The Lynx project was originally named independently without thinking this far ahead. Since so much code and so many users already rely on it, we decided to stick with the name rather than change it just for open-sourcing.
Plenty of people have the same name, but if you call your child Brad Pitt, it will be interpreted as a reference to the famous guy bearing that name, and nobody will believe it is a coincidence.
Lynx doesn't have a large user base (I think) but it is installed by default on many linux distros. Having to install two programs with the same name is a pain which is only resolved by renaming one of them (at the distro or the user level).
Bit misleading. The analogy is closer to naming your child "Genevieve" when another Genevieve exists in the school. Lynx is a fairly common and well understood word.
> Lynx doesn't have a large user base (I think) but it is installed by default on many linux distros. Having to install two programs with the same name is a pain which is only resolved by renaming one of them (at the distro or the user level).
This is a fault of the distros. At some point keeping niche software will cause issues and conflicts.
> This is a fault of the distros. At some point keeping niche software will cause issues and conflicts.
I am not sure I agree with this argument. This gives a vibe of "make place for me, away with the old guard!"
What if someone called their program "vi" with the argument that noone uses vi anymore?
Besides, who decides what is niche and what isn't? Is a program like lynx which offers better accessibility features than mainstream browsers not worth distributing because it's niche?
Blaming the distros for already having software named like what you decide to call yours isn't terribly cooperative.
> How many people would know what Lynx is. My guess is very few.
And mine is that it's more than you think. Especially when compared to the number of people who know what vi is. Neither of us have figures to prove our points. My indirect argument was that the fact that lynx is included by default hints that I am not entirely wrong.
Your response to that is essentially that distros packagers don't know what they are doing. I won't get in a debate on the competency of people and accept this opinion as yours.
> You took my argument and basically butchered the main point.
This was absolutely not my intention. If I misunderstood your point, please correct me and tell me how I should have read it.
> Its trivial to understand why this is a bad argument (appeal to emotion)
No. The argument for including software that have specific accessibility features is not to appeal to your emotions. The reason for having accessible software is that, as niche as it may be it is useful. No one should care how non-disabled users feel about this, and certainly no one should care whether you or I think this is too niche.
Generally agreed. I think unique names for projects are nice, but unless the projects have very similar goals, I think having the same name isn't really a big deal.
You can call it lynx all day long, but it won't be lynx in the Ubuntu repositories as that name is taken, and as you can see above, there are no duplicates.
