Dear Frater 219/tftv256 and X Consortium, while we innocent, ignorant end users respect your right to call your software as you want, we hope you would also sometimes consider us and our needs.
- X - I realize that you consider X Windows System, Version 11 to be, having been in past, present and until the day when X Windows System, Version 11 becomes obsolete, among the 26 most important software engineering projects, but your opinion is not a common consensus.
Let me clarify: Using a single letter, especially such letter as 'X' that has been attributed to be the most mysterious character and is in general considered one of the more significant letters, implies certain importance your software may possess. Single letter always sounds more striking than a long string of letters such as this one (865 so far). Now, the supply of single-letter names is very scarce. In english, there are no more than 26 such available!
Conclusion: Although letter 'X' to refer to this software is the most common practise today, it carries implied superiority to competition with more elaborate names, such as Berlin or Microsoft Windows.
- X Windows System: This name is proper: it is descriptive, telling the exact purpose of software in its name, which is of great convenience to those unfortunate ones who are not familiar with your Product, but still carries an unique identifier, 'X', with it to distinguish from other Windowing Systems. However, this name as such is the 'long form name', which generally aren't very practical in everyday speech.
Attempt to create a short form name: 'X Windows System', hmm, well, if we choose 'X', we lose any connection to purpose of software, in addition to problems mentioned in item one. 'Windows System' loses identifier and thus is unacceptable, 'X System' is still too generic since there can be many systems. 'Windows' is taken, and 'System' is, as name, worth null. Thus, 'X Windows' would be the most logical choice. Alternative spellings might be X-windows, Xwin or a software disaster of biblical portions. And lo!, so we see why and how the common populace reached name 'x-windows'.
- X Version 11: This item is really the item one with version number added. Thus, it carries all the faults mentioned in item one. In addition, it is notable that version number as a part of name may not be the most sensible thing. Usually version numbers are only mentioned when the number truly is significant. Consider the difference between sentences "I ran X on linux and it crashed" vs. "I ran X on linux 2.3.10 and it crashed". The latter clearly implies that the crash in second sentence was caused specifically by this development version of linux kernel, while first only slightly suggests that it might have been something about linux, but don't go killing penguins yet. So, using 'X version 11' as a general name for your window system constantly carries a stress on the version number with it, which is not always desirable.
In addition to above, name 'X version 11' is too long and commonly collapses back to 'X', which turns this into item one.
- X Windows System, Version 11: See items 2 and 3.
- X11: This name seems to be the common standard name for X Windows System, Version 11 in technical contexts. Likely it is because it is sufficiently short and conveys the message without the ambiguity that plain 'X' would have. Still, it is just a hybrid of items 1 and 3, and as such, has the implied self-promotion and the hollow emphasis on version number.
Finally, a question: Why is 'X-windows' such a bad name? Are you afraid that it will get confused with Microsoft Windows? Admittedly Microsoft's choice of operating system name was among the most poor naming choices ever made, at least to the software community, but instead of yielding, fight. Do you, a proud defender of your home nation, stop calling yourself chauvinist because the treasonous feminists have given this proud term an undeserved implication of misogynia? Does a circus geek with long traditions of being laughed at by the audience stop calling himself a geek, simply because some pencil-necked kids who like computers and have pale skin have caused the term 'geek' to be overloaded with ideas of obsession with computers? No! Call yourself 'X-windows', and do it with pride, and one day they will be confusing Microsoft Windows with X-Windows, not the other way around.