You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to users@subversion.apache.org by Bill George <bi...@gmail.com> on 2013/08/12 03:24:03 UTC
Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Hello Apache,
I know it is standard practice in programming to use common words in the
English language for specific software terminology or naming. However, this
has often caused confusions.
If you go through the story of Goldman Sachs programmer Serge Aleynikov who
was accused & convicted of "stealing" open source software code, the link
below, you will see that one of the factors that affected the case was that
to the FBI investigator who was a software layman, the word "subversion
repository" had a negative connotation to it. He assumed it was the verb
form of the word 'Subvert'. In the story below, Agent McSwain of the FBI,
who took the investigation of Aleynikov, had no idea about version control
of code, let alone SVN. Later Aleynikov was found innocent and released
from incarceration.
Hence this is my strong suggestion : next release, please consider altering
the name subversion to something else. At least "Sub-version". This is to
prevent confusion to non-technical people who could mistake the meaning of
the name and associate it to negative activity like hacking or stealing.
Just a thought and suggestion that could have far reaching implications.
Please consider this.
Thank you,
BG
*Link to the story*:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer
*Quote from the story*: The Web site Serge had used (which has the word
“subversion” in its name) as well as the location of its server (Germany)
McSwain clearly found highly suspicious.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Carl Brewer <ca...@bl.echidna.id.au>.
On 12/08/2013 6:01 PM, Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:
> Am 12.08.2013 03:24, schrieb Bill George:
>> This is to prevent confusion to non-technical people who could
>> mistake the meaning of the name and associate it to negative activity
>> like hacking or stealing. Just a thought and suggestion that could
>> have far reaching implications.
>
> There is nothing negative when it comes to subverting injustice. There
> isn't anything inherently negative to hacking either. And stealing can
> as well be committed by shirt'n'tie people and without breaking any law.
> I'm not at all convinced by your arguments.
>
>
>> Please consider this.
>
> Please consider standing up against injustice and stupidity instead.
We're not going to change the "root" user either.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Ulrich Eckhardt <ul...@dominolaser.com>.
Am 12.08.2013 03:24, schrieb Bill George:
> This is to prevent confusion to non-technical people who could
> mistake the meaning of the name and associate it to negative activity
> like hacking or stealing. Just a thought and suggestion that could
> have far reaching implications.
There is nothing negative when it comes to subverting injustice. There
isn't anything inherently negative to hacking either. And stealing can
as well be committed by shirt'n'tie people and without breaking any law.
I'm not at all convinced by your arguments.
> Please consider this.
Please consider standing up against injustice and stupidity instead.
Uli
(voicing his own opinion in spite of any auto-appended disclaimer here)
**************************************************************************************
Domino Laser GmbH, Fangdieckstra�e 75a, 22547 Hamburg, Deutschland
Gesch�ftsf�hrer: Hans Robert Dapprich, Amtsgericht Hamburg HR B62 932
**************************************************************************************
Visit our website at http://www.dominolaser.com
**************************************************************************************
Diese E-Mail einschlie�lich s�mtlicher Anh�nge ist nur f�r den Adressaten bestimmt und kann vertrauliche Informationen enthalten. Bitte benachrichtigen Sie den Absender umgehend, falls Sie nicht der beabsichtigte Empf�nger sein sollten. Die E-Mail ist in diesem Fall zu l�schen und darf weder gelesen, weitergeleitet, ver�ffentlicht oder anderweitig benutzt werden.
E-Mails k�nnen durch Dritte gelesen werden und Viren sowie nichtautorisierte �nderungen enthalten. Domino Laser GmbH ist f�r diese Folgen nicht verantwortlich.
**************************************************************************************
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com>.
On 08/15/2013 06:18 AM, Johan Corveleyn wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 10:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com> wrote:
>> On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>>>
>>> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
>>> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
>>> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
>>> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
>>> extremely well :-)
>>>
>>> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
>>
>>
>> Great story, thanks!
>
> And if you want to know how to pronounce Subversion:
>
> http://subversion.apache.org/faq.html#pronounce
Hahaha, I still have copies of Linus saying the corresponding thing in
English and Swedish.
--
Glenn Holmer
Weyco Group, Inc.
phone: 414-908-1809
fax: 414-908-1601
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 10:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com> wrote:
> On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>>
>> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
>> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
>> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
>> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
>> extremely well :-)
>>
>> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
>
>
> Great story, thanks!
And if you want to know how to pronounce Subversion:
http://subversion.apache.org/faq.html#pronounce
:-)
--
Johan
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by "Naumenko, Roman" <ro...@rbccm.com>.
On 2013/08/12 5:25 PM, Mauricio Tavares wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com> wrote:
>> On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>>> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
>>> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
>>> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
>>> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
>>> extremely well :-)
>>>
>>> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
>> Great story, thanks!
> Agreed. On the name change topic, I had a professor who would
> greet people with "heaveno" because he believed the traditional
> greeting had satanic connotations. His attempts to make us use that
> did not go very far...
http://lyrics.wikia.com/Andrew_Rannells:Hello!
<http://lyrics.wikia.com/Andrew_Rannells:Hello%21>
:)
--Roman
_______________________________________________________________________
This email is intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it is addressed and may be privileged and confidential.
Unauthorised use or disclosure is prohibited. If you receive This e-mail in error, please advise immediately and delete the original message.
This message may have been altered without your or our knowledge and the sender does not accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the message.
Ce courriel est confidentiel et protégé. L'expéditeur ne renonce pas aux droits et obligations qui s'y rapportent.
Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce message ou des renseignements qu'il contient par une personne autre que le (les) destinataire(s) désigné(s) est interdite.
Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez m'en aviser immédiatement, par retour de courriel ou par un autre moyen.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Ed Hillmann <ed...@gmail.com>.
Wait a minute, he also erased his "bash history". Was he suspected of
covering up assaults as well??
I don't think the suspicion arose because the repository was named
"subversion". I think it was because source code was being transferred to
an outside location. It could have been called "Utter conformist corporate
monkey" repository and it would have still raised suspicion.
Yes, people are ignorant about things (I'm sure we don't have to look too
hard to find things about this we too are ignorant). But I don't think the
name of Subversion would have prevented this from happening. There were
some suspicious things going on (I'm ignorant of the details, but from the
article it does sound, at the start, suspicious). But I think
Goldman-Sachs should have had a better understanding of what was happening
before they called in the Feds....
On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 7:25 AM, Mauricio Tavares <ra...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com>
> wrote:
> > On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
> >>
> >> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
> >> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
> >> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
> >> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
> >> extremely well :-)
> >>
> >> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
> >
> >
> > Great story, thanks!
> >
> Agreed. On the name change topic, I had a professor who would
> greet people with "heaveno" because he believed the traditional
> greeting had satanic connotations. His attempts to make us use that
> did not go very far...
>
> > --
> > Glenn Holmer
> > Weyco Group, Inc.
> > phone: 414-908-1809
> > fax: 414-908-1601
>
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Branko Čibej <br...@wandisco.com>.
On 13.08.2013 02:03, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> No one else remember the old "Satan" monitoring toolkit, that had an option to change the displayed name and icon to "Santa"?
>
> The name "Subversion" has enough positive reputation that changing it, just to avoid NSA style monitoring, seems very destabilizing to a popular project. Let's not change it.
I'm all for filling up NSA's databases with subversive connotations.
Helps finance open source (Hadoop, don't y'know). :)
-- Brane
--
Branko Čibej | Director of Subversion
WANdisco // Non-Stop Data
e. brane@wandisco.com
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 12:23:35PM -0400, Thomas Harold wrote:
> We get around this whole issue with our users by either always
> saying "Subversion" instead of "subversion" so that it's clear we're
> talking about a proper noun instead of a verb. Or by just using
> "SVN".
Ah, the Secret Vigilante Network! Very suspicious.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Thomas Harold <th...@nybeta.com>.
On 8/12/2013 8:03 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> No one else remember the old "Satan" monitoring toolkit, that had an
> option to change the displayed name and icon to "Santa"?
>
> The name "Subversion" has enough positive reputation that changing
> it, just to avoid NSA style monitoring, seems very destabilizing to a
> popular project. Let's not change it.
>
We get around this whole issue with our users by either always saying
"Subversion" instead of "subversion" so that it's clear we're talking
about a proper noun instead of a verb. Or by just using "SVN".
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Nico Kadel-Garcia <nk...@gmail.com>.
No one else remember the old "Satan" monitoring toolkit, that had an option to change the displayed name and icon to "Santa"?
The name "Subversion" has enough positive reputation that changing it, just to avoid NSA style monitoring, seems very destabilizing to a popular project. Let's not change it.
Nico Kadel-Garcia
Email: nkadel@gmail.com
Sent from iPhone
On Aug 12, 2013, at 17:25, Mauricio Tavares <ra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com> wrote:
>> On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>>>
>>> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
>>> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
>>> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
>>> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
>>> extremely well :-)
>>>
>>> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
>>
>>
>> Great story, thanks!
>>
> Agreed. On the name change topic, I had a professor who would
> greet people with "heaveno" because he believed the traditional
> greeting had satanic connotations. His attempts to make us use that
> did not go very far...
>
>> --
>> Glenn Holmer
>> Weyco Group, Inc.
>> phone: 414-908-1809
>> fax: 414-908-1601
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Mauricio Tavares <ra...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com> wrote:
> On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>>
>> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
>> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
>> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
>> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
>> extremely well :-)
>>
>> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
>
>
> Great story, thanks!
>
Agreed. On the name change topic, I had a professor who would
greet people with "heaveno" because he believed the traditional
greeting had satanic connotations. His attempts to make us use that
did not go very far...
> --
> Glenn Holmer
> Weyco Group, Inc.
> phone: 414-908-1809
> fax: 414-908-1601
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Glenn Holmer <gh...@weycogroup.com>.
On 08/12/2013 03:51 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
> Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
> 1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
> "Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
> trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
> extremely well :-)
>
> It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
Great story, thanks!
--
Glenn Holmer
Weyco Group, Inc.
phone: 414-908-1809
fax: 414-908-1601
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Greg Stein <gs...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 09:41:03AM -0400, Andy Levy wrote:
>...
> probably suggested it for git as well. And isn't there a (possibly
> apocryphal) story about the "blame" (either in CVS or SVN) being
> aliased to "annotate" and "praise" because a manager somewhere didn't
> like the negative connotation of "blame"?
Nope. No managers involved. We just thought it would be funny, and in
a touchy-feely way to make Subversion more "positive". You "praise"
people's changes, rather than "blame" them :-)
[ and note: CVS has "annotate"; "blame" came from Mozilla's web-based
repository viewer (MXR?) ]
> That said, I agree with everyone here, changing the name on a
> 13-year-old project is not necessary. I'm sure the name and its
> spelling was considered thoroughly before it was selected.
Apache Subversion actually started as "Inversion" around December
1999, or January 2000. It wasn't until April 2000, that we accepted
"Subversion" as a rename. It had "version" in the name, and we *were*
trying to subvert the CVS installations/community, so the name fit
extremely well :-)
It became "Apache Subversion" in February 2010.
Cheers,
-g
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Andy Levy <an...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Ryan Schmidt
<su...@ryandesign.com> wrote:
> Should the "GIMP" change its name because (when not referring to the software) that can be a derogatory term? Should "git" change its name because (when not referring to the software) that term can be used as an insult? No. Each project was undoubtedly aware of the usual meaning of the word they chose as their name and decided to repurpose it.
>
IIRC, people *have* suggested that GIMP get a rename. Someone's
probably suggested it for git as well. And isn't there a (possibly
apocryphal) story about the "blame" (either in CVS or SVN) being
aliased to "annotate" and "praise" because a manager somewhere didn't
like the negative connotation of "blame"?
That said, I agree with everyone here, changing the name on a
13-year-old project is not necessary. I'm sure the name and its
spelling was considered thoroughly before it was selected.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Ryan Schmidt <su...@ryandesign.com>.
On Aug 11, 2013, at 20:24, Bill George wrote:
> I know it is standard practice in programming to use common words in the English language for specific software terminology or naming. However, this has often caused confusions.
>
> If you go through the story of Goldman Sachs programmer Serge Aleynikov who was accused & convicted of "stealing" open source software code, the link below, you will see that one of the factors that affected the case was that to the FBI investigator who was a software layman, the word "subversion repository" had a negative connotation to it. He assumed it was the verb form of the word 'Subvert'. In the story below, Agent McSwain of the FBI, who took the investigation of Aleynikov, had no idea about version control of code, let alone SVN. Later Aleynikov was found innocent and released from incarceration.
>
> Hence this is my strong suggestion : next release, please consider altering the name subversion to something else. At least "Sub-version". This is to prevent confusion to non-technical people who could mistake the meaning of the name and associate it to negative activity like hacking or stealing. Just a thought and suggestion that could have far reaching implications. Please consider this.
>
> Thank you,
> BG
>
> Link to the story:
> http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer
>
> Quote from the story: The Web site Serge had used (which has the word “subversion” in its name) as well as the location of its server (Germany) McSwain clearly found highly suspicious.
All I can say is it's very silly and sad that law enforcement still doesn't understand computers. And that the Subversion project has been using that name since 2000, and it's a trivial task for anyone to find out what it is and that it is not nefarious. I don't think the Subversion project should be asked to give up the good reputation it's built on its name, just because someone somewhere doesn't understand what it is and can't be bothered to take two seconds to find out.
Should the "GIMP" change its name because (when not referring to the software) that can be a derogatory term? Should "git" change its name because (when not referring to the software) that term can be used as an insult? No. Each project was undoubtedly aware of the usual meaning of the word they chose as their name and decided to repurpose it.
Re: Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"
Posted by Thorsten Schöning <ts...@am-soft.de>.
Guten Tag Bill George,
am Montag, 12. August 2013 um 03:24 schrieben Sie:
> Hence this is my strong suggestion : next release, please consider
> altering the name subversion to something else.
You don't really expect a project name to change this fast, don't
you?! ;-)
> At least
> "Sub-version".
This doesn't sound any different than Subversion, what should be the
benefit in discussions etc.? One could only read the difference and
besides that, people who already (want?) to misinterpret "Subversion"
would easily think of simple spelling errors and stay with their
opinion.
> This is to prevent confusion to non-technical people
> who could mistake the meaning of the name and associate it to
> negative activity like hacking or stealing.
But there will always be an idiot out there which takes things wrong,
maybe even on purpose.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Thorsten Schöning
--
Thorsten Schöning E-Mail:Thorsten.Schoening@AM-SoFT.de
AM-SoFT IT-Systeme http://www.AM-SoFT.de/
Telefon...........05151- 9468- 55
Fax...............05151- 9468- 88
Mobil..............0178-8 9468- 04
AM-SoFT GmbH IT-Systeme, Brandenburger Str. 7c, 31789 Hameln
AG Hannover HRB 207 694 - Geschäftsführer: Andreas Muchow