Posted on by Daniel Holbach

Finding a good name…

… can sometimes block the whole operation. Just think of good bands that never formed, events that were never launched, startup companies with brilliant ideas, they all didn’t happen because people gave up after two evenings of “How are we going to call the baby?”

This case is less melodramatic and everything is already in place, we’re just lacking the good name: the MOTU Council will approve ubuntumembers for their good contributions to the MOTU team. Everybody’s happy with the general idea, some people were less happy about the name of ‘Universe Hackers’. Lots of other ideas around “Masters of the Universe”, around “Universe something”, around “Contributing Developer something” were mentioned and turned down for a number of reasons:

  • “hacker? sounds like cracker”
  • “code monkey? no way!” (although that was intended for a different team)
  • etc etc.

The team will consist of people who have done good work within the Ubuntu Developers team and are recognised for their contributions and will join the Ubuntu Developers soon too.

Do you have a good idea? Please add a comment to this post. 🙂

—
My 5 today: #203571 (ttf-wqy-zenhei), #198325 (roundcube), #215755 (fontforge), #185890 (python-bibtex), #193256 (glipper)
Do 5 a day – every day! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day

  • qhartman

    Are you looking for names for the individuals? Their “title”? It’s a bit ambiguous from your post. If so:

    “Acolyte of the Universe”
    “Supporter of the Universe”
    “Enthusiast Member”
    “Member with Distinction”
    “Lieutenant of the Universe”
    “Community Fellow”
    “Developer Fellow”

  • Dave Morley

    Cosmic Coders

  • Georg

    I think staying in the scope of the MOTU universe would be appropriate. So…
    Eternia is the center of the universe, the whole storyline revolves around it and the Star Seed, the center of the planet, a leftover from the big bang and source of power.

    “[…] Eternia used to be an incredibly advanced civilization that evolved through centuries of barbarism, enlightenment and scientific technology.” -Wikipedia

    I propose “Eternian”. Sounds kinda cool too *g*

  • mok0

    For something less serious than i.e. “Ubuntu Contributing Developer” or some such, I suggest: “Ubuntu Universe Astronaut”

    This reminds of someone who freely travels the Universe, building habitats and terraforming everywhere s/he arrives.

  • Well if they’re holding the universe together you should call them the “Gluons”, really.

  • In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the term “Universe hackers”. It’s what MOTU’s do afterall, isn’t it?

    Some people will mistakingly have something against the term “hackers” because they associate it with the term “crackers”. I think that it’s better to choose the best name for the team and then educate the people who don’t understand the name, when necessary.

    Some people want to use boring corporate sounding names for everything. They should stop trying to force their old fashioned ways upon us. The world is a very different place to what it was 5 years ago. Time for them to catch up 🙂

  • @Jonathan

    The unwashed masses and most of their thinking organs, namely tech journos, confuse hacker with cracker. It irks me to no end but that ‘s a fact of history we have been living with for more than 15 years now.

    @Danial Holbach

    Keeping in line with the He-Man and The Masters of the Universe theme, I think Men-at-Arms would be nice, as long as native USiAn English speakers understand that Men is the plural of the workd that refers to members of the human race and has no gender since the time of the Anglos and Saxons, until political correctness became the norm in the U.S.A.

  • nxvl

    Monkeys of the Universe!

  • There’s nothing wrong with the term “hacker”. If someone misunderstands it, consider it an opportunity to correct and educate them.

  • LaserJock

    @Jonathan: I’m not fond of “Hackers” because I feel like it’s saying that MOTU is about programming and not packaging. A number of people have said, “I’d like to help but I’m not a programmer”. No need to reinforce that idea.

    I would personally prefer something like “Universe Apprentices” and for u-u-c, “REVU Contributors”.

  • How about parodying the ‘boring corporate’? motu-synergists :p ?

    Or perhaps motu-maintainers (in the debian spirit)?

  • Knights of the Round Table. A play on the round logo of Ubuntu. Also carries the regality and pride of being a vital part of maintaining the Ubuntu kingdom.

  • Fernando Ribeiro

    Parallel Universe

  • Daniel Holbach

    Thanks a lot everybody!

  • Hmmm, the Power of Onage! 😀

  • I’ve gone through the list of suggestions and I think motu-maintainers sounds the best; plus the name kinda speaks for itself.