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Comment by nickysielicki | Hacker News Reader

His earliest blog post on this is from November. Midori the web browser, which I figured this would be about, was first released in 2007.

I don't understand how this type of name overlap happens. It's got to be of the, "Yeah, I know this obscure name is already used for an open source project and I just don't care" variety.

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> "Yeah, I know this obscure name is already used for an open source project and I just don't care"

Curious how you jump to this conclusion. Not to burst your bubble, but the overwhelming majority of programmers even have likely never heard of the Midori browser. Additionally, the Midori browser did not invent this word, it is a Japanese word...and also the name of a band, the name of an olympic figure skater, the name of a liquor, all predating the browser.

Why on earth would people working on an internal Microsoft project go searching for obscure open source projects that might be using the same name before agreeing to move forward with the name?

I have nothing to say to that. You're 100% right.

FWIW, I recall there was a terminal emulator called Power Shell back in the day. I don't know if we bought the name or...500 lb. Gorilla...

I must admit that i was also expecting an article about Midori the web browser, only to get disappointed when opening the article.

Luckily nothing stops me from closing the article again and move on :)

Midori, the operating system whose development he is retrospectively blogging about, began sometime around 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system) and the name was leaked in 2007.

That Wikipedia article says that Midori is based off "Singularity", and that Singularity started in 2003. It says that this more recent project with a name of Midori was a recreation / continuation of that, and only took the name in 2012, still 5 years after the browser.

It does not say it only took the name in 2012, it implies that it was named Midori by November 2007 when the name leaked, and if you are doubtful, you can check Google Books and find multiple published mentions of the MS Midori OS in books all dating to 2008 attributing it to other sources, such as a September 2008 article on Midori: https://redmondmag.com/Articles/2008/09/01/Will-Microsoft-Ta... in which there is no mention of it having been renamed recently. Since the web browser was first released in December 2007 according to WP and was extremely obscure, it is entirely probable that the OS was named either before or in total ignorance of the browser, and you are being a paranoid ass.

I read an article in 2007 about it being called Midori. It was long before the browser.

The entire point of using an internal codename is that you can assign it quickly, and move on to working on the essential problem.

You don't need to worry about name collisions/trademark infringements etc,and the otherwise interminable legal/bureaucratic/marketing/administrate concerns because it is not intended for external use.

It happens often that really unknown projects come up with really good names, never go anywhere, and just continue to use up that name. It's kind of like domain name squatting, and it's a shame. Swift and Go! both existed prior to Swift and Go. I'm fine with Swift and Go. And Midori. (Who ever heard of Midori?)

I don't know, either, but, for what it's worth, Joe has said that Midori began around ~2008.

Edit: 2003 according to above comment. I got my year from "The project included [...] looking more like the Microsoft of today [...] than the Microsoft of 8 years ago when the project began" - dated 2015.

http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/

I think it's forgivable considering that they were both apparently in their infancy around the same time, and neither could have reasonably known about the other.

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