@n8 @hergertme @mattl

Why was GNU in the name in the first place?

@zbecker @[email protected] @[email protected]

I wasn't involved so I was not privy to any internal discussions but, in general, in that era it was a common choice of prefix, simply to signal that a project was part of the broad free-software-OS ecosystem. Particularly for non-server projects.

Much like things starting with "L" for "Linux" or "X" for X11/Xorg. See GIMP, or XMMS, for example.

There weren't strict membershipness-concepts (in most cases) in that era; it was sort of a general signal, as I see it.

@zbecker @[email protected] @[email protected]

(I suppose the other semantic meaning of the prefixes might have been just "for ___". So "an audio player for X systems" would be named Xtunes and that's how people searching for apps would know it was designed to work for X and they've found what they're looking for.

E.g., a printing subsystem meant to work with the GNU stack would be called gnuprint without that necessarily meaning that it had a formal sponsorship arrangement. (Those largely didn't exist anyway.)

@n8 @hergertme @mattl

That makes sense. I guess GIMP isn't a gnu project either?

I mean, I know that things starting with x weren't part of the freedesktop org. Things like xfce and xmonad seemed separated enough, but with GIMP and GNOME it never even crossed my mind that they weren't part of GNU.

@zbecker @[email protected] @[email protected] Correct. I'm sure there're loads of examples.

And weirder ones, too, such as gnuplot: complete coincidence in naming, punning on "new"; does not (and never has) use GPL/LGPL. Just roughly contemporary in starting, early/mid 1980s.

My analysis is that most new communities/movements don't see naming prefixes as a concern, especially when there's no business/money & they're all about growth, and they seem to be seeing as much growth — or more — as they could ever want.