Some people are obsessed with names when it comes to software products: Ubuntu Linux names its releases, as does Fedora Linux. Eclipse is doing it too (Fortunately, those projects still have a numbering scheme below the name-hood). And people are using those names. But why, I ask?
The answer is obvious: Humans are accustomed to names – we name everything. But when it comes to software this has its problems: How am I to remember that Fedora “Laughlin” is older than “Lovelock”? Reading mailing lists or pages found through searches where people are “name-dropping” release names is a nightmare! Especially since search engines confront me with a mixture of old and new content.
Some projects seem to at least have a convention to indicate version progress by using consecutive initial characters, but can I count on it?
On the other hand, some use a combination of numbers and names. Microsoft uses it – They name software products roughly by the year of release. Good thing.
So, if you are responsible for naming an important project: Don’t. Use the project name and its version number. Please!