[jewel]

This is the codename for a project, not a product feature name. It's not something that users will be exposed to in the long term, just a moniker to organize efforts around a goal.

Funnily enough, today I have been working on an android app at a small startup which is also called Silk internally.

Namespace collision isn't that bad in practice. The UI of Firefox has been called "chrome" in the source code since long before google chrome existed, for example. It looks like it still is:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Chrome

[woodman]

The word "chrome" had been used to describe window components long before Chrome the browser showed up. So it isn't an accidental collision, it is a shortened name of the upstream Chromium project (named after the element). I've never been a big fan of the crazy names Silicon Valley comes up with, but hijacking existing words is much worse. I can't wait to see how Microsoft's use of the word "hologram" causes similar confusion.

[bobajeff]

Actually, Chrome is named for the interface. It's meant to be ironic because the point of Chrome is reducing the browsers chrome making more room for the Web page.

The name Chromium was playing on the fact that it's the metal used in chrome plating. (Just as the Chromium Project is used in making the browser Chrome.)

[wodenokoto]

I always saw the name as "now google is also making the chrome, and not just the content of your browser"

[woodman]

In that case it is even worse, reusing words from the same domain... Everybody check out my new linux distro, Microkernel, it is the ironic OS!

Google needs to start running this stuff by me.