KDE Programs Naming Convention

[D. Michael McIntyre]

On Tuesday 08 January 2008, WANSTALL Malcolm wrote:
> Does anyone else see this as a bit of a marketing blunder and is there
> _any_ community push to change this? Surely good names like Amarok,
> Rosegarden and Bluefish aren't that hard to come up with...they
> certainly make a better first impression on people new to KDE/Linux.

I think the real bottom line here has nothing to do with the names, but with 
everything being different.  People hate different.

It goes the other way too.  My wife never did much with a computer until she 
finally had some reason to start exchanging email.  She went straight from 
DOS 3.X to Ubuntu Dapper or so, and this is all she knows of the modern 
world.  I did a business-related experiment on her box, and set it up to boot 
Windows Vista as the default OS for awhile, with the whole Microsoft Office 
suite and a ton of other normal mainstream "real" software.

I actually thought she'd like it better, since Windows is the king of the 
universe and stuff, but nothing could have been further from the truth.  She 
totally despised everything about Windows, and couldn't figure out how to do 
anything, because the fonts had different names, and all the applications 
looked strange, and had weird names.

Like WinAmp instead of MPlayer, or Outlook instead of KMail, and most 
importantly of all, where was KMahjongg?  That was the deal breaker right 
there.  I heard no end of bitching until I obliterated Windows and fixed her 
computer.

Anyway, Rosegarden's name dates back to way before KDE.  The current KDE-based 
version is the third remake of the original.
-- 
D. Michael McIntyre