[Telepathy] How to name Ring.cx Telepathy Connection Manager

[George Kiagiadakis]

On 06/10/2016 06:55 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> 
> 
> On 10/06/16 17:49, Stepan Salenikovich wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm a developper on the ring.cx <http://ring.cx> project. There are a
>> couple of GSoC students working on a Telepathy CM for Ring.
>>
>> I posted this question on the Ring mailing list, but sadly didn't get
>> any responses, so I'm hoping maybe the Telepathy list is more creative :)
>>
>> There is also a question about how to name the "Ring" protocol. Ring
>> basically uses a DHT (openDHT) as a transport to then negotiate an
>> encrypted SIP session for audio/video calls. Text messages are currently
>> just sent encrypted over the DHT directly (no SIP negotiation). So a
>> good protocol name is probably something like "Ring-dht", I suppose.
>>
>> Telepathy-ring is already taken, and the telepathy spec also warns
>> against naming the CM the same as the protocol:
>> https://telepathy.freedesktop.org/spec/Connection_Manager.html#Simple-Type:Connection_Manager_Name
>>
>> Some proposed pun names from the #ring IRC so far:
>> telepathy-bell
>> telepathy-hoop
>> telepathy-single-ladies
>> telepathy-doughnut
>> telepathy-lord_of_the
>> telepathy-o
>> telepathy-my-precious
>>
>> Does anyone else have any good suggestions for either the name of the CM
>> and/or the protocol?
>>
> 
> 
> I think the spec needs to be clarified
> 
> In this case, Savoir Faire Linux produces both the protocol and
> implementation using the same name.
> 
> Therefore, I think that the spec should say something like: "it is OK to
> name the CM after the implementation if the implementation and protocol
> have the same name, preferably adding some vendor label to distinguish
> possible forks"
> 
> E.g. you could call it telepathy-opendht-sfl

No, I disagree with that. The spec is correct saying what it's saying.

#1 CM should not be named after the protocol because that can lead to
confusion if there is another CM for the same protocol. And the fact
that you distinguish it with the name of the company (sfl) is a bad
idea, because it will discourage people outside that company as well as
other companies from contributing to it and will also probably encourage
forking in case the company becomes less active at some point. Imagine
for example what you would think of telepathy-gabble if it was named
telepathy-xmpp-collabora...

#2 CM should not be named after the implementation because that can also
lead to confusion between the two projects (the telepathy CM and the
implementation software). See the example of telepathy-sofiasip that
became telepathy-rakia (mentioned in the spec as well). This is also a
factor against telepathy-ring (or telepathy-ring.cx perhaps) because
ring.cx is another software. You don't want users to think that this
telepathy CM is somehow part of ring.cx or it can be used to talk to
people only if they are using ring.cx on the other side. Maybe another
implementation will pop up in the future and then ring.cx will be
irrelevant as a name.

And let me add to that that names such as telepathy-opendht-sfl are
ugly, because they are hard to pronounce. Quoting the spec, "The
Telepathy project traditionally uses some sort of pun", which is what we
should do for future CMs too.

In this case I think telepathy-bell is a great name, actually. It is a
pun for "ring", yet it does not relate to it in a strong way.
Additionally, it relates to OpenDHT as much as "ring" does (i.e. not at
all).

Regards,
George