Naming your software project

2 minutes, 8 secondes

I was re-reading the part of the Free software management howto about the advice for naming a software project, and after some thought decided that the advice was a bit outdated. My own advice in this matter would actually be:
The name should tell what the software does
 The name should be easy two remember
The name should be search engine-friendly
 The name will be good if it respects at least two of the above requirements
See, the use of a search engine is pervasive nowadays, and I think the problem of naming should take this into account. Take KDE, for instance: easy, searchable, good name. Gnome: easy, but no searchable (no, I don't need some garden gnome) nor does it tell what it does (something as gnomewm or gnomede would maybe be better).

This post is also motivated by the name of the window manager I use nowadays: awesome. Seriously, it's easy to remember. But in no way does it tell what it does (a tiling window manager ? That's not my definition of awesome. My definition of awesome involve bears, rocket-propelled chainsaws, boobs and a few other things, I guess). Nor is it searchable. Oh, if you look up awesome or "awesome window manager" in google it's the first hit, sure. But it's because the project has success. Were it not the case, good luck for finding it quickly.

Edit: wrong link, fixed

Edit2: for all the people interested in awesome, I put my own configuration here

Commentaire n°1

For the record, awesome name was also primarily choosed because people often ask which window manager you use.

So, that will be something like:

  • "Hey budy, what's your window manager here?"
  • "It's awesome!"
  • "No doubt it's awesome, but what is it?"
  • "awesome!"
  • etc :-)

I did not really care about free-software-marketing stuff. Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, audacity, xmms, firefox etc... have names that do not say what they do, but most of people know them. So, it's gonna be awesome. :-)

Commentaire n°2

I suppose so, my primary concern with my post was about the naming of more obscure software projects. To be fair, I participate in some projects whose names might not have been the best choice.

As for awesome, well, I use it so I can at least say that it lives up to its name ;-). I almost can't wait for the release of the next stable version.

And I put my own awesomerc configuration, see the bottom of the blog post.

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