Re: VCL, is this name kosher?

[Alan D. Cabrera]

On Mar 6, 2009, at 6:04 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:
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On Thu March 5 2009 4:55:01 pm Alan D. Cabrera wrote:
On Mar 3, 2009, at 12:42 PM, sam averitt wrote:
Question: Suppose the project name became CloudMaker.  Would it  
not be
permissible to call the NC State cloud, NCSU CloudMaker or NC  
State's
CloudMaker?

That would not be possible.  Maybe one way to make it more clear is
assume that NCSU is IBM and we are Amazon.  Does this statement sound
permissible:

Would it be permissible to call the IBM cloud, IBM Electronic
Computing Cloud or IBM's Electronic Computing Cloud?

That would definitely not fly for either parties and, so, would not
work here.

So what you are saying is that it doesn't matter what the name,
either formal or common, AFS rules require a different name?

Correct, our project name has to be different.

This is the message I keep hearing (and by "hearing", I mean it is  
how I am
interpreting what I read) that doesn't make any sense to me:

"There must be a name for the project at ASF that isn't used  
anywhere else in
the world for any similar project, and anyone who downloads and  
installs said
project isn't allowed to use the ASF name in any way."

That doesn't make sense to me because t's a normal business model to  
produce
software that is to be sold and used by other people /without/  
changing the
name of the software, in fact, it would generally be considered  
wrong to
change the name.  An example similar to ours that I can think of is
Blackboard software used for online courses.  www.blackboard.com is  
the site
for the company that develops it.  If you do a google search
for "allinurl:blackboard" you'll find many sites that have Blackboard
installed and actually use "blackboard" in the URL.

You are missing the point.  I am not advocating changing the name just  
for the sake of changing the name.  There is a conflict in naming  
between NCSU VCL and this project.  It's that simple.

I will repeat myself again here.  NCSU VCL and its developers have a  
lot to be proud of.  It's only natural that both, NCSU VCL and its  
developers at ASF VCL, would want to keep their association with the  
brand.  That brand is only strengthened as departments from other  
universities join in and have their initiatives participate in the VCL  
brand.  Unfortunately the ASF must remain independent this branding  
effort.

We are not a business.  We are an independent, non-profit, software  
foundation and we must remain free from such entanglements.


Regards,
Alan



Josh

Among other
more recent names we considered was VCloud -- Virtual Cloud as in
cloud of
clouds. Would VCloud be an acceptable ASF name?

VCloud might be fine.  Anything other than VCL.  However, once it's
understood that the name has to change, it's the ASF community that
gets to decide on the new name.


Regards,
Alan

Sam

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan D. Cabrera [mailto:l...@toolazydogs.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 12:17 AM
To: vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: VCL, is this name kosher?

On Mar 2, 2009, at 6:31 PM, sam averitt wrote:
A simple suggestion on the name - that VCL be "transferred" to
Apache.org
and become the official project name. Current users of VCL already
wrap
their own identity around VCL. NC State would/could still use the
qualified
name NCSU VCL or NC State's VCL and others would/could do likewise.
For
example the Virginia group already calls their initiative Virginia
VCL.

Unfortunately that's all the more reason for the ASF project to  
change
its name.

I believe there are no specific acknowledgement requirements for  
use
of
apache.org software? Meaning that anyone could add a personalized
qualifier
or not and a root linkage statement (like powered by Apache.org's
VCL) or
not.

Project attribution should not be confused with with the department.
To be sure NCSU could use Apache VCL, install it,  use it, and  
provide
attribution.  However, having the progenitor keep its name, VCL,
causes a conflict that needs to be resolved.  This issue can  
easily be
solved by having this project choose a new name.

Seems to me that providing a combined personal identifier and  
default
root linkage mechanism would help, not hurt the Apache brand.

Attribution is always appreciated but it's a not very convincing
argument for the ASF keeping a name that is at odds with its
progenitor's and now other universities' project names, VCL.

What I can say
is that this assessment is consistent with and supported by our
experience
to date.

NCSU VCL and its developers have a lot to be proud of.  It's only
natural that both, NCSU VCL and its developers at ASF VCL, would  
want
to keep their association with the brand.  That brand is only
strengthened as departments from other universities join in and have
their initiatives participate in the VCL brand.  Unfortunately the  
ASF
must remain independent this branding effort.


Regards,
Alan



- --
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
Systems Programmer
Virtual Computing Lab (VCL)
North Carolina State University

josh_thomp...@ncsu.edu
919-515-5323

my GPG/PGP key can be found at www.keyserver.net
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