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Bug#919951: ocaml builder must not be called `dune' or provide /usr/bin/dune



Ian Jackson writes:
> Meanwhile there seems to have been no contact with the maintainers of
> the C++ library which is the only hit on Wikipedia for
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(software)

Whitedune also has a Wikipedia entry:

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dune

So they are probably also relevant by the "has a Wikipedia lemma" metric
(which is not a good metric here anyway IMHO).

> (Amazingly, this is still true at the time of writing even though
> I referred to this fact in the debian-devel thread.)

I would have hoped that package maintainers would be asked /before/
issues are escalated to the ctte referencing their packages as
reasoning.  Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case...

> Please would the Technical Committee:
>
>  * Declare that no-one is allowed the name /usr/bin/dune other than
>    the C++ library dune-common or its friends.
>
>  * Declare that no-one is allowed the binary package name
>    /usr/bin/dune other than the C++ library dune-common
>    or its friends.
>
>  * Declare that the ocaml build system should choose a new source
>    package name and use it henceforth.
>
> I am about to file an RC bug against the `dune' package, blocked by
> this one.

For the DUNE numerics side, I think a fair summary is: nobody minds
OCaml using /usr/bin/dune; there was a minor concern that "dune" as a
package name might be confusing (but Anil Madhavapeddy suggested that
the package could possibly be named "libocaml-dune" or "ocaml-dune" in
Debian).

Outside of the technical parts:

It is hard to avoid name collisions (unless you use random names); there
are several other projects that are also named "dune".  Or other
well-known cases of name collisions (e.g. gentoo, git or chromium (the
OpenGL implementation, game, and browser)).  I think calling people who
choose colliding or confusing names arrogant, ignorant, or such is not
helpful at all.  I wouldn't like to be associated with that and am quite
unhappy that packages I maintain are dragged into Ian's fight here.

As a random quote, I would like to end with:

+---
| Earlier this year, we announced "DGit" or "Distributed Git," our
| application-level replication system for Git. We got feedback that the
| name "DGit" wasn’t very distinct and could cause confusion with the
| Git project itself.
+---

Just as a guideline for the other 3+ projects that might have come up
with that name ;-)

I am tempted to suggest that this issue is dealt with by passing a
resolution reminding the submitter of 6.3.6 of the constitution and
suggesting a bit more constructive behavior in the future.

Ansgar


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