[humorix] Open Source Projects Sell Naming Rights

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

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Warning:  humorous content ahead.
To prevent overdosage for the sensitive readers, please
take your discussions to humorix-l@nl.linux.org...
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Open Source Projects Sell Naming Rights
August 22, 2001

Need money quick to finance your open source project? 
Don't bother with banner ads, or T-shirts, or virtual
donation boxes.  Just sell the naming rights to your
software project on eBay.

"If you look at Freshmeat, most projects have a really
stupid name like 'Nonsense', 'Mono', 'fetchmail', or
'GIMP'," exclaimed Raymond S. Eric. "Why not sell your
project's name to the highest bidder?  It will still have a
stupid name, but at least you'll get some scratch for it."

RSE added, "I keep telling people it's possible to make
money from open source.  Well, here you go!"

One plucky open-source programmer auctioned the naming
rights to his Java Virtual Machine project on eBay.   He
received $1,210.24 in exchange for changing the name to
'starbucks'.

The programmer said, "Hey, if parents can sell the naming
rights of their children to the highest corporate bidder,
then why not auction off open-source names?  The company
gets free advertising throughout the Linux community, and I
get beer money.  It's a win-win situation."

Project titles aren't the only thing up for grabs.  In a
desperate attempt to stay in the black, Red Hat has
announced that certain programs bundled with the distro
will have their names changed in exchange for cash.  For
example, 'grep' will become 'google', 'mail' will become
'fedex', and 'ispell' will become 'webster'.  

Red Hat also hopes that companies will sponsor certain
features within the operating system.  For example, when
the kernel boots, the fsck program might announce, "fsck
version 1.2.3 sponsored by Western Digital Hard Drivers". 
Or the 'mv' command might say, "That mv operation was
brought to you by North-Northeast Airlines... mving you
through the friendly skies for over 4 years." Man pages,
FAQs, and HOWTOs might include shameless promotions, such
as, "Getting-Netscape-To-Run-Without-Crashing
Not-So-Mini-HOWTO... Sponsored by Opera."

While the new Red Hat policy has sparked some controversy,
particularly among Slashdot's resident class of armchair
naysayers, a spokesperson was quick to point out that the
company has set strict limits on what it will and won't
sell to the highest bidder.  "We're not going to try to
change the name of the kernel.  It won't be called
'Lennox'[1].  Or 'Linux Sponsored By Lennox'.  And we
definitely won't call it 'GNU/Linux'."

RHAT stock was up $0.000001 in light trading at the closing
bell today.


[1] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/articles/nov98/lenox.shtml

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