ur

This module provides the ur init and supervision system.

ur used to be called tini, which is pronounced the same “teeny”. It is “init” spelled backwards, and the name is supposed to invoke the feeling of being small because I would like ur to remain small. However, someone else started using the name first.

I also considered minit, but that was also taken.

I then used sup, but I found out that that was taken as well, which made me sad because sup is a great play on words: it can be pronounced like “soup,” as in “superviser,” and “‘sup,” as in “what’s up?” The latter fits because it would tell users what is up, or running on a machine.

I like software names that are plays on words. And are also three letters or less, if they are a command-line tool, which sup is. So I was sad when I found it was taken.

Then, after a lot of time on Google Translate, I found omu, which is a portmanteau and abbreviation of “omukulu” (Lugandan for “boss”), “umuyobozi” (Kinyarwandan for “boss”), “Mulailah” (Indonesian for “start”), and “mulakan” (Malayan for “start”). And a cursory search of GitHub and the Internet turned up nothing to worry about. But I didn’t like the name.

So I tried again.

After trying a lot of key combinations that I thought might be easy to type on both QWERTY and Dvorak, I found rud and sud. I decided to try to apply backronyms to both. For rud, I decided on “runner” for the first word and “daemon” for the last word. For sud, I decided on “supervisor” for the first word and “daemon” for the last word. But I couldn’t figure out a word for “u.”

So I searched a dictionary for every word that began with “u,” and I eventually found “universal,” which I liked. Unfortunately, “universal” is an adjective, and in English, adjectives come first. Then I had the idea to put the “u” first to make ur, the “universal runner.”

Also, the ancient city of Ur fascinates me, as the city where Biblical Abraham started. I consider myself a member of the House of Israel, and Abraham is the first of the Patriarchs of the House of Israel.

And to go even further, the term “ur-language” is a way of referring to an original language. Likewise, ur would be the “ur-process” of a machine, the original process.

So I was happy with ur, especially since a search of the Internet and Github turned up nothing.

So I named it ur.