20 Jul
2025
20 Jul
'25
2:29 p.m.
in the spirit of linux (and unix in general) programs being named with
references of references, here's the following:
Torvalds sarcastically quipped about the name git (which is British English
slang for an unpleasant or silly person): "I'm an egotistical bastard, and I
name all my projects after myself. First 'Linux', now
'git'."[33][34] The
manual page describes Git as "the stupid content tracker".[35]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming
the joke here being that Linus did not name Linux after himself, someone else
made that choice for him:
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.[16]
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.
Therefore, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting
Torvalds.[16] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming
-jake
On Sun, 20 Jul 2025, Ad Poster via sudo-discuss wrote:
…because I was curious, and this is what I found:
What is the meaning of Git?
When Linus Torvalds made his initial commit of Git's code on April 7th 2005, he
supplied the commit message
<https://initialcommit.com/blog/git-commit-messages-best-practices>:
Initial revision of "git", the information manager from hell
In this commit, he included a file called README. The first paragraph in this file reads:
GIT - the stupid content tracker
"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not
actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a
mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the
dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually
works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
This is a stupid (but extremely fast) directory content manager. It
doesn't do a whole lot, but what it _does_ do is track directory
contents efficiently.