HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones and smart home devices

Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by baybal2 on Friday August 09, 2019 @05:55AM (#20652807)

So, they finally decided that the connotation is "tricky" with Hongmen. The transliteration in Pinyin sound close to informal name for black societies. The "Secret Society OS" is not the best pick for an OS name when things happen in Hongkong.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by pbhjpbhj on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:03AM (#20652852)

Your comment is not at all clear; perhaps you could try being less euphemistic and say what it is you mean.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by navigaid on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:08AM (#20652875)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiandihui

According to wikipedia, 洪門(Hongmen) is the alternative name for Tiandihui(天地會), an illegal society in Hong Kong, which sounds similar to Hongmeng.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by pbhjpbhj on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:29AM (#20652979)

Ah, so "black societies" meant something like "criminal organisations", maybe triads? I thought to begin with the comment meant dark-skinned people.

So, if I have it right:

Originally Huawei called their OS 'Hongmeng'. But that sounds like 'Hongmen' which is an alternative name used (but not exclusively) for the outlawed Tiandihui crime syndicate.

something close to that.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by JulianMorrison on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:04AM (#20652856)

Looks like it was originally this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Meng but it could easily be punned as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongmen

Neither are especially auspicious, it seems! But perhaps the first one was intended as "oh hai plz do not use unfinished OS".

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by mytailorisrich on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:07AM (#20652870)

It's still called Hongmeng in Chinese, though (as per article's picture).

No-one in the west knows about black societies and no-one ever heard that word. I think this is about having an 'international' name that does not sound too foreign/Chinese and that is not opened to misinformation campaigns.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by 07d046 on Friday August 09, 2019 @06:58AM (#20653122)

I recognize the term "Hongmen", although I'm sure I'm not representative of most people. It's probably not in Huawei's interests to have an operating system colloquially known as Triad OS.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by JulianMorrison on Friday August 09, 2019 @07:27AM (#20653279)

I dunno, it has a certain kung fu movie cachet.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by jimmydef on Friday August 09, 2019 @07:19AM (#20653233)

No native Chinese speaker will mistake 鸿蒙 (Hong Meng) for 洪门(Hong men) . And no Non Chinese speaker will even know what is HongMen.

Don't know where you're going with this.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by baybal2 on Friday August 09, 2019 @07:44AM (#20653376)

Sure, the thing is much more about the part of population with richer imagination.

I myself could not have imagined character 貓 being censored because of another "Mao"

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by JulianMorrison on Friday August 09, 2019 @07:29AM (#20653300)

Yeah right up until someone does the OS-tan caricature for Hong Meng as a cute gangster.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by 07d046 on Friday August 09, 2019 @08:02AM (#20653508)

The other problem is that "Hongmeng" literally means "Red dream", which isn't ideal for a company that wants people to believe it isn't controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by linyu0219 on Friday August 09, 2019 @10:25AM (#20654610)

red(红) dream(梦）鸿(!=红)蒙(!=梦）

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Re:HarmonyOS is Huawei’s Android alternative for smartphones... by 07d046 on Friday August 09, 2019 @11:24AM (#20655182)

I know that Hongmeng here is 鸿蒙, but 红梦 is also "hongmeng"

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