internally we name each (worthy) internal version after an israeli model. when vulkan is in the mood he even puts a link to a picture in the official release notes. some of the latest girls that were honored with having a boxee version named after them include: zofit ben-hamu, karin magrizo, rana raslan.

comparing the boxee version naming system to that used for naming hurricanes draws several parallels.

• religious phase – unlike the weather service we never went through a religious phase. naming versions after saints was never an option. sorry Mother Teresa.
• sexist phase – while exclusive use of female names for hurricanes was dropped by the late seventies, we are still very much at that stage. i don’t predict us outgrowing this politically incorrect, chauvinistic behavior until we get some more female talent on the team (and even then i believe extreme measures will be required to achieve change)
• easy to pronounce names – while i guess it is important for hurricane names to be easily pronounced by meteorologists speaking English, Spanish, French and Dutch, we don’t take pronounceability into account. for all we care you can break your teeth saying the name. the one and only criteria is hotness.
• letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not included – no such thing in the boxee naming system. we don’t shy away from a challenge. while the World Meteorological Organization may find it too hard to come up with names beginning with Z or Q, we will stop at nothing to find a qualified candidate (even if it means going over all the copies of last year’s Maxim magazine)
• retiring & recycling names – we don’t have a policy of retiring names, not even if the version is really buggy, and we don’t intend to recycle names either. there is plenty of inspiration out there, it will be a waste to go over the same names again and again. however, if new “evidence” surface it may warrant a repeat appearance.

the next step for us is globalization. israel was a natural place for us to being with, but we’re very close to the end of the hebrew alphabet, and it’s time for us to look into new countries/girls to honor.

disclaimer:
we don’t keep lawyers on a retainer, thus this post has not been reviewed by a legal counsel (or by anyone else for that matter). the views expressed in this post are my own (though i believe they are shared by the rest of the team). if this post offended your religious/gender/political/etc. feelings/beliefs/convictions i sincerely apologize.