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Re: Package naming rant




On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 11:27 AM Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> wrote:
Now, about the naming itself, let me give my opinion.

I could have pre-fixed all packages with "openstack-" like they did in
RDO/Red Hat, but this has proven to be really not convenient at all for
OpenStack users, with for example, names like this one:

neutron-openvswitch-agent

Add OpenStack and it becomes:

openstack-neutron-openvswitch-agent

This IMO is a way too long.

There could be a simple rule of thumb - if the name of the package makes sense and is correctly understood without it being in the openstack context, then it can exist without the prefix.
 
> Let's take this package:
>
>    python-shotgun/testing,testing 0.1.0+2016.12.30.git.0682f20c42-1 all
>      Create and save Fuel diagnostic snapshots
>
> I thought it was about shooting yourself in the foot, by connecting an
> untested tool you just saw on Hacker News to the OBD-II port of your
> car.
>
> Nope: it's some openstack thing with a description made of 11 lines of
> enterprise nonsense and two lines of "it reads yaml, collects log files
> and stuff, and helps diagnose stuff".

One of the things shotgun does is actually destroying a node who failed
to deployed, so that it reboots and can be re-provisioned, which
explains the name. Over time, its main mission changed to what it is
right now: a diagnostic utility who collects deployment logs. Shotgun is
part of Fuel, and it makes no sense to describe Shotgun without
explaining what Fuel is, as it is pretty much useless without Fuel.

Word "Fuel" and word "Shotgun" have meanings outside the OpenStack context. Thus unless Fuel collects gas mileage data and shotgun destroys all kinds of stuff, then prefixing the name with OpenStack is essential for understanding. And not only in the package names. That description is meaningless unless you already know that "Fuel" is OpenStack, so that also should be replaced by "OpenStack Fuel project".

It does not matter that OpenStack Oslo makes sense in the OpenStack context unless you put the reader into the OpenStack context first. Out of that context that is a city name. And that is confusing. At least for me it is for sure.
 

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