Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!dont-send-mail-to-path-lines
From: jim@ncd.COM (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What's in a name: "X Window"
Message-ID: <9103300500.AA04153@hansen.com>
Date: 30 Mar 91 05:00:04 GMT
References: <1991Mar29.231159.24791@ico.isc.com>
Sender: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 23


    For a long time, everyone seemed to refer to X as X Windows.  There
    were lots of comments explaining it's not called X Windows, it's a 
    window system called X.  In the last year or so, I've seen many references
    in magazines to "X Window".  Clearly such references are describing
    the "X Window System".  Did "X Window" become an official name while
    I wasn't looking?

Nope.  But, most people have given up, although it's still nice to use the 
proper name since X Window System is a trademark.


    Somehow, statements such as "One of the key advantages
    of X Window is that..." don't look, sound, or feel right to me.

Yup, it's rather clumsy.  One of the arguments all along has been that "X
Window" (or X-Windows or whatever) sounds cheap and more like a bastardization
than the full name.  If MIT were a three-letter company instead of a 
university (some might argue the distinction :-), its lawyers would probably be 
more interested in protecting the proper use of the trademark.

More to the point, in the grand scheme of things there are more important
battles to be fought.