nanomsg is trademarked by the inventor of the protocols. (He does seem to take a fairly loose stance with enforcement though -- since he advocates using names that are derived from nanomsg, as long as its clear that there is only one "nanomsg".)
Right now my implementation is known as "bitbucket.org/gdamore/sp". While this works for code, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Its also a problem for folks wanting to write about this. So the name can actually become a barrier to adoption. Not good.
I suck at names. After spending a day online with people, we came up with "illumos" for the other open source project I founded. illumos has traction now, but even that name has problems. (People want to spell it "illumOS", and they often mispronounce it as "illuminos" (note there are no "n"'s in illumos). And, worse, it turns out that the leading "i" is indistinguishable from the following "l's" -- like this: Illumos -- when used in many common san-serif fonts -- which is why I never capitalize illumos. Its also had a profound impact on how I select fonts. Good-bye Helvetica!)
go-nanomsg already exists, btw, but its a simple foreign-function binding, with a number of limitations, so I hope Go programmers will choose my version instead.
Anyway, I'm thinking of two options, but I'd like criticisms and better suggestions, because I need to fix this problem soon.
1. "gnanomsg" -- the "g" evokes "Go" (or possibly "Garrett" if I want to be narcissistic about it -- but I don't like vanity naming this way). In pronouncing it, one could either use a silent "g" like "gnome" or "gnat", or to distinguish between "nanomsg" one could harden the "g" like in "growl". The problem is that pronunciation can lead to confusion, and I really don't like that "g" can be mistaken to mean this is a GNU program, when it most emphatically is not a GNU. Nor is it GPL'd, nor will it ever be.
2. "masago" -- this name distantly evokes "messaging ala go", is a real world word, and I happen to like sushi. But it will be harder for people looking for nanomsg compatible layers to find my library.
I'm leaning towards the first. Opinions from the community solicited.
posted by Garrett D'Amore at 9:27 AM on Mar 27, 2014
"Names are Hard"
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