…and the winner is: KVM! Why? Because as you read this, some of you will be thinking I’m talking about a keyboard-video-mouse switch, while some of you will be thinking I’m talking about Linux kernel-based virtualisation (still others are probably thinking of something else… what I don’t know, but I reckon I can be sure that the letters KVM have not been put together only twice in human history).
For the record, I’m talking about Linux kernel-based virtualisation. It wins my award for the Technology With The Worst Name Ever because if, like me, you go looking on your favourite search engine for issues with Linux kernel-based virtualisation, all you find is issues about keyboard-video-mouse switches. This is because for the last fifteen years (at least), in the computer industry KVM has stood for keyboard-video-mouse (switch).
This is not your common-or-garden-variety case of acronym overloading, either, because many folk (myself included) still use a KVM. Usually acronym overloading occurs when the acronym being overloaded has fallen from use and a new technology takes its place, or when an acronym is used to reference a little-known technology and a new usage of the acronym is unaware of the previous usage[1].
Here, KVM was already in heavy use, and I’m sure that none of the Linux kernel hackers could claim to being unaware of the term. Yet they used it anyway. And nothing in /usr/src/linux/Documentation explains why.
I’m sure there’ll be something out there about why they chose the name… but in the meantime I’m left to find other reasons why KVM doesn’t seem to work on my system. Which KVM do I mean? Ah, that’s for me to know… 😉
[1] RTP is an excellent example of this — it was already in use as Rapid Transit Protocol (a part of the APPN-HPR suite), but the VoIP folk never heard of APPN and used RTP for their Realtime Transfer Protocol.
Crossed Wires 