[osol-discuss] Nameclash on svn_77 because Sun is ignoring PSARC discussions

[Darren J Moffat]

Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
> 
>>> For this reason, the "compare" from imagemagick either needs to be renamed
>>> or it needs to be put into a different directory.
>>
>> Your compare command gives a name clash with ImageMagick's compare command;
>> why don't you rename yours?
> 
> Looks like you are unwilling to cooperate!
> 
> Why should I rename that exists in the public for a long time just because
> some uncooperative people reused the name?

In order to compromise and to move forward.  Otherwise you just look 
demanding, unwilling to make any change and difficult to work with so 
people will eventually just start ignoring you.  If that is the stance 
you want to take that is your choice but don't expect others to change 
if you aren't willing to.

Oldest provable use isn't what matters, sometimes "most popular 
elsewhere" is what is most important and sometimes it isn't.  Sometimes 
it is just first past the post is what wins and in this case ImageMagick 
one.

When it comes to generic names (which unfortunately ImageMagick is full 
of) I personally would prefer that it wasn't allowed unless they were 
really generic.  However UNIX is full of stuff like this already 
cancel,accept etc.   It is very important for adoption of OpenSolaris 
distributions that in some cases when OpenSolaris imports external 
technology that we do so in the most appropriate way, in the ImageMagick 
case that means not changing the default program names.

-- 
Darren J Moffat