Naming Process

This process has been formally blessed by the OSIdM4HE StratOrg Team.

Continue soliciting candidates and opinions on candidates via the existing "Name Canoodling" page (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/OSIdM4HEteam/Name+Canoodling); and/or email to the osidm4he@internet2.edu list up to midnight local time, Tuesday, April 10.

OSIdM4HE StratOrg will then make the final decision on Wednesday, April 11

As of 11-April the official name for the thing formerly known as OSIdM4HE is now "Cifer", Community Identity Framework for Education and Research.  
This opens the door to talking about the Cifer Identity Registry, Cifer Provisioning, the Cifer Community, etc.

See Initiative Naming Considerations for background on naming issues.

Current candidate names (Note: Add rows as needed. Each candidate name must have at least one named proposer)

Candidate Name

Proposer

Vote

Comments

Descartes

Dedra

 

Personally, I like the name, but I just noticed that there is already an open source project called Descartes in Sourceforge for grid mapping.  Also, when googling this you get millions of hits on the "I think therefore I am BLANK" where filling in the blank has lots of connotations to religion, politics, sarcasm, etc.   (Bill Y)
This name has some pronunciation issues -- Benn

O4

Ken, RL"Bob"

 

O4 is Tetraoxygen  O4.com is taken but O4IAM.com is open.  Also Op4IAM.com available.  Tag Line "Open 4 Education". 
o4.mw is now registered (by Keith), just in case.  mw for "m"iddle"w"are
The number 4 is considered unlucky in many Asian cultures -- Benn

I did confirm with a local expert in East Asian matters that "4" is not auspicious.  He has a "4" in his NetID and he is not happy about it.  --Keith

O5

RL"Bob"

 

5 is lucky (or luckier) to those who don't like 4. Many fewer IT-related hits than O4. O5.com apparently in use, O5.org squatted but not in use. Backronym possible:  Optimal Open Operational Organizational Ontologies ...

The five can be glossed as the five work streams: Registry, Provisioning/Integration, Access Management, Authentication, Shared Services.
The "o" can be for open or for $0.

Concern with 0-anything is that it emphasizes Open, but not community and doesn't mention or infer IAM

Miami

RL"Bob"

 

 

CollabIAM

Bill Y

 

Collaborative IAM for Higher Education. 

CommunityIAM

Matt Sargent

 

Along the lines of what Bill Y has proposed I suppose.  CommunityIAM.org and communityiam.com are available.  Reflects the built and supported by a community of folks idea.

OPSIAM

Bill Y

 

OPen Source Identity and Access Management.  OPSIAM.COM and .ORG are available.  COOPIAM or COOPSIAM are also available.

FIFER

Benn

 

Free Identity Framework for Education & Research

CIFER

Hampton

+3

Community Identity Framework for Education & Research (a twist on Benn's, but focuses on collaboration), cifer.org is available (I think). [OSIdM4HEteam:RLM] Lots of existing IT-related hits. "Cipher" means "zero" to some (more in UK?).  Is that a bad thing necessarily? $0, €0, ¥0



cifer.org etc. all taken, but cifere.org is available.  "Community Identity Framework for Education and Research Environments"
or we could use cif-er.org.

ciferproject.org pre-emptively registered by KeithH.  We may end up with a different choice for domain name, but just in case...

Another variant: csifer: Community-Sourced Identity Framework for Ed & Res.

AlliedAIM, AlliedIAM, ThinkIAM, OpenAIM, AIMDock, AIMHub, TrueAIM, HarmonyIAM, etc.

Eric

 

Expanding upon previous ideas of trying to take the "IAM" and "AIM" acronymns and create something useful out of them, to varying degrees of effectiveness. I hadn't really heard "AIM" used much in our respective communities to refer to access and identity management, but the acronym is used out on Wikipedia's page on IdM

unicum

Hampton

 

Unique in Latin....but...might be a little to close to Unicon

cerif

Keith

 

cerif (pronounce "serif")  Community (or Collaborative) Ed & Research Identity Framework.

Yes, possibly misheard as "serif" which is a registered .com, but we'd be making a big deal about the "community" part in all our pitches.
..and yes, that would make all of us seraphim =)

arggh... Common European Research Information Format....  

edufice

Keith

 

.edu framework for identity, community edition.  No google hits. .net available, .org taken

eduFIRE

Eric

 

A variation on Keith's suggestion above, "Framework for Identity in Research and Education". I guess the edu part becomes redundant in that case (wink) . Nevermind, I should have checked first, edufire is already taken by a distance learning company. OpenFIRE might have been another possibility but it appears to be the name of an XMPP implementation.

Bill Y's noodling on March 28th, 2012

PlutonIAM - Or any of the other elements that end in ium changed to iam?  Probably do not want to shorten to the Plutonium two letter element with IAM tacked on the end (PUIAM)

CollabIAM - The Collaborative IAM solution.  Speaks directly to our mission.  Domain site is available.

Dedra's suggestion, March 20, 2012

...Oh, and about our name.  It would be so great to have one.  Did I already mention "Descartes". I think therefore IAM.  I know naming is not the topic of tomorrow's call, but I just thought I'd throw that out there again :-).

RL "Bob"'s mention of "O4", January 9, 2012

So we've just had our O4 F2F ...

Ken endorses O4, thinks that there could be useful catchiness related to "O2" for oxygen.  o4.org is squatted on by some guy named Dwayne.  It's short.  Potential confusion as to whether the first letter is capital-O or zero.  Potential confusion about whether it is a reference to 2004 for some reason.  There are some corporate hits for "O4", also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraoxygen.

Summary of Email Discussion Through 11/1/11

(KeithH note on 27-March-2012: I have lost my original enthusiasm for "Miami."  If someone wants it to remain in the running, just add it to the table above and put your name in the "Proposer" column.)

Proposal is "Miami" (derived from "Middleware for Identity and Access Management, Integrated" but not officially an acronym), used as follows:

  • Web site: http://miami.mw (registration in progress; mw short for middleware, in fact, it is Malawi's TLD, managed by the Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) in Chichiri, Malawi, http://sdnp.org.mw   )
  • The overall effort is The Miami Project, or perhaps The Miami Identity Project.
  • Another Benn idea that he inexplicably left off the original list of bullet points:
    • "Why Miami?"
    • Because like everything we do, it has IAM in the middle"
  • The effort is managed by the Miami Steering Committee.
  • The suite is the Miami Identity Management Suite (MIMS), or maybe the Open/Libre Identity Suite.
  • Products, APIs, etc that are compliant with the reference architecture/standards receive "IdentitySTAR" or "Miami Label" endorsements.
  • Workstreams are named with the description (Miami Registry Workstream), or after a city (Rio Workstream) which is more international and allows more flexibility in what workstreams can encapsulate.

FYI, Bill Yock did a very informal socializing of the MIAMI name with around 5 different people at Kuali Days conference.  Basic first reaction was "Huh?"  When I spelled out the acronym folks then said, "Oh, I get it, cute, but reminds me of..."  Seems like everyone has some preconceived notion of what Miami means.  For me it is Miami Vice.  :-)

Chris M's naming musings, Jan 10

I'm putting mine here b/c it's close in spirit to Bob's

Binafsa.  Swahili word for "self." Not used for any other known project, meaning that this project would be the top return to an Internet search. Not obviously tied to Kuali or I2 or any other player, but plays nicely with any of them (e.g., "Kuali Binafsa"). Biggest drawbacks: "afsa" is not a common English phonetic; and it sounds a little like "Binaca" the breath spray.  Not trademark-infringement alike, just mockery-stimulating alike....

RL "Bob"'s naming musings, Oct 28

I have been playing with names that are "Kuali-like" in that they begin with "K" (mostly) and/or are Indonesian-derived.  Is a name that evokes Kuali good?  I tend to think so, as it suggests a key relationship.  On the other hand it might tend to make people think that other orgs like Internet2/InCommon and Jasig are less inspirational.  But it's harder to think of clever abstract names evocative of "Internet" or "InCommon".  I'm leaving Jasig-like names to Benn ...

Anyway, some possibilities to ponder:

Kahayam :  "light" in Indonesian is cahaya, but this is used by a CMS product.  Change it to a K and it's Kuali-like.  Add an M and it sort of sounds like IAM.  Domain names available, no obvious Google collisions (Google suggests "kashayam" a health drink ...).

Kaliam :  Kind of like Kuali, no existing word inspiration, no apparent conflicts, maybe not so pronounceable.

Kualiam :  Maybe too much like Kuali, and not very pronounceable, but obvious ... (cjm: I see this as pronounceable: "KWAL - aye - am." Could also be spelled Kual-IAM or just KualIAM)

Alliam :  As in "All IAM".  alliam.com is cosmetics, alliam.org is taken but maybe buyable, lots of use of "all I am" out there.

Kompor : "stove" in Indonesian, playing on Kuali which is "bowl".  No obvious IT conflicts, kompor.com is for sale, kompor.org is available.  Pronounceable.

Tungku : another word for "stove" in Indonesian.  No IT conflicts, domain names available.

Hodeia : "cloud" in Basque.  No IT conflicts. hodeia.org, hodeia.com held by squatters.

Bill Yocks Musings on Names

I had some thouhts on hybrid names that concatenate IAM on the end of a root word that represents qualities or aspects that IAM is after. 

  • DiversIAM - The Diverse Identity and Access Management solution
  • UniversIAM - Universal (or University) Identity and Access Management solution
  • IdealIAM - The Ideal Identity and Access Management solution

Some have argued that these sound too grandiose for our humble community.  Or they may have commercially stylistic connotations like other vendor products.

  • No labels

1 Comment

  1. Christopher Mackie

    "Miami" is very clever, and I love it as a code-name for the project while in-development. But it faces the Internet-search problem. Googling Miami gives you billions of hits for the city. Googling "Miami Identity" gives you 238m hits; Googling "Miami IAM" gives you an error (Google reinterprets as "Miami I Am"). When you correct Google's error, you still end up with 37m hits or so.  Going to be very hard to get this project to rise to the top of that search-list.... MY $0.02: You really want a project name that is the #1-#3 hit when searched just on its name alone. You can get by with Name + identifier (e.g., "Miami + Identity") iff that gives you uniqueness. But if you need to type in 3-4 specific words to return a unique result, that's asking too much of your community, and it will annoy prospective adopters.

    Bill's suggestions are unique (in Google terms), all to the good. I'm inclined to prefer Bob's however (and I would lump my own contribution in with his), precisely because they don't try to specify what the project is about. These projects evolve; a name like Diverse or Universal (or even University--which will annoy colleges and CCs) may or may not reflect where they end up. And "Ideal" is a risky name for a project that is going to approach optimality only in very slow, painful steps....

    Based on some of the back-and-forth at our F2F in Phoenix, I've added "Binafsa" to the list. Its only virtue as compared to most of Bob's choices, is that it has absolutely no ties whatsoever to Kuali. If adoption by Kuali is in the project's future, then a renaming would make sense (I'd vote for Kual-IAM, to echo OLE); in the meantime, why invite any anti-Kuali sentiment that may be out there? Bob's Kompor and Tungku have the same virtue (though they're Indonesian, hence Kuali-by-association if someone's really looking to pick a fight).

    Hope this helps.  I'm going to use Miami in the F2F report, by the way--as I say, it's a great code-name.