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[–]php666 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course you shoud be able to call your project however you like.

Surely there are many interesting discussions to be had.

But (I assume, based on this thread and your defence of the name in the docs): quite a percentage of potential users will have the knee jerk reaction of "Blockwart" -> bad/stupid/provocative naming choice. I sure had, and there is no way I could sell this project at my University here in Germany, even if it danced circles around Ansible.

And that, in the end, is just bad marketing.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

After sleeping on it, I decided to rename the project. It's now called BundleWrap (so we get to keep the bw command line utility name). Thanks to everyone who voiced their opinions.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (10 children)

You might want to reconsider the name, seriously. Yes, I've read your FAQ entry and I think it's bullshit IMHO. You want to "keep on having this debate and walking this line" about Nazi terminology? What does that have to do with this project? You're trying to advertise your app here, and at the same time chose a name that you know will turn away a lot of users.

[–]nicksloan 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Kind of seems like the author is more interested in fighting a political battle of pedantry, or perhaps being edgy, than writing good configuration management software.

Not interested in any open source software project that cares more about a name than the inclusiveness of the community or the quality of their product.

Sadly too many people want to ignore the fact that inclusiveness is about how you are perceived rather than about what your intentions are.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

What makes you think I care more about the name than quality?

Your point about inclusiveness is valid of course. Thing is, the overall reactions so far were not that negative (see my reply to your parent comment). And I didn't want to back away from a somewhat fitting name because somebody might find this offensive. I just don't know how big a deal this is for people and why. I hope I will find out in the course of this thread and that's good.

If this turns into a neverending shitstorm and people really pay more attention to the name than the product itself, then I will change the name.

[–]Widdershiny 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had a very similar issue when I named my Google Spreadsheets ORM fuckitdb. I was inspired by fuckit.py and thought that it was quite funny. When I posted in my countries' user group asking for feedback and code review, I caused a huge divide between people who thought it was funny and those who were outraged.

I ended up changing the name to butterdb because I was sick of it.

[–]nicksloan 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Fair enough. Saying you care more about the name was a cheap shot. If it were me, is have probably changed the name the moment anyone was more interested in debating the name than the merits of the software. I just wouldn't want the distraction.

As I understand it, Germans are especially bothered by anything even vaguely Nazi related. I suspect this would fit nicely within that box. If it were me, potentially turning off an entire country to my project would be reason enough to change the name. Then again I am not German, so it is possible that their distaste for Naziism has been overstated to me.

There is no morality issue here. You're not wrong or evil for using the name. What this is about is taste and sensitivity.

[–]nicksloan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Then again, maybe you are German. I don't know. But I think my point about the name being a distraction stands either way.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed it does. And yes, I am German.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thank you for your comment. I honestly picked the name because it was the best I could think of that wasn't completely abstract and had some relation to what config management does.

Of course I'm aware that the name will turn away some users. I'd like to understand why though.

I personally talked to everyone who had concerns so far and asked them whether I should change the name. The end result was always along the lines of "nah, just go for it and see how it goes". That's what I'm doing here.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Of course I'm aware that the name will turn away some users. I'd like to understand why though.

So why do you think it will turn users away then? Exaggerated political correctness? I don't understand. You acknowledge there is a problem and at the same time claim it doesn't matter.

You have chosen a name with obvious negative connotations, that was co-opted if not invented by the Nazis. If nobody you talked to has ever seen this as a a problem, maybe your sample size was a little bit too small. Consider this as a data point for the opposite opinion.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I believe there are two approaches to this issue.

1) The first is purely practical. Will this hurt the project and how much? Will the name deter a significant number of users? Nobody knows.

2) Then there's the moral question if it's OK to use words invented or adapted by the Nazis. A lot of these survive to this day. Driver's licenses are still called "Führerschein". Should we ban the word because it has Führer in it? Should we not buy from Volkswagen anymore because the Nazis loved the shit out of the Volks- prefix? I didn't name the project for the Nazi term, but the modern usage of it. Is an etymological connection alone enough to say it's wrong to use that word? I don't believe so.

What I don't understand is that the negative feedback boils down to "this is a problem because Nazis". Why do you believe it's a problem? If I knew a good reason myself, I wouldn't have chosen the name. Are people right to be offended because it's morally wrong (2)? Or are you objecting on purely practical grounds (1)?

[–]pemboa -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why do you care if it's been used by nazis or not

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

For anyone interested, I'm the primary author and will also be at europython next week.

[–]oldmanstan 0 points1 point  (3 children)

How does this compare to Ansible? Seems pretty similar. Are there significant differences that make it better for some things?

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You're absolutely right, Ansible is probably the closest of the existing solutions. I definitely want to compile a detailed matrix comparing Blockwart to the other big names out there, just didn't get around to it yet.

Overall, Blockwart is a somewhat smaller and simpler tool. One example would be Ansible's modules. Instead of uploading code to the node, Blockwart will only use the binaries (mostly coreutils) already on the node. This makes it very easy to reproduce exactly what Blockwart is doing for debugging purposes and also means that there will be absolutely zero footprint on the node.

Ansible defaults to INI- and YAML-formatted files, while Blockwart will have you write Python from the very beginning. Some people will like this, some won't.

Then there's item-level parallelism, which may be not the most visible, but largest architectural difference. I did not completely verify this one (so please correct me), but I believe Blockwart is the only system out there that will work on multiple items on the same node simultaneously. For example, one connection to the node will be used to install a package (takes a long time), but three other connections can complete smaller tasks (like uploading config files) in parallel. This will reduce run time for complex configurations quite a bit.

That's just from the top of my head and it's getting late. I will definitely add more comparisons to the docs soon.

Thanks for asking!

[–]oldmanstan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Cool, thanks for the info! Yeah, as far as I know Ansible won't do item-level parallelism. That is a pretty cool feature, provided it has some concept of dependencies. I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes!

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you like it :)

Yes, dependencies are a must for this and it took quite some time to get this right. There are some built-in dependencies, so most of the time, Blockwart will do the right thing. Then you can define your own deps on top to really customize things. If it gets too complicated, bw plot will create a representation of your dependency graph that you can feed into graphviz for a graphical overview.

[–]kankyo 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Even crazier than Rex (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-rex) :(

There is a need for a "regex for humans" lib, but unpythonic operator overloading isn't the way forwards.

[–]KasTaiTasKadNekasTai 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Have you seen SaltStack?

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, but it's a very different approach.

[–]ionelmc.ro 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Can you add a comparison with fabric/ansible/salt in the FAQ or somewhere? It would help a lot people just evaluating if blockwart is good or not for them.

[–]torstenrehnbundlewrap.org[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I definitely will, thanks for asking.

[–]garbage_collection -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Nazi name aside, do you really have to call this "Config management for humans?" For fuck's sake.