Meaning of ubuntu

[Chanchao]

Hello Karl,

Wednesday, July 6, 2005, 3:24:01 AM, you wrote:


KS> Oh Zulu! Okay. I wasn't sure where to post my complain, so I'll post it
KS> here.
KS> Just got my CDs in the mail, and I realized that it says that 'Ubuntu'
KS> is an 'African' word.
KS> Africa's a pretty big place. Lots of languages. Like every continent.
KS> Would it hurt the Ubuntu designers to SPECIFY the language that Ubuntu
KS> comes from? We would say that "schnapps" is a "European" word meaning
KS> ...
KS> well, you see my point.

Definitely, and I totally agree. (Unless the word is somehow a derived
word that's in loads of African languages, kind of like with some
Latin derived words in Europe. Like if you call a Linux distribution
'Libertas' or 'Linerty' or something then it's safe to say it's
derived from a European (latin) word meaning 'freedom'.

The problem is, Ubuntu-the-Linux-distro is so big now that you cannot
effectively search for the actual meaning of the word anymore, i.e.
not related to Linux.  Similar to what happened with the word 'Java'.
Before Java-the-programming-language you could easily find information
on the Indonesian island.  Right now though that's much harder.. :)

Cheers,
Chanchao