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Media Open Source Software

The XBMC Project Will Now Be Called Kodi 188

Posted by Soulskill from the lessons-in-picking-a-name dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Citing the problems caused by the lack of legal control over the current name and its long outdated origins as the reasons for the change, The Xbox Media Center team announced that they will switch the project's name to Kodi when version 14 is released later this year. If you're wondering how they picked the name Kodi, here's what they said: "We considered a TON of names. We had a number of requirements for the new name, such as being reasonably pronounceable in various languages and not be a mouthful to say, not be used as a trademark for someone else's media-related product, be easy to remember, etc. The group came up with a list of names and had our lawyer go over them. We then got back a smaller list that had been checked for various legal issues, and then we voted on the final name."
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The XBMC Project Will Now Be Called Kodi More

The XBMC Project Will Now Be Called Kodi

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  • Like the German discount store Kodi? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:00PM (#47590585)

    Good choice, guys.

  • This naming trend has to stop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by epyT-R ( 613989 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:20PM (#47590651)

    Why is it that OSS projects always seem to pick names that are, at best, obscure, and at worst, completely nondescriptive, yet have cutesy sounding names? I think it started somewhere around 2000. Please stop. Pick more functional names so I don't have to explain to people, "no, dolphin is the file manager and konqueror is the browser.'

    This also applies to libraries too. For example, anyone know what 'liborc', 'libnettle', 'libenchant', 'libmagic' or 'libcanberra' are without looking it up? I just picked these at random from /usr/lib. There are plenty more.

    Stop. Using. Cutesy. Names.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So that's why Microsoft is the Winner. Everything has an obvious name like "Word" and "Office" and "Media Player"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        Not that simple, but at least the terms are either obvious or intuitive enough for most to make the leap.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jedidiah ( 1196 )

          Microsoft has the benefit of being a market abusing behemoth with a large legal department. They get to play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. That's why Microsoft gets to get away with using trademarks that never should have been allowed.

          Smaller organizations actually have to obey the rules.

      • Re:This naming trend has to stop (Score:4, Insightful)

        by arielCo ( 995647 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:45PM (#47590745)

        Zune. Bing. Works. Visio. Vizact.

        And lastly, Bob.

        • All failures. Except, maybe, Visio, though I don't know anyone who actually uses it. I have a friend who own a Zune; he won it, used it once, and it's been holding down the bottom of his sock drawer ever since. You were trying to highlight OP's point, right?
        • Windows? It should be called "tiles" now and the amount of people that use it any other way than with whatever app they are running in a maximized window is also negligible since they started with the project.

      • Re:This naming trend has to stop (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:58PM (#47590805)

        Access (obviously a password management tool). Excel (clearly a standardised testing suite). Powerpoint (specialised electrical/electronic interface tool). SQL (who the hell knows what this is?). Outlook (Ah, this is obvious - a weather app).

        Janus, Snowball, O'Hare, Memphis, Daytona, Cairo*, Whistler*, Longhorn, Vienna.

        *Cairo was the codename for NT4.0 and Whistler the codename for xp, but x and p are the Greek letters chi and rho. Mind blowed yet?

        I like the OpenOffice/LibreOffice naming convention for the suite components: Write, Draw, Impress, Base, Calc, Math. I mean, how user friendly do you want it?

        • SQL (who the hell knows what this is?).

          SQL is Structured Query Language [wikipedia.org], an ISO standard since the 1980s. "Microsoft SQL Server" is as generic after the first word as "Windows Media Player". Other well-known products implementing subsets of the same standard have names like "SQLite", "MySQL", "PostgreSQL", and "ORACLE Database" (allegedly standing for "One Rich Aristocrat Called Larry Ellison").

          Janus, Snowball, O'Hare, Memphis, Daytona, Cairo*, Whistler*, Longhorn, Vienna.

          Codenames like these were not intended for use by the general public. For example, Whistler was renamed to "Windows XP" and Longhorn to "Windows Vista" b

    • Re:This naming trend has to stop (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:42PM (#47590737)

      This is the post Google age. You have to pick a nonsensical name so it will show up uniquely in a Google search. I'm a musician for example, and the days of naming your band something like "The Doors" is dead. That name would literally kill any chance you had at success in todays world.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Dolphin IS a browser. On Android. Which is an OS, not a robot.

    • Pick more functional names so I don't have to explain to people, "no, dolphin is the file manager and konqueror is the browser.'

      Yeah, "Safari" and "Opera" are such more functional names for a Web browser than "Konqueror".

      (And "Windows Explorer" is such a functional name for a file manager; it doesn't at all sound as if somebody tried to give it a name reminiscent of their Web browser.)

      • FYI, "Windows Explorer" is much older than "Internet Explorer". The browser was likely named to mimic the file manager, not the other way around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 2fuf ( 993808 )

      Cutesy eh? I like the sound of that. Would give a nice, hip ring to my app for filing tax returns.

    • applications have had random non function relational names for years, libraries shouldn't i agree but no matter what, this makes more sense than still going with the xbox media center, which works on everything except xbox's these days

    • Nonsensical names are everywhere. Microsoft .NET isn't a network protocol. ActiveX and DirectX have nothing to do with the X Window system, which in turn doesn't use cross-shaped windows. Apple's Lightning connector isn't rated for millions of volts. The Fiat Panda is not an animal and neither is Mozilla Firefox. eBay has nothing to do with an actual bay and Amazon is not even a Brazilian company. SAP doesn't even do anything with trees, much less their sap. The AMD Athlon has nothing to do with sports and

      • Why is .NET called that? I would love to know how the hell they came up with that, since it's definitely tricky to Google (do you include or exclude the leading period? Who knows!)

        • .Net was a promotional name applied to many products at the time, much like XP before that.

          Part of this was to align the current versions, and part of it was to emphasize the network capabilities being introduced. This all happened ~2002, and that was a very big thing (from a marketing perspective) at the time.

          This post [stackoverflow.com] seems to think the main reason was the latter.
          Partial list of .NET product names [neowin.net]

      • ActiveX becomes "Microsoft In-Browser Native Code API".

        If you explain it like that, then it's far more confusing. ActiveX is a component architecture - an evolution of COM / OLE. It's used throughout Windows for embedding libraries as plugins in other applications. Pretty much every Windows application uses ActiveX, the web browser is probably among the ones that uses it the least.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mpe ( 36238 )
      Why is it that OSS projects always seem to pick names that are, at best, obscure, and at worst, completely nondescriptive, yet have cutesy sounding names? I think it started somewhere around 2000.

      Hardly restricted to OSS, since plenty of proprietary software does the same.
      Microsoft Office is also a good example, since "Excel", "PowerPoint" and "Outlook" don't really describe the function at all. Ditto for web browsers, regardless of if they are OSS or proprietary.

    • Why is it that OSS projects always seem to pick names that are, at best, obscure, and at worst, completely nondescriptive, yet have cutesy sounding names?

      Because OSS projects are led by unpaid software engineers, and they don't have a communications/marketing department?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zdzichu ( 100333 )

      This also applies to libraries too. For example, anyone know what 'liborc', 'libnettle', 'libenchant', 'libmagic' or 'libcanberra' are without looking it up? I just picked these at random from /usr/lib. There are plenty more.

      I knew the purpose of 4 out of 5 of those libraries. But I'm the distro developer. Ordinary user has no business in knowing what library does what.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      At least they didn't go for a "broken keyboard" name like Flikr, or a URL based name featuring the TLD of some unstable island nation.

  • Redefine (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zAPPzAPP ( 1207370 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:24PM (#47590663)

    Couldn't they have just redefined the acronym?

    'Xenon Based Media Center'.. something something... It does not have to make sense. Just shorten it back to XBMC. There. No more trademark violation.

    We don't even know what the X in xbox stands for either. No one cares.

    • Couldn't they have just redefined the acronym? 'Xenon Based Media Center'.. something something...

      It's too late in the day for such a simple-minded solution to take hold.

      A Google search for "X Box Media Center" returns 426 million hits. "XBMC" 4 million hits.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "X Box Media Center" with quotes = 496,000 results

    • Xbox 360 == X Square Circle [uncyclopedia.co]. Can't be unseen.

      • I believe this is an example of Poe's Law. If I weren't familiar with the Uncyclopedia, I probably would've started repeating it as fact.

    • Couldn't they have just redefined the acronym?

      'Xenon Based Media Center'.. something something... It does not have to make sense. Just shorten it back to XBMC. There. No more trademark violation.

      We don't even know what the X in xbox stands for either. No one cares.

      ^^ This.
      The new name has nothing to do with XBMC or what it stands for. They may of well as called it Cloud, oh hail the buzz word that means fuck all and everything thats networked, at the same time.

      Kodi seems like a bit of a joke when the char Name[0] went +1;

      Xtra Bananas Monkies Claim

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TBoon ( 1381891 )

      Or if they "need" a name-change for whatever reason, why not XMBC (eXtendable Media Based Center)?.

      I've found myself accidentally calling it that already because it is easier to say, and no messing around with meaningless "shiny" names like pointed out elsewhere.

      • That assumes that keeping the name XBMC was their goal. I'm not sure that it was.

        I actually had ignored XBMC for years, believing that it's purpose was to create a media client for Xbox devices. It was not until this post that I realized it was something else entirely, and that I'm actually interested in it.

        (If I can figure out how to set up caching properly, I will be using it exclusively on my media box)

    • Re:Redefine (Score:4, Funny)

      by Sertis ( 2789687 ) on Sunday August 03, 2014 @12:06AM (#47592027)
      In the spirit of GNU, they should just make it Xbmc Based Media Center

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jon3k ( 691256 )
      or at least call it Kodi Media Center so people know wtf it is.

  • sounds like an outpost planet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @05:31PM (#47590687)
    i blame Exxon, they started it. Esso was so sublime.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I remember when they did this. It was the first time I was aware of that a computer was used in the naming process. IIRC they had an algorithm that generated inoffensive names that did not violate trademarks, that would have high recognition value, and had some sort of similarity to the original name. The computer went through 100s of thousands of names, came up with 100 or so that might work, Exxon was chosen from that group. I immediately thought it was just the sort of unaesthetic name a computer wou

  • I renamed mine "Chromecast" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    plus NAS plus DLNA plus Android phone plus Localcast. Works like a treat, the entire family is thrilled.

    XBMC couldn't even get the mouse cursor to work (I bought a wireless keyboard/accel-mouse for it) without closing the bug "get a better GPU".

    Wish the Open Source solution could have been what the family room needed.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I've got an Ouya, specifically to run XBMC. Runs pretty well with both the controller and a keyboard+mouse, except that the mouse speed is a bit high. Yes, it could use GigE and USB3.0, but running from the NAS it's fast enough and upscales what I've used, so far, in real time. Haven't found a good Linux Blu-Ray-to-stream converter, so no testing with those.

  • Kodi means flag in Tamil. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday August 02, 2014 @06:00PM (#47590819) Journal
    There was this long discussion in that site about the meaning of Kodi and whether or not it is suitable for this package. Kodi means flag, (the flappy thing that flutters from a flagpole flag, not flag meaning getting tired). That is if you say kodi like you say "midi" in the midi-skirt. If you say it more like ko-die it would mean an umbrella or a donation. I don't know much else about the software.

  • Obligatory Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strips/comi... [dilbert.com]

  • Awesome Media Center
    Xenu's Base Media Center
    Awesome Like Beer Media Center

  • Drop the requirement for the 3D graphics card, since it's NEVER EVER used for anything remotely 3D graphics related.
    Don't get me wrong, it's a great way for someone who doesn't know any better to run their CPU at 110% using software emulation, but otherwise a bad decision for their target market.

  • "Giant Douche" and "Turd Sandwich"?
  • - Xcellent Basic Media Center
    - Xstensible Brilliant Media Center
    - X11 Bitchin' Media Center
    - posiX, But others too, Media Center
    - Xquisite Basic Media Center
    - Xpert Basic Media Center
    - Xpertly Built
    - Xquisitely Built...

    I could go on... I'm with the others here that say they should have just kept the damn acronym. It's bad enough that we have to keep track of name changes that occur when projects change leaders or get forked. Businesses often stick with dumb names because it's better for the

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Xtremely Bodacious Man Cave

  • well, crap (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    this is going to make the 'XBMC' tattoo I got last month quite difficult to explain to people

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