Subject: Re: Git trademark status and policy

From: David Aguilar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2018 00:55:33 -0700

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 02:22:22PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 11:25:31AM +0200, Christian Couder wrote:
> 
> > > (Also, to be clear, this is all _only_ about "Git Cola". The "git-cola"
> > > command is explicitly OK in the policy because that's how commands
> > > work).
> > 
> > I agree about "git-cola" though I wonder about "git-dag" as this is
> > another command used by the project that is more generic. For example
> > I could imagine that, if we wanted to provide a shortcut for `git log
> > --graph --decorate --oneline`, we might want to use `git dag`.
> > 
> > I guess we can still recommend to change it if possible, though we can
> > also acknowledge that, as our recommendation comes very late (too
> > late?), it is just a "weak" recommendation.
> 
> Yeah, I agree with you, though I think it is a separate issue. "git-dag"
> is explicitly OK in the trademark policy, and they are not using "Git
> Dag" in any recognizable way.
> 
> So I think there is no trademark issue, but "git-dag" is probably just
> not a great idea in general, because the namespace is open and it is
> likely to get stomped by some other project. Or git itself. Or it may
> even be annoying for users who have a "git dag" alias (on-disk commands
> always override aliases).
> 
> So I think we should generally recommend against such generic names
> during the naming phase. At this point, I'm not sure the pain of
> changing now is any less than the pain of changing later if and when
> there's a conflict.
> 
> I think I'm actually violently agreeing with you, but I wanted to make
> it clear. :) (And everything else in your email seemed sensible, too).
> 
> -Peff

Thanks for the recommendation.  I'm open to changing the name in a
future major release.  For users that already use the short "dag" name,
we can transition over to something else if it's relatively short and
sweet.

Maybe a better name would be "git-kcola" (a nod to gitk), or "git-vdag"
for "visual DAG"?  Any sugs?  I'm terrible at naming things, but I do
refrain from using additional "git-*" names beyond these two for the
project.  I kinda like "vdag" since it's easy to type, and nearby the
existing "dag" name.

There's also one more script, but it's never installed in the users's
$PATH and is more of an internal implementation detail.  Git Cola
includes a GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR-compatible "git-xbase" command that
provides a visual interactive rebase feature.  That command should
probably be renamed to "cola-git-seq-editor" to make that clearer, and
also to open up the possibility of installing it in bin/ in the future
since it is useful on its own.

The rationale for two commands is that worktree diff+commit and history
inspection are our two primary use-cases.  Everything else is provided
as a sub-command, "git cola rebase", "git cola stash", etc. so there's
not much pressure to add more top-level names, just these two.

Thoughts?
-- 
David