From: James Britt <james.britt@...>
Date: 2010-08-06T08:27:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Project name ownership and conflict

Emmanuel Gomez wrote:
> Roger Pack wrote:
> 
>> Yeah typically all we check if "can I push this gem?" before grabbing 
>> the namespace.
> 
> Based on responses received so far, this seems to be the prevailing 
> view. This speaks to the letter of my question.
> 
>> Unfortunately.
> 
> This speaks directly to the spirit of my question. Namely: what 
> expectation would the community prefer to hold Gem authors to?
> 
>> Hopefully you can work it out civilly :)
> 
> I'm sure we will. I have no interest in being uncivil in this matter. My 
> fellow Rubyist seems to have little interest in the matter at all. 
> Posession is nine-tenths of the law, after all.
> 
>> One option would be to keep with your original github gem name 
>> username-gemname, since apparently that was good enough at one point?
> 
> Thank you for the suggestion. I think a new, non-conflicting name is the 
> only acceptable solution in this case. My inflexibility: how many Gems 
> with Github username prefixes are in general use?

I suggest you call your gem something like improved-clockwork or 
better-clockwork or kick-ass-clockwork. :)

When github was handling gems I found it much nicer than using 
rubyforge.org.  I've a number of projects that never had a home anyplace 
else, and now prefer to just host the gems myself.

I tend to namespace my gems, though, and would prefer that this be the 
norm.  It's an issue that has come up a few times, not always because of 
name ownership disputes.

The name problem I've seen more often is when someone uses a generic 
name for a project (e.g. "xml-parser" "twitter", 'json'; BTW, these are 
just examples to show the kind of names, not selected because of 
anything to do with any real gems).

Then the project falls into limbo, or maybe the code sucks.  People 
looking for suitable gems for, say, XML or twitter or json, will 
inevitable first use the generic gem, even if it's not supported or any 
good.

Having some sort of name space prefix might reduce the problem of a 
given gem appearing to official or canonical or something.

That was one nice side-effect of the github approach; you couldn't have 
a 'twitter' gem, it had to be something-twitter.  Yes, there were 
opportunities for mischief there too, but it was a  step in right direction.

I sort of wonder, though, if the reliance on a single authoritative gem 
registry (rubyforge or rubygems.org) exacerbated this.  If there was 
nothing to stop people from having the exact same name for a gem then 
people might find other, less contentious, more secure ways to 
distinguish their code.  And help make gem signing more common.


As it stands, though, it's a social/cultural issue.


-- 
James Britt

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