4 ms·

Begging open source projects to stop with the libre<name> convention, it's awkward to say, it's cringe and seems to spiritually doom a project to fail.

PowerElectronix 7mo ago
That's like asking a EU product to not be named Euro-{product}.
- whywhywhywhy 7mo ago
  Also cringe and tainted.
Dwedit 7mo ago
One example that really sticks in my mind was "Libreboot". Yes, it's supposed to represent a free BIOS/booting system. But it also sounds like the name of a library dedicated to rebooting your computer.
- bbkane 7mo ago
  To me that sounds awesome func RebootItAll()
progx 7mo ago
LibreOffice ?
- notachatbot123 7mo ago
  Yes, that is one of the major offenders. It is very awkward to pronounce in many languages.
  - piekvorst 7mo ago
    I speak two languages (English and Russian) and have never found their name to be awkward. This is the first time, actually, that I've seen somebody say they don't like their name.
    - notachatbot123 7mo ago
      A good indicator is that the Wikipedia page even has pronounciation information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice What other major software has that?
      - bloak 7mo ago
        > What other major software has that? Linux? EDIT: Also Qt, MySQL, SQLite, GIMP (rather unnecessarily), ...
      - mock-possum 7mo ago
        Somewhat disappointingly, it’s just pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled: LEE-bruh-OFF-iss Ref: https://youtu.be/YHBve8v13VY?si=Bql2vH6C4goZN_kX https://youtu.be/YHBve8v13VY?si=Bql2vH6C4goZN_kX From your comment somehow I was expecting something a bit more exotic
        socalgal2 7mo ago
        TIL it's 'bruh'. Until today I thought it was 'bray'
  - desdenova 7mo ago
    Curious on what languages have a hard time saying Libre. Every latin-derived language (which are most of the western languages) can pronounce it naturally, and even English speakers can approximate it well enough to be understood (even though they're incapable of pronouncing the non-retroflex `r`).
    - zimpenfish 7mo ago
      > even English speakers can approximate it well enough to be understood I'd go for "LEE-broffis" which I don't think is all that hideously far away?
      - tech_hutch 7mo ago
        Wait, it's not leeb-er?
        scj 7mo ago
        The "bre" in "libre" is pronounced similarly to "zebra". Kinda. It'll get you in the ballpark, which is good enough for an Anglo. "This Hour has 22 Minutes" had a great sketch where both a Francophone (Gavin Crawford impersonating Chantal Hebert) and an Anglo (I forget who) were stumbling over proper nouns from the opposite language. The joke was that both were trying too hard to pronounce things "properly". It came off as inauthentic and awkward.
madduci 7mo ago
At least they signal that the project is open and free. What about projects using "Open" but they aren't? (See: OpenAI)
kleiba 7mo ago
The "libre" terms originates from the "free software" movement which does not like the term "open source" on philosophical grounds. In English, "free" has multiple meanings, and the romance language-derived "libre" was chosen in the past to distinguish the movement's ideals from the use of "free as in beer". https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
- m12k 7mo ago
  I just wish more of these projects would be a bit more ambitious and put more focus in their communication on being good at what they do, rather than being free and made by idealists. They're branding themselves in a way that only really appeals to other techy idealists, while accidentally putting off a lot of potential users who are neither technical nor philosophical enough to know or care what a term like libre means. There's a lot of good, free software that is selling itself short by communicating more about being the latter than the former.
  - kleiba 7mo ago
    I think there's some truth to what you say - at the same time, a lot of successful products have names that basically have no meaning at all, or at least none that's related to what the project actually does ("Windows", "Cursor", "Firefox", etc...) Of course, a point could be made that any inoffensive but basically fluffy name is still better than a geeky sounding tech babble name...
    - lukan 7mo ago
      The most succesful open source projects (firefox, blender, linux, krita,..) do not have libre in their name, the most famous of those who have is probably libreoffice, but it is not exactly loved. So I totally agree on rather having a name that appeals normal users, than a certain tech bubble who will rather use the terminal wherever they can anyway ..
      - kleiba 7mo ago
abirch 7mo ago
Almost any name is better than GIMP.
- pawelmurias 7mo ago
  It would be impossible to come up with a name that reflected the nature of the gimp program better.
thinking_cactus 7mo ago
I kind of agree. When nothing's Libre, naming your project Libre<something> is fine, I believe. But imagine OSS succeeds, and everything is named Libre<something>. Then that's terrible. "Did you open libreterminal and use librels and libreget to download librebrowser to open libresearch?" It lacks identity (just a little bit is fine) and distinctiveness, imo.

PowerElectronix 7mo ago

That's like asking a EU product to not be named Euro-{product}.

whywhywhywhy 7mo ago
Also cringe and tainted.

Dwedit 7mo ago

One example that really sticks in my mind was "Libreboot". Yes, it's supposed to represent a free BIOS/booting system. But it also sounds like the name of a library dedicated to rebooting your computer.

bbkane 7mo ago
To me that sounds awesome func RebootItAll()

progx 7mo ago

LibreOffice ?

notachatbot123 7mo ago
Yes, that is one of the major offenders. It is very awkward to pronounce in many languages.
- piekvorst 7mo ago
  I speak two languages (English and Russian) and have never found their name to be awkward. This is the first time, actually, that I've seen somebody say they don't like their name.
  - notachatbot123 7mo ago
    A good indicator is that the Wikipedia page even has pronounciation information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice What other major software has that?
    - bloak 7mo ago
      > What other major software has that? Linux? EDIT: Also Qt, MySQL, SQLite, GIMP (rather unnecessarily), ...
    - mock-possum 7mo ago
      Somewhat disappointingly, it’s just pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled: LEE-bruh-OFF-iss Ref: https://youtu.be/YHBve8v13VY?si=Bql2vH6C4goZN_kX https://youtu.be/YHBve8v13VY?si=Bql2vH6C4goZN_kX From your comment somehow I was expecting something a bit more exotic
      - socalgal2 7mo ago
        TIL it's 'bruh'. Until today I thought it was 'bray'
- desdenova 7mo ago
  Curious on what languages have a hard time saying Libre. Every latin-derived language (which are most of the western languages) can pronounce it naturally, and even English speakers can approximate it well enough to be understood (even though they're incapable of pronouncing the non-retroflex `r`).
  - zimpenfish 7mo ago
    > even English speakers can approximate it well enough to be understood I'd go for "LEE-broffis" which I don't think is all that hideously far away?
    - tech_hutch 7mo ago
      Wait, it's not leeb-er?
      - scj 7mo ago
        The "bre" in "libre" is pronounced similarly to "zebra". Kinda. It'll get you in the ballpark, which is good enough for an Anglo. "This Hour has 22 Minutes" had a great sketch where both a Francophone (Gavin Crawford impersonating Chantal Hebert) and an Anglo (I forget who) were stumbling over proper nouns from the opposite language. The joke was that both were trying too hard to pronounce things "properly". It came off as inauthentic and awkward.

madduci 7mo ago

At least they signal that the project is open and free. What about projects using "Open" but they aren't? (See: OpenAI)

kleiba 7mo ago

The "libre" terms originates from the "free software" movement which does not like the term "open source" on philosophical grounds. In English, "free" has multiple meanings, and the romance language-derived "libre" was chosen in the past to distinguish the movement's ideals from the use of "free as in beer". https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

m12k 7mo ago
I just wish more of these projects would be a bit more ambitious and put more focus in their communication on being good at what they do, rather than being free and made by idealists. They're branding themselves in a way that only really appeals to other techy idealists, while accidentally putting off a lot of potential users who are neither technical nor philosophical enough to know or care what a term like libre means. There's a lot of good, free software that is selling itself short by communicating more about being the latter than the former.
- kleiba 7mo ago
  I think there's some truth to what you say - at the same time, a lot of successful products have names that basically have no meaning at all, or at least none that's related to what the project actually does ("Windows", "Cursor", "Firefox", etc...) Of course, a point could be made that any inoffensive but basically fluffy name is still better than a geeky sounding tech babble name...
  - lukan 7mo ago
    The most succesful open source projects (firefox, blender, linux, krita,..) do not have libre in their name, the most famous of those who have is probably libreoffice, but it is not exactly loved. So I totally agree on rather having a name that appeals normal users, than a certain tech bubble who will rather use the terminal wherever they can anyway ..
    - kleiba 7mo ago

abirch 7mo ago

Almost any name is better than GIMP.

pawelmurias 7mo ago
It would be impossible to come up with a name that reflected the nature of the gimp program better.

thinking_cactus 7mo ago

I kind of agree. When nothing's Libre, naming your project Libre<something> is fine, I believe. But imagine OSS succeeds, and everything is named Libre<something>. Then that's terrible. "Did you open libreterminal and use librels and libreget to download librebrowser to open libresearch?" It lacks identity (just a little bit is fine) and distinctiveness, imo.