pronounces both with the same vowel sounds, indicating that obviously the kernel is named for its creator. While my American cohorts refuse to use the same vowels, choosing “Lie” for the first syllable of the man’s name, and “Lih” for the first syllable of the kernel. Then berate me for following the pattern but using US English pronunciation rules. But you guys know what I’m talking about, so just shut up and let’s get on with this deployment, mmk?
- patmorgan23 5y ago* insert oxford comma debate/every grammer debate ever*
- msh 5y agoFor names I would say no.
- kergonath 5y agoThat does not work in general. Some sounds just do not exist in some languages. Also, for example a name can sound quite different pronounced with an Irish and a Yorkshire accent, and there are similar distinctions in most languages. Which one becomes the canonical prononciation then?
- simiones 5y agoI think that for proper names, it's common courtesy to try to prounounce someone's name as close as possible to the way they pronounce it themselves. This may be difficult when using sounds that simply don't exist in your language, and I'm not suggesting going as far as learning how to pronounce new consonants. But, if someone spells their name "St John" but introduces themselves as "Mr Sinjohn" (sɪndʒɪn), it's common courtesy to refer to them as Mr "Sinjohn", not Mr "Saint John". Or, if their name is written as Xi (in Pinyin), but read as Shi, you should call them "Shi", not "Ksi", even though you may not be using the exact right "Sh" sound, and you will probably not be able to match the right pitch contour.
- yodsanklai 5y agoI'm already happy when people are able to copy/paste my name properly in an email. It seems 30% of the people aren't even able to do that.
- technothrasher 5y agoI kind of like when I go to a foreign county and people pronounce my name in a different way than I'm used to hearing it. Having them struggle to get it "right" just doesn't work anyway and makes them struggle needlessly. Even in my own country, there are two common ways to pronounce my last name and while I only use one way myself, I really don't mind when people use the other way. I named my son, "Alistair", and there seems to be a million ways people pronounce that. He doesn't seem to care either.
- colonwqbang 5y agoLinus never said "this is how Linux should be pronounced". He only said "I pronounce Linux as 'Linux'".
- reayn 5y agoI'm pretty sure you are getting confused with the GNU recursive acronym, which was supposed to stand for "GNU's Not Unix".
- willis936 5y agoTo me it's a cheeky backronym-esque observation inspired by GNU. Another one I like is "Windows is not DOS".
- cassandratt 5y agoI mean, Windows ran on DOS for a decade, so I'm not really seeing this one.
- tzs 5y agoAn interesting backronym is Wine being "Wine Is Not an Emulator". That one has an interesting history. The original author first was going to call it winemu, but didn't like that. He shortened it to "wine", which led him to think of "whine" and "whinny". He liked "whine" but thought that was too long so "wine" it was. The first suggestion of "Wine is Not an Emulator" was in 1993, when there were concerns Microsoft might raise trademark objects to "Windows Emulator". No one took that name suggestion seriously. It wasn't until 1997 that it was adapted, as an alternative. In late 1997, the Wine FAQ said > The word Wine stands for one of two things: WINdows Emulator, or Wine Is Not an Emulator. Both are right. Use whichever one you like best. The shift to not mentioning it being a Windows emulator happened later. The release notes for 981108 said > This is release 981108 of Wine, the MS Windows emulator. and for 981211 said > This is release 981211 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix. As far as I've been able to glean from old Usenet posts, there were two reasons they stopped mentioning it being an emulator. 1. It could be used for more than just running Windows binaries under Unix. If you had source to a Windows program you could compile it on Unix and link it with Wine to give you a port of the Windows program. Wine was now a Windows compatibility system that included more than just an emulator. It was an emulator and a porting library. 2. Computers were getting fast enough that people were starting to run hardware emulators to do things like run game binaries from old consoles or old personal computers. Such emulators were not very fast. This might lead users to think that emulation was inherently slow, which might turn them off from trying Wine under the mistaken impression that it too would be slow. Wine, when used to run Windows binaries rather than as a library when porting, is in fact still an emulator just like it was when Bob Amstadt first wrote it. Nothing technical changed when they added the backronym, or changed the text for the 981211 release notes. But now we have plenty of people who have only ever seen the backronym, and the only emulators they have used that call themselves emulators have been emulating hardware, and so will insist that for something to be an emulator is must be emulating hardware.
- jeffwass 5y agoThere is an embedded OS called Xinu which does stand for “Xinu is not Unix”, and also happens to be Unix spelled backwards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinu
- rzzzt 5y agoGNU is "GNU is Not Unix"; unfortunately, it requires a left-recursive expansion that eventually exhausts the stack and terminates the process.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoMe: just casually reading HN. Also me, to myself: hold our beer we’re going to nerd snipe ourselves and write this as a regex that can’t be flagged as ReDoS. /G(N)(U) is \1ot \2nix/
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
- tooltower 5y agoWhich means the 'G' could have been replaced by _anything_! Same for the first 'P' in PHP Hypertext Preprocessor
- tgma 5y agoPHP originated as Personal Home Page. The current official name is a backronym.
- xyzwave 5y agoIronically, given the thread, XNU stands for “X is not Unix”.