Another reason: We still have cases of SF projects that are just deciding now to move over to Google Code. In fact, we just had an example this week of an awesome old-school OSS project that had been inactive on SF for a few of years, but it is now making a fresh start on Google Code. We don't want those names to be taken.
And, honestly, almost all the "cool" names that people pick for their projects are pretty opaque to potential users. Almost any project could benefit from a more descriptive name that says what it does. Think of it as the first step in white-hat SEO for your project: you want it to be easy to find and for people to grasp just from the name in a search results list. If you use a more descriptive name, much more rarely have a conflict. And if you *do* try out descriptive names and keep finding other projects with the same ones, it might be a better idea to join those projects than reinventing your own, or at least clarify why your thing is uniquely worth doing and work that into the name. Thanks, jason! On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Nathan Ingersoll <[email protected]> wrote: > > Also, an email is sent to the SourceForge project owners if you choose > to request the name even though it conflicts. It contains a link for > them to automatically release the name to you without any intervention > from us. If they don't respond, then we're happy to look at the > situation and override if appropriate. > > Nathan > > > On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Chris DiBona <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I suppose you could call it ideological, but I wouldn't preface that >> with 'just'. Since open source folks generally shy away from >> trademarks and similar name 'protecting' schemes, you will sometimes >> see projects take on names that are already in use. It is usually >> pretty frustrating for those invovled. >> >> We are pretty practical about it, though, if there is a conflict and >> the original project on sf.net is empty, then we're happy to allow you >> to use the name. But if that other project is active, we wouldn't be. >> >> Chris >> >> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Doug Holton <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Is there a technical reason for not letting projects be created if the >>> same name exists on sourceforge, or is it just ideological. Because >>> there are open source projects with the same name occurring all the >>> time. >>> >>> The sourceforge project that conflicts with mine is completely >>> different and hasn't been updated in over 3 years. >>> I'm designing something for kids and beginners to use and didn't want >>> to create some name that is hard to remember or spell, so I guess I'll >>> use eduforge or another site instead. >>> >>> >>> > >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc. >> Google's Open Source and Developer programs can be found at >> http://code.google.com >> Personal Site and Weblog: http://dibona.com >> >> > >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hosting at Google Code" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-code-hosting?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
