On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Jason R. Coombs
From: Distutils-SIG [mailto:distutils-sig-bounces+jaraco=jaraco.com@python.org] On Behalf Of Donald Stufft Sent: Saturday, 01 June, 2013 15:30 To: holger krekel Cc: distutils sig Subject: Re: [Distutils] Sooner or later, we're going to have to be more formal about how we name packages.
On Jun 1, 2013, at 3:21 PM, holger krekel
wrote: On Sat, Jun 01, 2013 at 11:57 -0400, Jim Fulton wrote:
For a while, many of us have been pretty careful to use namespaces for new packages to mitigate this issue. For example, the zc namespace is a shorter version of com.zope, but at some point, it won't be fair for us to claim zc for ourselves.
I wonder if we could allow people/groups to apply (to humans) for a namespace which they can subsequently control, like the "zc.*" one.
So for example if the django community wants to introduce the concept
of "vetted" plugins/addons, they could move to manage "dj.*" or so.
I think this example highlights some of the challenges with registering/controlling namespaces – who owns what and what is the meaning of a (distribution) package name? For example, what is the namespace used for an endorsed django plugin written by zope corporation?
IMO the purpose of the namespace is to organize names. Whoever owns the namespace decides what names can go into it. It's purely a name management issue, not, for example, a intellectual property issue. If Zope Corporation independently creates a Django plugin, I'd expect it to go into the "zc" namespace. OTOH, Zope Corporation was an active member of the Django community, it might publish to the "dj" (or whatever) namespace, or request permission to do so. I started using the zc namespace a few years ago because I didn't want to impose our names on the Zope community.
I think more people would claim namespaces when namespaces are better supported in Python. My expectation is Python 3.3 namespace package support will ease that challenge (when it becomes a dominant version).
This is somewhat baffling to me. We've used namespaces for over a decade virtually without issue. (We;ve used namespaces far longer than that, going all the way back to "ni" with relatively minor issues.) Jim -- Jim Fulton http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimfulton