Re: Bug#843021: RFP: yarn -- a fast, reliable, and secure package manager for Node.js

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Paolo Greppi writes ("Re: Bug#843021: RFP: yarn -- a fast, reliable, and secure package manager for Node.js"):
> On 03/11/2016 09:10, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> > My cmdtest package provides yarn, since the main tool it now provides
> > is yarn (a testing tool), not cmdtest. Perhaps your package could be
> > called yarnpkg?
> 
> cmdtest provides yarn since this commit:
> http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/cmdtest/commit/?id=859bb5ba9631df883dd7b074ff649ea2ca76e1ad

You mean it "Provides: yarn" since then.  The actual binary was in the
package since 2013.

Another point of view is this:

I did a google search for `yarn program'.  It appears from that that
Yarn is actually something to do with Hadoop.  And also that people
might be interested in software tools relating to knitting.

I searched github for `yarn'.  There are lots of hits for other
programs, including:
  - a dialogue editor (for games, I think)
  - a VM
  - something to do with mongodb and .net
  - the Hadoop thing
  - a blogging application
  - a wrapper for ssh.
and lots more.

Obviously "yarn" is a really bad name.  Someone who picks a name like
that must obviously expect that they can't necessarily have that name
in every namespace.

There are two reasonable approaches in such a situation: "no one can
have it" (this is what Debian Policy says), and "first come first
served".

It is obviously disappointing that the Node.js community have made
this mistake again.  Or, it would be, if we didn't expect it of them.

Ian.