The Software Identity

There are many different factors normally taken into account when naming a software or a software project: trademark conflicts, meaning in multiple languages, memorability, thought association, similarity to existing names and many more. While many a times software name reflects it nature and purpose but there are instances where name seems to have come from the sky or the mantle.

The most popular programming language used in today’s web development is, undoubtedly, Java. But why Sun's lingua franca for next-generation application developers, decided upon a coffee metaphor for their trademark? Why Sun named it Java?

Java was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside James Gosling's office, who initiated the Java language project in 1991. but Sun couldn't use the name 'OAK' because it was already trademarked by Oak Technologies.

Kim Polese, then the Oak product manager in Sun, said he name Java. "I spent a lot of time and energy on naming Java because I wanted to get precisely the right name. I wanted something that reflected the essence of the technology: dynamic, revolutionary, lively, fun. Because this programming language was so unique, I was determined to avoid nerdy names. I wanted something that was cool, unique, and easy to spell and fun to say." [Quote: JavaWorld]

"The name 'Java' originated in a meeting where about a dozen people got together to brainstorm," said James Gosling. "The meeting, arranged by Kim Polese, was fundamentally continuous wild craziness. Lots of people just yelled out words. Who yelled out what first is unknowable and unimportant." [Quote: JavaWorld]


It is believed that the name was first suggested by Chris Warth, a senior engineer on the project, in this meeting. While he was drinking a cup of Peet's Java, he picked 'Java' as an example of yet another name. Finally, it ended up being the name of choice.

So in a way Java got its name and logo (fame), cup of coffee, from the famous Java Coffee, a variety of coffee grown on the Indonesian island of Java.

Many of the open source tools and APIs that most of the Java programmers use are from Jakarta Project, an umbrella project under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. Many people think that Jakarta got its name from the Indonesian capital, which is also the largest city in Java island. But Jakarta is not directly named after the capital city of Indonesia, nor after the Jakarta blue butterfly species. Instead, it is named after the conference room at Sun Microsystems where the majority of discussions leading to the project's creation took place. This was in turn almost certainly named after the city.

The Apache Software Foundation, however, got its name not from a city or island but from Apachean speaking Native Americans tribes.

One of the popular projects of Apache is Tomcat. Tomcat started off as a servlet reference implementation by James Duncan Davidson. Davidson had initially hoped that the project would become open sourced and, since many open source projects had O'Reilly books associated with them featuring an animal on the cover, he wanted to name the project after an animal. He came up with Tomcat since he reasoned the animal represented something that could fend for itself. O'Reilly published their Tomcat book with a snow leopard on the cover.

Ant, a software build automation tool, was developed as a side-effect of the creation of Tomcat as an open source project. According to Ant's original author, James Duncan Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat Tool". However, later explanations go along the lines of "ants do an extremely good job at building things", or "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times their own" - describing what Ant is intended to be.

Animal has been a favorite for the software name or logos. Many believe the animal name or an animal as logo provides better brand value. The open source community is ahead of others in this case. Be it PostgreSQL "Blue Elephant Head" or MySQL's "Sakila" dolphin.
The origins of choice of these animals are mysteries. "MySQL logo - a jumping dolphin - symbolizes the speed, power, precision and good nature of the MySQL database and community", according to MySQL website. The PostgreSQL elephant might have come from the "Slony", Jan Wieck's replication system for PostgreSQL, which literally means "Elephant".

Even mythical characters and animals also found a major place in software names. The "Phoenix" (also called Firebird) is a legendary Arabian bird in the ancient mythologies said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix. "Phoenix FirstWare Connect" is the BIOS-based browser of Phoenix Technologies. The open source RDBMS Firebird, also gets its name from Phoenix and has a Phoenix as its logo. The latest to join in this club is Mozilla's popular browser FireFox, which was earlier known as "Phoenix" and then changed to FireBird, then to FireFox, all to avoid trademark conflicts.

Another mythical spirit "Thunderbird" is the cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla's complete Internet suite SeaMonkey, however, got its name from tiny brine shrimp.

In today's Java world, Eclipse has become the most popular IDE. The name "Eclipse" was perceived as encouraging the demise of Sun. But it turned out Sun wasn't the target of the Eclipse moniker. According to then IBM CTO, Lee Nackman, the name "Eclipse" was chosen to target Microsoft's Visual Studio product. "Eclipse had a good ring to it and we liked the idea of eclipsing Visual Studio," Nackman said. Ironically, the Eclipse has gone on to eclipse Sun's NetBeans in terms of community support and overall ecosystem.

References:

• JavaWorld.com


• wikipedia.org