That’s my name, don’t wear it out

Katherine Noyes put together a brief piece for PC World today about Linux release names which, overall, she seems to consider “silly.” In the process, she omits a great bit of detail on the “what” and “why” aspect of distro communities and how they come up with these “silly” names.

Digitally speaking, from a purely anthropological standpoint it is far from silly, and actually it’s quite an interesting topic, though Noyes seems to race through it without giving much detail.

So let me help out here.

Debian: Release names come from “Toy Story.” As humorous as it is simple, this naming convention is one of the best. An interesting corollary to this is the Debian-based CrunchBang naming convention mirrors the first letter of the current Debian release, but matches it with a character from “The Muppet Show.” So Debian “Squeeze” is translated in CrunchBang to “Statler. “Wheezy” begets “Waldorf.” Statler and Waldorf, of course, are the two old guys in the balcony in “The Muppet Show.”

Linux Mint: I particularly like the naming convention Clement Lefevbre has come up with for Linux Mint. It’s alphabetically a woman’s name ending in “a.” We’re at Julia now. I asked Clement once what he’d do when he got to “Zelda” (or whatever the “Z” name will be for Linux Mint when they get that far . . . and they will), and he said that it was simple: Start with a name beginning with “A” and end the name in “e.”

Ubuntu: We all know the drill here — SABDFL* Mark Shuttleworth comes up with an adjective and an animal with the same first letter and hands it down to a waiting community. Which is in complete contrast to . . .

Fedora: There is a formula here that the Fedora Project adheres to before all hell breaks loose and fistfights break out in the Fedora community while they vote on the release name. The formula is simple: “$CURRENT_RELEASE_NAME is a (whatever it is — i.e., city, body of water, person, thing) and so is $NEXT_RELEASE_NAME.” Looking at Fedora 15 “Lovelock” to the current Fedora 16 “Verne,” it goes like this: James Lovelock was a futurologist, and so was Jules Verne. Now how they got from Verne to Fedora 17′s “Beefy Miracle” is a mystery for the ages.

OpenSUSE: OpenSUSE’s naming convention . . . does OpenSUSE even have a naming convention for releases?

Got a distro that has a naming convention worthy of mentioning? Let me know.

*Self-appointed benevolent dictator for life, for those of you keeping score at home.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office.)

Meanwhile, back at El Ranchito . . . .

Whew. Now that that’s over . . . the second “that” being what’s nebulously called “the holiday” and all its trimmings, we can now get back to serious discussions on FOSS.

Or not.

But first things first: SCALE 10X. The Southern California Linux Expo SCALE 10X will be held less than a month from now — on Jan. 20-22 — at the beautiful Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel. In its 10th year, this first-of-the-year show in North America is shaping up to be one for the ages, and since it’s a month earlier this year — taking advantage of the Martin Luther King holiday weekend — I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s being obscured on people’s radar because of the holiday season and, heck, SCALE is not for another couple of months anyway, right? Well, not this year. Again, it’s January 20-22 — mark your calendars — and get yourself over to the registration page to sign up. Also, the $109/night deal for SCALE attendees at the Hilton still stands as well.

Now, how could you resist a weekend in L.A. with nearly 2,000 of your best friends?

Meanwhile, if you — for whatever misguided reason — have your domain registered on GoDaddy, today is the day to move it from the SOPA-supporting, arguably sexist domain registrant to another one that is more along the lines of your policies (unless, of course, you support SOPA and juvenile ads. Which of course begs the question: What are you doing reading this blog?). Here’s a story about it from ReadWriteWeb outlining that Namecheap will donate a dollar for every transfer to the Elecronic Frontier Foundation. Go to it, folks.

Also, the rumors are true: I’m now using CrunchBang GNU/Linux as my primary distro and I’m getting more involved with that community as well. While I might be saying, “So long, and thanks for all the fish” to Fedora, my experience with the Fedora Project has been overall both pleasant and an education, and I like to think that all the connections and friendships made during that time weather this transition. I bring that up because people are saying “goodbye” when they really don’t have to — I’ll be around in a FOSS sense and, regardless of what distro you might use, bear in mind we’re still essentially working for the same goal, albeit taking different paths.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office.)

Scaling up for SCALE 10X

The fall and winter may turn our attention to the holidays — pick whichever one you choose to celebrate in your own way — but the folks at the Southern California Linux Expo are busy putting together what could turn out to be a landmark FOSS event for North America.

The Southern California Linux Expo — SCALE 10X — celebrates its 10th year when it opens on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend (Jan. 20-22). As this is a month ahead of the usual February date for SCALE, things seem to be coming together for the event.

SCALE started 10 years ago with a single day event at the University of Southern California with two tracks and 400 attendees. Considering that SCALE 10X will be a three day event, with as many as a half-dozen tracks and possibly as many as 2,000 attendees, it’s clear that FOSS is alive and thriving.

The response to the Call for Papers — which closes next week on Nov. 17 — has been strong, so get those papers in, if you haven’t already. A winner for the design contest, which allowed artists to design the logo to go on signs, swag and other SCALE 10X items, has been chosen (I know who it is — nee nur nee nur — but a release is going out on it later so everyone will know).

Some of the “usual suspects” for all day events — Fedora with their Fedora Activity Day and Ubuntu with UbuCon, for starters — are already on board, as well as SCALE University being in session again this year. In addition, the annual DevOpsDay LA and PGP Keysigning party are on tap again this year.

What deserves special mention are two things new to SCALE this year: Linux Beginner Training and SCALE Kids Conference.

Linux Beginner Training is targeted for the absolute Linux beginner, or for someone who’s interested in Linux but has no idea how to get started. The course will run all day Saturday and Sunday and consists of a half-day of introductory and overview tutorials, followed by a day and a half of intensive training in how to install, configure and maintain a Linux desktop installation. Not a bad deal for $25.

SCALE Kids Conference — soon to be “SCALE: The Next Generation” — lets the FOSS community leaders of tomorrow spotlight their talents and ideas today. Open to kids 10 and older, the goal of conference is to be as “kid driven” as possible, offering a unique opportunity to see & experience the inner workings of planning a conference. Kids will be able to determine the content and help steer the direction that this mini-conference will take.

As developments occur, I’ll report them, but meanwhile if you want to keep up on your own — not to mention registering early for SCALE 10X (always a good idea) — you can do so here.

See you in Los Angeles.

[The truth-in-advertising small print: I have worked as a volunteer for SCALE for the last three years, and I serve on the Public Relations Committee as a co-chair as well as a press liaison for the event.]

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office. Watch this space.)