| Author |
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< Open Telecom Platform (OTP) ~ Should the T in OTP stand for Transaction or Telecom? |
Should we change the T in OTP from Telecom to Transaction?
| Yes |
| [ 9 ] 45% |
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| No |
| [ 11 ] 55% |
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Total Votes : 20 |
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| francesco |
 Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:44 am |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2006
Posts: 249
Location: London
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When Erlang Training and Consulting got its first non Ericsson client in 2000, I came across a group of very bright programmers who had developed a jabber proxy. What surprised what the fact that it had been written in Erlang without the use of any OTP. When I asked why, the response was
Quote: OTP means the Open Telecom Platform, and what we are doing has nothing to do with Telecom. That is why we did not look at it.
A paper of the experience was presented at the Erlang User Conference in 2001 is available here: http://www.erlang-consulting.com/euc2001/index.htm
Going back to 1998, when working for the consulting branch at Ericsson, an internal discussion was held on changing the name to Erlang System. Nothing permanent happened unfortunately.
A problem at the time was lack of documentation and tutorials. The OTP team has since done an amazing job at improving not only the layout and organization or the site, but also the contents. Trapexit has complemented this with lots of howtos and tutorials.
What remains is the Telecom. When giving a lecture for the CS faculty at Sussex University last month, the person who invited me asked me to stick to the acronym OTP and not expand it. The explanation was that audience might be put off by the word Telecom, as they worked with AI, Distributed systems and similar. There was also the risk of associating Erlang with something Ericsson is trying to flog (The Java vs marketing department at Sun stigma).
On the main page of Trapexit when introducing OTP, we have now replaced Telecom with Transaction. We are waiting for the reactions and are curious to see if others feel the same was as we do about this matter.
How does the Erlang community feel? Is it too late to change the name from Telecom to Transaction? Are there better options?
At the end of the day, it is Ericsson's and the OTP team's call, but we know they listen to us out here. Vote and let us know how you feel  .
Francesco |
Last edited by francesco on Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Mazen |
| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:49 am |
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Joined: 20 Jul 2006
Posts: 164
Location: London
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Imho, Transaction makes less sense... it sounds more like a buzzword then an actual sensible name.
IF the name should be changed (Which I suspect it won't, but one can always hope  ) then it should be changed to something that make sense... E.g. Erlang Standard Framework or Open Erlang Framework or something that actually says that this is a set of libraries and frameworks for Erlang.
/M |
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| rk |
| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:52 pm |
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Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 23
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francesco wrote: ... How does the Erlang community feel? Is it too late to change the name from Telecom to Transaction? Are there better options? ...
I vote for a name change. 'Telecom' suggests to me stuff which is only useful for people doing things with telephones. But keep 'OTP' because it's a brand name - it's too widely published to completely change.
'Transaction' would be OK. Here's a few other words starting with 'T' to throw into the mix.
testa, theme, tool, toolbox, toolkit, traffic, trustworthy, trusty, trustful, typecast, typology.
Maybe 'toolkit' would be a possible.
Richard. |
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| alexaandru |
| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:11 pm |
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Benchmarking Hobbist
Joined: 19 Jun 2007
Posts: 18
Location: Oradea, Romania
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I also think that 'Transaction' makes even less sense than Telecom. For one thing, Telecom has a historical reason for its existence, while Transaction has no meaning at all in the context. I think it would be nice to keep it, to remind the newcomers (and not just them) where it all started. BTW, I'm a newcomer been studying Erlang for about two weeks now. Ok, I was puzzled by OTP, at least until I read the FAQ Then it all made sense, but anyway, I was puzzled not because of the name itself, but by its relation to Erlang. Erlang =/= Erlang/OTP ?!? or not? what is OTP? is it Free? is it a better Erlang? Is it the GNU in 'GNU/Linux'? you know, these kind of questions... Anyway they all were cleared by the FAQ as I said.
If it were something that I'd like to see changed, it would be to simple call Erlang: Erlang. I don't see Ruby beeing called Ruby/Stdlib or C beeing called C/libc nor Pascal being called Pascal/Units
And now a mini joke... wrote: - So how did you say it's called?
- Erlang/OTP.
- Erlang/OTP? Why? What's with the /OTP... ?
- It's a set of libraries that come with Erlang.
- What?!? Erlang comes with a set of libraries? Amazing... I would have never imagined...
Maybe it was revolutionary to have libraries 20 years ago. I've no ideea, I was only 10 at that time but it's pretty much the rule these days. Waving the flag "I've got libs" our days just makes you look funny. Anyway, these are just appearances, moreover, maybe it's just me
Cheers everyone,
Alex |
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| Adam |
| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:21 am |
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Joined: 23 Aug 2006
Posts: 71
Location: London
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I kinda agree with alexaandru...
In case of a new name something more generic should be chosen, IF at all. Transactions are completely okay to do without OTP. Something in line with Open Toolkit Platform or similar would be more fitting, although it sounds kind of silly anyway (like a stupid subtitle to a movie or game, its pretty obvious). |
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Adam
Erlang Training & Consulting |
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| rk |
| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:01 am |
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Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 23
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Adam wrote: ... Something in line with Open Toolkit Platform or similar would be more fitting, although it sounds kind of silly anyway ...
Yes, on second thoughts 'Toolkit' doesn't quite work with 'Platform'. A 'Toolkit Platform' doesn't really make sense. The trouble with 'Transaction' for me is that it has specific connotations of 'Database Transaction' and 'Transaction Processing', neither of which seem directly related to OTP. Not that I've explored all of it yet. Maybe we could find another 'P' word to substitute. Open Toolkit P? |
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| TomP |
| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:18 pm |
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Joined: 03 Jul 2007
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Location: New York, NY, USA
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Mazen wrote: Imho, Transaction makes less sense... it sounds more like a buzzword then an actual sensible name.
IF the name should be changed (Which I suspect it won't, but one can always hope ) then it should be changed to something that make sense... E.g. Erlang Standard Framework or Open Erlang Framework or something that actually says that this is a set of libraries and frameworks for Erlang.
/M
I'm a complete newcomer here, but I agree that simply substituting 'Transaction' for 'Telecom' wouldn't make OTP sound any more inviting to the people who should be looking at it. If the name is to be changed, a more descriptive name would be better. Mazen's suggestions are reasonable. Other possibilities might be "Erlang Application Framework' or 'Erlang Application Platform' or 'Trusted Application Platform for Erlang'. (Just thinking out loud here...) |
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| francesco |
| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:02 pm |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2006
Posts: 249
Location: London
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OTP is often mistaken to be a set of libraries. It is much more and should be seen as middleware... OTP consists of
* Erlang
* A set of libraries, applications and tools
* A set of design principles
The design principles are aimed at building distributed, massively concurrent real time systems with nine nines availability.
I would also add that OTP as an acronym can not be changed. It has been referenced that way for over 12 years. The T in it, however, has at times been called Telephony, Transaction or Telecom. Truth is that the first release of OTP was everything but Open even if that has changed (Openness was the buzz word at the time), still today has nothing to do with Telecom, but was indeed a Platform. In conclusion, I would stick to OTP keeping Open and Platform but replacing the T. I like Toolkit, but Transaction sounds and flows better.
Francesco |
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| alexaandru |
| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:23 pm |
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Benchmarking Hobbist
Joined: 19 Jun 2007
Posts: 18
Location: Oradea, Romania
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In this case, the FAQ needs updating, as this is what it reads:
Quote: 1.2. What is OTP?
OTP (Open Telecom Platform) is a large collection of libraries for Erlang to do everything from compiling ASN.1 to providing a WWW server. Most projects using "Erlang" are actually using "Erlang/OTP", i.e. the language and the libraries. OTP is also open source.
Cheers,
Alex |
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| rk |
| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:01 pm |
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Joined: 24 Jun 2007
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francesco wrote: ... The T in it, however, has at times been called Telephony, Transaction or Telecom ...
Richard. |
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| williams |
| Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 7:21 pm |
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Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 1
Location: Sweden
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What is wrong with T=Telecom?
1) It is developed and mainly funned by Ericsson.
2) It still used by Ericsson for developing Telecoms applications.
It is used in our new Integrated Site ( http://www.erlang.se/workshop/2006/Joakim.ppt ), AXD301 and GPRS solutions.
3) You still have applications like megaco/H.248 included in OTP.
4) It shows what historically what erlang was made for.
If anything should be done remove OTP and call it just Erlang renaming T=Transaction would just cause confusion 
But does it matter?
Chris |
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| francesco |
| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:54 am |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2006
Posts: 249
Location: London
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Quote: What is wrong with T=Telecom?
Lots, all explained in the first post.
Quote: 1) It is developed and mainly funned by Ericsson.
2) It still used by Ericsson for developing Telecoms applications.
Exactly my point. The fact that a telecoms infrastructure provider developed the middleware and that it is used in telecom products does not mean it is only suitable for that, putting people off.
The closest the T stands for is middleware for
* Distributed
* Massively Concurrent
* Soft Real Time
* Fault Tolerant
* With requirements of High Availability
Which indeed are the main features of Telecom Applications, but also of web applications, banking systems, automated trading tools, traceability systems, instant messaging systems and more!
Quote: 3) You still have applications like megaco/H.248 included in OTP.
Give me a SIP stack, an SS7 stack, a generic O&M platform, a V5.2 interface and a few more protocols as part of the distribution then we can talk On top of the Megaco stack, the closest you get to telecom is SNMP... Which historically has not much to do with making phone calls.
Quote: 4) It shows what historically what erlang was made for.
And teflon was made for the space industry. So we should maybe call them space pans.
Naa, disagree
Francesco |
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| corrado.santoro |
| Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:50 pm |
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Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 54
Location: Italy
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'Transaction' could be better than 'Telecom' but IMHO it does not fit well the characteristics of OTP.
While 'Telecom' seems 'for Telecommunication applications', 'Transaction' sounds like a system for financial/commercial matters.
I don't have a better proposal however...'Technological' seems quite more neutral than 'Transaction' and 'Telecom'.
Unless we would like to change the 'T' with another letter... for example, OSP = Open System Platform.
Cheers,
--Corrado |
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| iWantToKeepAnon |
| Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:59 pm |
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 14
Location: Dallas, TX
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OTP = Open Tolerant Platform?
If you don't like either toolbox or transaction, chuck "open" and "platform" too and run a buzzword generator on all 3 letters. Be creative and start from scratch.
As for transaction, I like it. I disagree that it doesn't make sense here. In a client/server model a transaction is any set of messages that accompolishes some task.
I also disagree that transaction is a database word. It is much more flexible than that. |
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| daws |
| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:47 pm |
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Joined: 28 Aug 2007
Posts: 6
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STICK TO YOUR ROOTS. Anywhere you go to learn erlang tells you what OTP is for. If people are going to go on making assumptions, perhaps Kharma should bite them in the keister.  |
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