[jjcm]

Windows Threshold

OSX Yosemite

Linux "Hurr durr I'ma sheep"

-----

In some ways it's comforting that such an intergral part of all of our lives doesn't have to be branded and packaged in a way that's stylistic. It's nice knowing that this truly is a community project, and that it's an effort of people - not some megacorp who needs to market it to the highest amount of people possible.

Great work everyone who worked on this.

[oliyoung]

To be fair, you're comparing apples (ha!) and oranges…

“Windows Threshold/XP/9/10”, “OS X Yosemite” are comparable to “Ubuntu“, not Linux.

NT & -Darwin- [Edit: You're right LukeShu, XNU] are the Linux equivalents, they're the names of the kernels and not supposed to be consumer friendly.

[comex]

Don't forget the distro version names! Ubuntu 14.10 'Utopic Unicorn', Debian 'jessie' (the Yodeling Cowgirl)...

[zanny]

Fedora 17: Beefy Miracle always leaves a warm feeling in my heart.

[gabeio]

Fedora recently ditched naming the versions themselves the community can name if it they wish. https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/201...

[coldpie]

> Fedora recently ditched naming the versions

Thank fucking God. I loathe version names. Place these in release date order: Lion, Snow Leopard, and Tiger. Now, place these in release order: 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8. Which do you find communicated more useful information?

[tsm]

Why not have both?

I find Intrepid Ibex, Gutsy Gibbon, Feisty Fawn, Hardy Heron, etc. to be quite sortable.

[vdaniuk]

Dude, version name is a great vessel for branding and promotion. Most distros have version names and version numbers, it's not hard to dereference a version name and they serve a purpose.

More brand awareness for open source projects == good.

[jazzdev]

Historically the name came first. Engineering would start working on a new version, Foo, and later on Marketing would decide it if was going to be 1.3 or 2.0

At least that's how it worked in commercial software. Now the names have taken on a life of their own.

[anocendi]

And then at Twenty-one, they ran out of good ideas ....

[LukeShu]

I would argue that it is XNU (instead of Darwin) that is equivalent to Linux.

[mpyne]

Even the dedicated release website is a refreshing send-up: https://imasheep.hurrdurr.org/

[vezzy-fnord]

Well, the bulk of it de facto comes from corporate contributors: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/infographics/who-w... (the Linux Foundation itself being a corporate consortium).

Not that such a thing isn't practically inevitable for a project the scale of the Linux kernel.

[mricon]

Correction: The Linux Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit consortium.

[xai3luGi]

Aren't 501(c)(6) organisations called "trade associations"?

[vezzy-fnord]

True. My expression was unwieldy, I meant that its board members were largely representatives of corporate entities (about 185 of them, ostensibly).

[cremno]

>Windows Threshold

That was just a codename. Vista and XP (and ME?) are actual examples.

[nullspace]

Well in all fairness, so is HurrDurr.

[anon4]

And before that it was "Diseased Newt". It's not like these names have ever been marketing-visible or descriptory. At least with this one it sort of makes sense, since 2015 is the year of the sheep in Chinese zodiac.

2015 Year of the Linux Desktop, obviously.

[molteanu]

in sync with the stupid content tracker

[cbd1984]

> in sync with the stupid content tracker

In his own words, he keeps naming things after himself.

(Although that's not entirely accurate. Linux was named by the guy who uploaded it to the ftp site; Linus' original name for it was Freax. (A 'Free' 'Unix'; the 'x' at the end being de rigueur for a Unix variant.) Hooray for opinionated people who just wantonly change names with no regard for the creator's desire, I suppose.)

https://lwn.net/Articles/325056/