The next release of Elementary OS was named as Elementary OS Isis for quite some time. In Greek mythology, Isis is the goddess of health marriage and love. While the first Elementary OS release was named Jupiter, King of gods in Roman mythology, the current Elementary OS Luna is named after Roman mythology goddess Luna.
But last week, Elementary OS announced that the upcoming release will be called Freya, based on Norse goddess of love and beauty. This is done to avoid any controversy as ISIS (Islamic State In Iraq and Syria) is a ruthless terrorist group waging war in Iraq and Syria.
As Cassidy James wrote on Elementary OS blog:
While Isis worked well, there is currently an active militant group in Iraq and Syria commonly known as “ISIS” (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). elementary obviously has no ties to that group—and we don’t think people will get us confused—but we want to both recognize the ongoing turmoil and choose a less controversial name.
In my opinion, there was no real need of changing the name as people are not that naive to think that Elementary OS is any how linked to ISIS just because it has Isis in its name. What do you think? Is the name change a right step?
It’s just smart to distance oneself from controversial names. For instance, the militant group ISIS may not have plans for you now, but in the future ISIS (or one of its rogue members or proponents) may commandeer, manipulate, mangle, distort, misrepresent, daesh-ify your GNU/Linux-based distro, or someone of that ilk may decide that you’re being blasphemous against Muhammad or Allah by using the name ISIS for a GNU/Linux-based distro.
Conversely, someone who is anti-ISIS may decide that you’re in league with them or that your OS glorifies ISIS. And that someone may decide to take malevolent actions against you or your distro’s users.
It’s not about being a wimp or a coward or a pansy. It’s about proactively minimizing the likelihood that some wing-nut will attack someone in the Elementary OS community over a perceived (or mis-perceived) issue like the similarities between Isis and ISIS. By the same token, you wouldn’t want to call it ISIL.
Changing the name from ISIS is smart. But I’m not sure that Freya is a risk-free alternative. What if someone hates Scandinavian/Germanic mythology? What if someone hates the white people? You’ll be getting attacks from other races condemning your OS because of its imagined worship of northwest Europeans. Oy, vey!
I find it interesting that no one corrected him upon his misinterpretation of Isis. She was an Egyptian Goddess not a Greek one. The Greek version of Isis would actually be Hera. Not meaning to cast stones, but… lol ;)
Don’t give those jerks groups more importance than they are and deserve!
BTW, whenever I boot up Ubuntu, on the screen there’s the repeated key ;;;;;;;;;; which goes on until I stop it. Once I log in, that key gets added whenever I type O, as in co;me to; the Iglo;o;.
Any ideas?
Do you have some custom script running at boot?
Im beginning to think it’s the hardware (it’s an eeePC 1000HAB by the way).
I’ve reinstalled Ubuntu but it’s still there. :(
I’m not sure why it should have any script running cos it’s a fresh install. how do I find out if there’s one anyway?
Ok, for some reason the keys have set themselves aright. No more ; after o and w once I’m logged in.
But every reboot the ; appears, and infinitely populates the passphrase box and won’t stop till I press a key, and then I’ll have to delete or backspace everything it typed. :(
Freya does have a nice ring to it.
I always think of Catwoman’s pet cat when I hear Isis, not the militant group. :)
I only watched Batman movies, never read the comics :(
Havent read any Batman comics either.
I just know Isis from the Batman: The Animated Series cartoons. Man, those were the times. :)
ooooh, you might like Sex Criminals, the comics. Very nice.
dude Freya was that weapon of mass destruction created by schneizel in Code Geass. bad name.