>Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.[13]
>In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.[13] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
>To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (audio speaker iconlisten (help·info)) with the kernel source code.[16]
Pronunciation changes even when crossing accents, let alone languages. The prescriptivists will say there is a correct pronunciation, and any deviation from it is wrong. But the descriptivists will ask why it matters if we all understand that we’re referring to the same thing. It’s an age-old debate.
An interesting backronym is Wine being "Wine Is Not an Emulator". That one has an interesting history.
The original author first was going to call it winemu, but didn't like that. He shortened it to "wine", which led him to think of "whine" and "whinny". He liked "whine" but thought that was too long so "wine" it was.
The first suggestion of "Wine is Not an Emulator" was in 1993, when there were concerns Microsoft might raise trademark objects to "Windows Emulator". No one took that name suggestion seriously.
It wasn't until 1997 that it was adapted, as an alternative. In late 1997, the Wine FAQ said
> The word Wine stands for one of two things: WINdows Emulator, or Wine Is Not an Emulator. Both are right. Use whichever one you like best.
The shift to not mentioning it being a Windows emulator happened later. The release notes for 981108 said
> This is release 981108 of Wine, the MS Windows emulator.
and for 981211 said
> This is release 981211 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix.
As far as I've been able to glean from old Usenet posts, there were two reasons they stopped mentioning it being an emulator.
1. It could be used for more than just running Windows binaries under Unix. If you had source to a Windows program you could compile it on Unix and link it with Wine to give you a port of the Windows program. Wine was now a Windows compatibility system that included more than just an emulator. It was an emulator and a porting library.
2. Computers were getting fast enough that people were starting to run hardware emulators to do things like run game binaries from old consoles or old personal computers. Such emulators were not very fast. This might lead users to think that emulation was inherently slow, which might turn them off from trying Wine under the mistaken impression that it too would be slow.
Wine, when used to run Windows binaries rather than as a library when porting, is in fact still an emulator just like it was when Bob Amstadt first wrote it. Nothing technical changed when they added the backronym, or changed the text for the 981211 release notes.
But now we have plenty of people who have only ever seen the backronym, and the only emulators they have used that call themselves emulators have been emulating hardware, and so will insist that for something to be an emulator is must be emulating hardware.
No.
>Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.[13]
>In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.[13] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
>To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (audio speaker iconlisten (help·info)) with the kernel source code.[16]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming
When crossing languages shouldn’t pronunciation change?
Pronunciation changes even when crossing accents, let alone languages. The prescriptivists will say there is a correct pronunciation, and any deviation from it is wrong. But the descriptivists will ask why it matters if we all understand that we’re referring to the same thing. It’s an age-old debate.
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Linus never said "this is how Linux should be pronounced". He only said "I pronounce Linux as 'Linux'".
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For names I would say no.
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GNU is "GNU is Not Unix"; unfortunately, it requires a left-recursive expansion that eventually exhausts the stack and terminates the process.
Me: just casually reading HN.
Also me, to myself: hold our beer we’re going to nerd snipe ourselves and write this as a regex that can’t be flagged as ReDoS.
Which means the 'G' could have been replaced by _anything_! Same for the first 'P' in PHP Hypertext Preprocessor
PHP originated as Personal Home Page. The current official name is a backronym.
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I'm pretty sure you are getting confused with the GNU recursive acronym, which was supposed to stand for "GNU's Not Unix".
Could you expand the recursion a few iterations, and see if it makes sense?
To me it's a cheeky backronym-esque observation inspired by GNU. Another one I like is "Windows is not DOS".
An interesting backronym is Wine being "Wine Is Not an Emulator". That one has an interesting history.
The original author first was going to call it winemu, but didn't like that. He shortened it to "wine", which led him to think of "whine" and "whinny". He liked "whine" but thought that was too long so "wine" it was.
The first suggestion of "Wine is Not an Emulator" was in 1993, when there were concerns Microsoft might raise trademark objects to "Windows Emulator". No one took that name suggestion seriously.
It wasn't until 1997 that it was adapted, as an alternative. In late 1997, the Wine FAQ said
> The word Wine stands for one of two things: WINdows Emulator, or Wine Is Not an Emulator. Both are right. Use whichever one you like best.
The shift to not mentioning it being a Windows emulator happened later. The release notes for 981108 said
> This is release 981108 of Wine, the MS Windows emulator.
and for 981211 said
> This is release 981211 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix.
As far as I've been able to glean from old Usenet posts, there were two reasons they stopped mentioning it being an emulator.
1. It could be used for more than just running Windows binaries under Unix. If you had source to a Windows program you could compile it on Unix and link it with Wine to give you a port of the Windows program. Wine was now a Windows compatibility system that included more than just an emulator. It was an emulator and a porting library.
2. Computers were getting fast enough that people were starting to run hardware emulators to do things like run game binaries from old consoles or old personal computers. Such emulators were not very fast. This might lead users to think that emulation was inherently slow, which might turn them off from trying Wine under the mistaken impression that it too would be slow.
Wine, when used to run Windows binaries rather than as a library when porting, is in fact still an emulator just like it was when Bob Amstadt first wrote it. Nothing technical changed when they added the backronym, or changed the text for the 981211 release notes.
But now we have plenty of people who have only ever seen the backronym, and the only emulators they have used that call themselves emulators have been emulating hardware, and so will insist that for something to be an emulator is must be emulating hardware.
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Recursive backronym: “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor” (originally “Personal Home Pages”)
I once suggested an alternative: “Powering Hypertext & Programs” (https://alanhogan.com/conversations/php/acronym)
I mean, Windows ran on DOS for a decade, so I'm not really seeing this one.
The problem is the backronym would be wrong.
Linux is far closer to “Linus’s Unix” (and that may actually be how it was named) than it would be to Linux is not Unix.
There is an embedded OS called Xinu which does stand for “Xinu is not Unix”, and also happens to be Unix spelled backwards.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinu
The MacOS kernel is in fact called XNU, which means what you think.
XNU, the Darwin kernel, is not a recursive acronym like GNU. Officially stands for X is Not Unix.
Ironically, given the thread, XNU stands for “X is not Unix”.