5 ms·

I know open source folks don't consider branding important, to the point they intentionally give their projects stupid names for the "irony" and so on, but I d

I know open source folks don't consider branding important, to the point they intentionally give their projects stupid names for the "irony" and so on, but I don't even have this key on my keyboard, and I don't even know how to say this. Mewjee? Mewg? Ug? Come on, folks, you can do better. Whether you know it or not, this has an actual effect on the ability of the project to spread by word of mouth (online or otherwise), therefore its success and number of contributors it'll get.

jwuphysics 12y ago
The URL is https://github.com/microg https://github.com/microg, so I'd have to guess "micro g".
richardmjohn 12y ago
Micro G... seems pretty reasonable.
- leoc 12y ago
  I'd even say 'microgram'.
  - kissickas 12y ago
    That was my immediate internal pronunciation, but I'm almost certain that's not the intention.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lvillani 12y ago
"microG"? The Greek letter Mu is the SI prefix for "micro". μTorrent seems to do fine with the Mu, even though most people write it as "uTorrent" and spell it as such.
- Nexxxeh 12y ago
  Its a ballache though, especially in 8.1 (u1) with classic start. Press the first letter and get a list of programs that start with that letter? U doesn't bring it up. Because it doesn't start with a U.
- mootothemax 12y ago
  μTorrent seems to do fine with the Mu, even though most people write it as "uTorrent" and spell it as such. You've said it yourself there; μTorrent was rebranded by the majority of users to uTorrent, and "uTorrent" is a distinct, mostly spelt-how-it-sounds and easily-Googleable name. I doubt that an involuntary rebranding of μg to "ug" would be quite as successful, nor likely to happen.
  - Curmudgel 12y ago
    The funny thing is that in Modern Greek the letter μ is pronounced "me", so the name of the software could be pronounced "meTorrent". Spelling it with a u makes the name of the software sound like "youTorrent".
- grkvlt 12y ago
  > "microG" Pronounced "MEE-KROG", right? First syllable rhymes with me, second frog.
heyalexej 12y ago
I thought the same. Branding can make or break the success of a project. I think OSS is no exception. Patio11 wrote a great piece on the branding of Heartbleed. [1] [1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/09/what-heartbleed-can-teach-the-oss-community-about-marketing/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/09/what-heartbleed-can-teac...
mootothemax 12y ago
This has an actual effect on the ability of the project to spread by word of mouth (online or otherwise), therefore its success and number of contributors it'll get I completely agree with you. "What's that you're using?" "Microgram, I think. It's cool, you should check it out" sound of frantic typing "I can't find it on Google, how do you spell it?" Variants on the above conversation happen every day. Adopting a name like μg only places petty and annoying barriers in front of potential users.
minopret 12y ago
Here on Hacker News, I momentarily mistook "µg" for "pg". So I thought Paul Graham was making an announcement about APIs for Android. If that had been intentional, it could have been a homograph attack.

jwuphysics 12y ago

The URL is https://github.com/microg https://github.com/microg, so I'd have to guess "micro g".

richardmjohn 12y ago

Micro G... seems pretty reasonable.

leoc 12y ago
I'd even say 'microgram'.
- kissickas 12y ago
  That was my immediate internal pronunciation, but I'm almost certain that's not the intention.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

lvillani 12y ago

"microG"? The Greek letter Mu is the SI prefix for "micro". μTorrent seems to do fine with the Mu, even though most people write it as "uTorrent" and spell it as such.

Nexxxeh 12y ago
Its a ballache though, especially in 8.1 (u1) with classic start. Press the first letter and get a list of programs that start with that letter? U doesn't bring it up. Because it doesn't start with a U.
mootothemax 12y ago
μTorrent seems to do fine with the Mu, even though most people write it as "uTorrent" and spell it as such. You've said it yourself there; μTorrent was rebranded by the majority of users to uTorrent, and "uTorrent" is a distinct, mostly spelt-how-it-sounds and easily-Googleable name. I doubt that an involuntary rebranding of μg to "ug" would be quite as successful, nor likely to happen.
- Curmudgel 12y ago
  The funny thing is that in Modern Greek the letter μ is pronounced "me", so the name of the software could be pronounced "meTorrent". Spelling it with a u makes the name of the software sound like "youTorrent".
grkvlt 12y ago
> "microG" Pronounced "MEE-KROG", right? First syllable rhymes with me, second frog.

heyalexej 12y ago

I thought the same. Branding can make or break the success of a project. I think OSS is no exception. Patio11 wrote a great piece on the branding of Heartbleed. [1] [1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/09/what-heartbleed-can-teach-the-oss-community-about-marketing/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/09/what-heartbleed-can-teac...

mootothemax 12y ago

This has an actual effect on the ability of the project to spread by word of mouth (online or otherwise), therefore its success and number of contributors it'll get I completely agree with you. "What's that you're using?" "Microgram, I think. It's cool, you should check it out" sound of frantic typing "I can't find it on Google, how do you spell it?" Variants on the above conversation happen every day. Adopting a name like μg only places petty and annoying barriers in front of potential users.

minopret 12y ago

Here on Hacker News, I momentarily mistook "µg" for "pg". So I thought Paul Graham was making an announcement about APIs for Android. If that had been intentional, it could have been a homograph attack.