Walter, I am very sympathetic to your concerns about the Apache brand but your email contains an untrue statement that needs to be corrected.
You say that "Arrow’s project name is an unfortunate example of ASF’s stereotyping", but stereotyping implies intent: that the people who named the Arrow project intended to make some connection with Native American culture. I was one of the people involved in the creation of the project, and I assure you that those connections never crossed anyone's mind. The Arrow project was spun out of another project called Drill, itself named after a Google project called Dremel, so tools were the metaphor we had in mind. Arrow's initial code was based upon a component of Drill called 'Value vectors' and the mathematical symbol of a vector is an arrow. One piece of evidence from that period is the name search [1]. If you read the case, you will see that no one considered how juxtaposing 'Arrow' with 'Apache' would create new connotations. Julian [1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PODLINGNAMESEARCH-92 On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 9:56 PM Walter Cameron <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > > As some may know there have been discussions recently about the > appropriateness of the name and branding of the Apache Software Foundation. > To help educate our communities I’ve collaborated on a statement describing > some of the repercussions of the branding and a call to change. > > You can read it in full here: > https://endasfmascotry.com > > Arrow’s project name is an unfortunate example of ASF’s stereotyping and is > mentioned as such in the statement. My hope is that people in the community > here, many of whom are committers and members of ASF, can use their > influence to encourage the ASF board and other leadership to develop a new > brand. Let’s work together to build a future where technology can be > inclusive of everyone. > > Gunalchéesh, > Walter Cameron
