The GJV series of logging programs was originally developed as a DOS only version for the G4BRA/P group, part of Bracknell Amateur Radio Club, around 1992. At the time a post entry system had been developed for the club by the late G4TDL, but with the change from the old QRA system to Maidenhead locators this was beginning to show its age. So a new program was written, GJV Log, by Mike G0GJV, initially for internal use in the club's contests.
Before long other clubs began showing interest in the program and found they liked it, so it was made available for general release. In these days it was before the widespread use of the internet, and contest entries were still largely by means of paper logs, so means to produce these was a requirement. Soon entries were being made as digital files, submitted at the time on floppy disk, and the .GJV format became widely accepted as a means of doing this, at least as far as RSGB contests were concerned.
By 2000 this original DOS program had become GJV2000 and available to anyone via internet download. But demand grew for a Windows interface version and other features were requested like rig control. The program was still widely used, but the advent of other programs and new log formats meant an upgrade was needed.
The first version of Minos appeared in 2005, a very different program from the original GJV Log, with a full Windows GUI interface and all the other features one expects from today's logging programs. v1.1.10.914 appeared in 2008 and was a significant rewrite. At this time it was decided to make it Open Source, and hence it was then hosted on BerliOS. With the closure of Berlios in April 2014 the project was transferred to Sourceforge. Development continues.
Minos was a mythical king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. See Wikipedia. His relevance to Minos and its development is in a quote from Dante:
"From the first circle thus I came descending
To the second, which, in narrower compass turning,
Holds greater woe, with outcry loud and rending."
"There in the threshold, horrible and giming,
Grim Minos sits, holding his ghastly session,
And, as he girds him, sentencing and spurning;"
"For when the ill soul faces him, confession
Pours out of it till nothing's left to tell;
Whereon that connoisseur of all transgression"
"Assigns it to its proper place in hell,
As many grades as he would have it fall,
So oft he belts him round with his own tail."
"Before him stands a throng continual;
Each comes in turn to abye the fell arraign;
They speak - they hear - they're whirled down one and all."
The Inferno, Dante, (trans Dorothy L Sayers, Penguin Classics); Canto 5.
G0GJV says:
So when I was thinking a name for a messaging server, it amused me to think of it
belting messages round a field with its tail!
Of course another quote from Dante is most apt for anyone thinking of becoming involved in this kind of project:-
"Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here"