Sure, the joke is clever, a recursive acronym “GNU is Not Unix”, cute. But they could have used absolutely any letter as the first letter and that joke would still work. So why didn’t they choose something pronounceable? I mean, the option was right there. ENU, ANU, INU, ONU, SNU, those would all work. Hell, even NNU would work, you could pronounce it “the new project”.
Not sure if that’s the reason but I heard that gnu was chosen because gnus, the animal, are essentially one herd spread across Africa. A gnu that loses its particular herd, e.g. while crossing a river, can join any other. Supposedly that’s not the same for other herd animals.
My only gripe with GNU is the acronym itself.
Sure, the joke is clever, a recursive acronym “GNU is Not Unix”, cute. But they could have used absolutely any letter as the first letter and that joke would still work. So why didn’t they choose something pronounceable? I mean, the option was right there. ENU, ANU, INU, ONU, SNU, those would all work. Hell, even NNU would work, you could pronounce it “the new project”.
Not sure if that’s the reason but I heard that gnu was chosen because gnus, the animal, are essentially one herd spread across Africa. A gnu that loses its particular herd, e.g. while crossing a river, can join any other. Supposedly that’s not the same for other herd animals.