The Hindu Business Line : `Cool name' as project acronym

The site www.floss.com declares itself to be `the world of dentistry online'. And www.108.redhat.com promises to take you into FLOSS. The acronym has nothing to do with your teeth, but means `Free/Libre/Open-Source Software', or simply free software, as Wikipedia explains.

That Mr Rishab Aiyer Ghosh first used FLOSS as a project acronym, and that in 2001 the European Commission (EC) used the phrase when funding a study on the topic are further nuggets of information on http://en.wikipedia.org.

Red Hat, for starters, is "the world's most trusted provider of Linux and open source, technology," says www.redhat.com. You can find more about Mr Ghosh on www.merit.unu.edu, the homepage of United Nations University's research and training centre.

But, why 108? "Every project requires a `cool name' and 108 has a large number of connotations," replies Mr Satish Mohan, Head Engineering, Red Hat India. "The 108 sun diameters from the earth of the sun were paralleled by the 108 beads of the rosary for a symbolic spiritual journey from the normal state to one of illumination," he says, the way Dr Subhash Kak responded in a 1999 interview on www.rediff.com. "You can pick your favourite meaning," suggests an FAQ on 108's site, giving a link to a Wiki article on the number, where you'd find a link to http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org, Koenraad Elst's Indology Site.

"What can I do here?" reads another question in the 108's FAQ. "You can find and share resources; build and fetch code; find and meet other developers, interact with them, collaborate with them; or learn more about Red Hat's partners and products," states the answer. "In 108, you can be a tourist, a resident, or maybe even grow up to be President some day."

What is 108's rationale? "We believe that everybody is a developer and a contributor. Be it as reporter of bugs, contributing code, evangelising, doing QA (quality assurance), doing documentation, doing localisation and in a number of other ways," Mr Mohan explains. "To encourage and motivate a more vibrant participatory collaboration we need to lower the barriers of entry."

However, those who enter the site should be ready for jaw-crushers such as LAMP (which refers to Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, and Python - comprising `more than two-thirds of the servers, databases, and scripting languages on the web today').

And Rojo Dojo. Oh, what's that?

"The mysteriously named Rojo Dojo area is for developers who want to take a walk on the cutting edge of open-source approach," says www.linux-watch.com. But http://rojodojo.108.redhat.com begins with a quote of Nietzsche: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

A dojo is a classroom where the mind, body, and spirit come together for training and betterment, says the site. Rojo Dojo is a place `outside of your normal development requirements'... . and it is "a reminder of what made programming exciting for you in the first place."