This post is addressed to people who are the authors of the idea
of giving the program its name - amaroK. These are centainly bitter
words here, but I feel obliged to share with You my opinion
about the program name.

I believe that very few of peple who read this post know where does the
word \'amarok\' come from. I believe that those who do know (maybe except for
amaroK team) would sign below my words and agree with my opinion at least
to some extent. \'Amarok\' is the title of Mike Oldfield\'s music album,
from 1990. This is one of the discs in my CDs collection that I always
listen to with much pleasure and never get bored with... As I am one
of Mike\'s fans, seeing the name of this album as the name of some program
stings my eyes.

In my opinion You should immediately change the program name, stopping
abusing someone else\'s creativity.

You may aswer: \"But we didn\'t know that someone used this word before us!\"
I just don\'t believe that. You can\'t find this word in any dictionary, as
it means nothing. You may compute the probability of generating such
word randomly. You just stole the idea.

You may, of course answer in other way: \"We are also Mike\'s fans and just
want to make his music more popular!\".
But that\'s not the way to do it! By giving such name to your program You
just make more and more people confuse \'amarok\' with some piece of software.
I doubt that the origin of the name is mentioned anywhere in the program help,
about box or wherever. If it is, i am sure that virtually no one would
see that it is there, until he aspecially searches for it (I didn\'t
download the program, and I won\'t as long as it uses it\'s current name).

Your answer may also be: \"The law doesn\'t prohibit us using that name\".
As far as I know, you are right here. Amarok is not a trademark (as for
example \"Harry Potter(TM)\" is). BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT !!!
The point is your honour. I understand, that You wasn\'t creative enough to
invent a cool name for your program. But that is not a reason to steal the
ideas from someone else. You shouldn\'t do such things just because no one
would be able to punish You for that. Do you know why some people decide
not to make their great programs open source (like Thomas Biskup, author
of great ADOM, best wishes from me here!)? Because they don\'t want some
people who think like You to take advantage of their work and talent without
showing enough respect. I didn\'t check wether your program is open source,
but from my point of view You present the same way of thinkink
as the enemies of that noble idea.

The only way You can gain your honour back in my eyes is to change the
name of the program IMMEDIATELY. \"Lindows\" was forced to do it. You still
can do it from your own will, showing respect to Mike,
whose fans You might claim to be.

As a sign of my good will I give You my true name and email address.
I am of course open to any discussion. I would like to hear what do forum
readers think about it. I would also welcome any word of explanation from
amaroK authors for what they did.

Best regards,
Marek Rucinski

In my opinion You should immediately change the program name, stopping
abusing someone else\'s creativity.

Come on, Mike Oldfield didn\'t invent the inuit language. (amarok means wolf in inuit)

amaroK was chosen because one of the creators is an Oldfield fan, and he has said so publicly:

http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/04/1746210&tid=130&tid=75

And, I also find your argument fairly absurd. First, do you honestly think Oldfield would be upset at this? I can\'t imagine *any* artist wouldn\'t take this as a compliment, and unless there was particular IP that they needed to protect, I can\'t imagine anyone complaining.

Moreover, it\'s not like Oldfield hasn\'t done essentially the same thing. \"A Midsummer\'s Night\'s Happening\", \"A Lover for All Seasons\". Should Shakespeare or Zinnemann be upset with Oldfield? Shouldn\'t Oldfield\'s honor demand he change those titles?

Or even worse, how does Arthur C Clarke feel for being completely ripped off by Oldfield? How can Oldfield even pretend to have the same creativity as Clarke? Clearly his honor demands that he change the name of \"Songs of Distant Earth.\"

I find your complaint ridiculous. Nobody is going to confuse Amarok the software with amaroK the album. Nobody somehow forgets and takes a bite of out of their red iMac. If they know the album, they will note the homage. If they don\'t know the album, maybe they\'ll learn, and more people will come to respect Oldfield.

Sure, some people won\'t know that the programmers took the name from Oldfield, but hey, you didn\'t know Oldfield took a name from Clarke.

Post edited by: mlmitton, at: 2005/03/25 02:17

We now have conclusive proof for John Gabriel\'s Internet **** Theory.

Gah, lets hunt every one of those Inuit **** down! They stole the name RIGHT off this album. How can we let such crimes go unpunished!?

eean wrote:

We now have conclusive proof for John Gabriel\'s Internet **** Theory.

Not really. I am not staying anonymous...

Narg wrote:

Gah, lets hunt every one of those Inuit **** down! They stole the name RIGHT off this album. How can we let such crimes go unpunished!?

I don\'t consider it a crime... It just feels annoying to me to see my beloved album\'s name on a software.

Or even worse, how does Arthur C Clarke feel for being completely ripped off by Oldfield?

He writes what he feels about it on sleeve notes of the album...
I didn\'t saw anything like that from Mike about amaroK...

oldfieldfan wrote:

I don\'t consider it a crime... It just feels annoying to me to see my beloved album\'s name on a software.

I often listen this album and I love it. But as Olivier says, this word\'s from the inuit language. And there is so many software out there using even plain English words (think about the explorer trademark years ago), should they all use fantasy names? That\'s just rediculous.
I maybe would agree, if amarok would be a fantasy name invented by a artist. But it is not.

By the way, maybe read this:
http://www.amadian.net/faq.htm#4.5
It\'s not as clear as one might think where this album title cames from.

I maybe would agree, if amarok would be a fantasy name invented by a artist. But it is not.

OK, I must agree with You here. I thought the name was invented by Mike himself (in its exact form it doesn\'t seem to mean anything). It seems it isn\'t so... However, if I were an Oldfield\'s (or Clarke\'s) fan, I wouldn\'t use that name.

oldfieldfan wrote:

OK, I must agree with You here. I thought the name was invented by Mike himself (in its exact form it doesn\'t seem to mean anything). It seems it isn\'t so... However, if I were an Oldfield\'s (or Clarke\'s) fan, I wouldn\'t use that name.

On the other hand (as mentioned before), it\'s quite cool to play Mike Oldfield music in a media player which has the same name as one of his compositions.
And there\'s always a good story if someone asks what\'s about that unusual name.

Cheers.

play amaroK in amaroK opens a window from the developers... JUST TRY IT! :laugh:

LOL!
An Easter egg found just after Easter
Nice idea, devs!