On 08/11/2012 04:20 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 08/11/2012 12:41 PM, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. wrote:
As far as I can see, there's no imminent harm to giving a new release of
an OS a name, if anything it gives it an identity, something to
associate it with, such as when two developers are talking and one says
have you seen the splash screens for "Verne"?....with the two of them
BOTH knowing what Fedora 16's "name" is. If someone doesn't think an OS
release shouldn't' be named they can just ignore the name and go ahead
and call it by whatever makes them happy! Remember Linux is all about
"Freedom Of Choice"...whatever you choose to do, (within bounds of
course!) is fine!

I have no problems, personally, in naming releases.  I'm sure it's  much easier for the devs to refer to them by name, especially in conversation.  And, for some distros, such as Ubuntu, the userbase tends to use the names, not release number, making the names even more important.  My objection to the name for F17 is that it sounds immature, rather as though it had been picked by a thirteen-year-old boy suffering from testosterone overload for the first time.  Yes, I understand that it was picked to honor the memory of a well-liked Fedora developer, but that's what it looks like to me.

Names can be a good thing, but an ill-chosen one can be a PR nightmare.  I think that the only reason we've not had trouble over Beefy Miracle is the fact that most people who know anything about Fedora tend to ignore the names and those who don't mostly know why it got the name. This time, we got lucky and didn't end up with a metric butload of bad publicity.  In the future, I think that some of the more mature devs might want to take a little time to make sure that we use a little common sense and avoid such names.

YMMV, and if it does, please remember that the above is only my opinion and you're free to ignore it if you want.
No worries Joe! I feel that we can all contribute something to this great project known as Fedora, so even YOUR opinion counts!...As for myself....I'd like to see the names go in a more "Start Trek / Star Wars / Battlestar Galactica" direction myself......but hey....here's to hoping!...


EGO II