[OpenStack-docs] Style Question for Project Names

Meg McRoberts dreidellhasa at yahoo.com
Sat May 30 22:07:30 UTC 2015


Thanks for the okay to use HAProxy -- it really was ugly without the capitalization.
Anne, not to put too fine a point on it, but commands, files, etc in Linux do not have to be lowercase, although they often are.I think the statement should be something like "Command, file, and daemon/service names are case sensitive on Linux and,in most cases, are lowercase."
I guess my mind is frozen in other conventions, but I like the distinction between services and commands -- for example, "the glancecommand implements the Glance service" -- which is probably not likely to ever be written exactly like that but...  And I'm not so surethat the lack of capitalization is going to deter trademark hawks.

So this convention applies only to the services listed in https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Conventions#Service_and_project_names ?So Ceph and MongoDB are acceptable?  

Tangential point:   sahara should have a mention of "savannah" with commentary similar to that for neutron/quantum, and it really should mentionHadoop, shouldn't it?
Sorry, everyone's a critic...  I'll shut up now ;-)meg

 
      From: Anne Gentle <annegentle at justwriteclick.com>
 To: APlimpton <aplimpton at gmail.com> 
Cc: Meg McRoberts <dreidellhasa at yahoo.com>; "openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org" <openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org> 
 Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 1:21 PM
 Subject: Re: [OpenStack-docs] Style Question for Project Names
   


On Sat, May 30, 2015 at 2:39 PM, APlimpton <aplimpton at gmail.com> wrote:


Looks like HAProxy and other pieces that are sold separately or trademarked should follow their own standard for capitalization (per IBM style guide again). 


I was going to note the same about HAProxy -- it's a proper name with associated capitalization rules. Same as your other examples, Meg. 
Thanks for the support, Meg :) Funny enough I thought this was going to be more of a case where most everyone had shifted to using the initial uppercase and the Conventions page just hadn't been updated to reflect it. Sorry to be putting a ripple in the pond.


Not at all, and please don't take any of this as a personal affront or anything. I'm glad you're looking around and questioning. We love yours and Meg's fresh eyes! 
Given that it goes against general usage and most style guides, it would beneficial to know why the proper noun is being lowercased. I get the need to avoid making Everything Look Important, and wholeheartedly agree, but this is specifically for one small set of names. OpenStack gets two capitalizations, the projects functional names and all the releases have a initial one. We clearly didn't disapprove of them in general, so why here? 

It's tangled up in the lack of clarity around trademark use for a couple of years. Now that there's more rigor around the use of the OpenStack trademark, how about you take a look at why you think project names should be capitalized and post here. http://www.openstack.org/brand/openstack-trademark-policy/
andhttp://www.openstack.org/brand/

When I read through those, I still come up with the conventions we have in place. Here are my reasons pro lowercase:
- The team/project names like nova, swift, etc. names are never going to be trademarked so no extra import should be imparted by using the capitalize-for-proper-name convention.- We don't pursue legal reasoning in trademarking the name, but do try to find a unique name that's unused in the software industry. It's not a proper name. - We have gotten cease and desist for the use of quantum for example, and by lowercasing we may be less likely to be in violation of some corner/edge legal name case.- The file name such as nova.conf actually has to be lowercase in Linux-based operating systems.- The nova-<name> service or daemon names also have to be lowercase in Linux-based operating systems. - The nova, swift Command Line Interface (CLI) tools also have to be run in lowercase  in Linux-based operating systems. - The lower case always as a rule rather than exception helps simplify editing and guidance.


Side note: Since we have a rule for sentence capitalization for headings, would it be okay for me to add that to the Conventions page? I don't see any mention of it. 


It's here:https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Markup_conventions#Headings
and here:https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Conventions/DocBook#Headings

Thanks,Anne 

Thanks,Amanda
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Meg McRoberts <dreidellhasa at yahoo.com> wrote:

I'll go along with the wishes of the majority but I do agree with Amanda here, that capitalizing the names of the projectswould make both the writing and the reading easier.
What about services that are not projects per se, such as HAProxy, MySQL, MongoDB, Pacemaker, Corosync...?  Some of these existoutside the OpenStack world and everyone is used to them being capitalized in a certain way.  But it seems quite awkwardto capitalize these when services that are projects are not capitalized.

I just went through a piece of doc and changed HAProxy to haproxy.  The title of the section is "HAProxy nodes" so I had tomake that "Haproxy nodes" to conform to the standard for capitalization in headers.  I suppose I could rewrite it to be "The haproxy nodes"but I would much prefer to have the keyword begin the header.

As I said, I'll go along but Amanda deserves a little support ;-)meg
 
      From: Anne Gentle <annegentle at justwriteclick.com>
 To: APlimpton <aplimpton at gmail.com> 
Cc: "openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org" <openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org> 
 Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 2:56 PM
 Subject: Re: [OpenStack-docs] Style Question for Project Names
   


On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 4:36 PM, APlimpton <aplimpton at gmail.com> wrote:

I see several people are fine with how the convention is and would prefer for it to remain as is because they do not see a need for the change. 
Because I do see a need, the burden is on me to further explain what I’m seeing and why it suggests that using a capital letter with the project names is needed. 
When I say inconsistencies I mean that a handful of the OpenStack documentation manuals and a few wiki pages use the lowercase. On all other guides, references, manuals, websites, pages, blogs and various other communications the capitalized letter is used by the community (OpenStack and general). This strong majority of people using the capitalized version indicates that there has been a shift in the usage and we should update our convention accordingly. 
This is supported by the fact that these project names are names/proper nouns and as such should be capitalized. Having the release code names capitalized but not the project code names is inconsistent. If the name is to be a proper noun w/ all lowercase then all sentences that start with the project name will need to be reworded (source: IBM Style Guide used per the Conventions wiki page). 
An additional benefit to using the initial uppercase with project names is that it helps reduce confusion. Each project uses the project name three distinct ways with the exact same case. The project name, the CLI name and the command that is used. For example: nova, nova, nova. As a component of the project, the CLI name and the command should be lowercase (source: IBM Style Guide). Using a capitalized letter with the project name immediately distinguishes it as being not the project component and helps make sentence creation and updating less convoluted.
If this makes sense to most of you and the consensus is reached to change to the initial uppercase I will be happy to find and make those changes. If the consensus is to keep it all lowercase then I’ll go ahead and attempt correction for the majority of docs, which will take a little longer. If keeping all lowercase, it may also be a good idea to remind the other contributors about the conventions page so they will be aware in the future. Either way I am believer in consistency and clarity. :)

Agreed. Thanks for bringing the issue forward. Even when writing a blog post for the Rackspace blog two weeks ago, I had two editors tell me to capitalize the project/team name. However they were fine with lowercase once I pointed out our conventions. We have the power to enforce lowercase so why not put your energy towards the lowercase preference that we've had for years?
One rule we have for simplicity's sake is to use sentence case for all titles, and the reasoning behind this is that it's fewer rules to explain and enforce (plus there are two competing Title Case styles from certain references). I sense we have the same simplicity goal with "always lower case project names" because once people start uppercasing what they think is Important then Everything Is Important if you Know what I Mean. :)
I'd ask you to activate towards lowercase and help enforce that as standard rather than advocating for Upper Case All the Time. 
Really though, I said I'd get out of the way on this one. Hope my reasoning makes sense.Anne 

Thanks,
Amanda
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 1:37 PM, Shilla Saebi <shilla.saebi at gmail.com> wrote:

+1

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 29, 2015, at 4:22 PM, Christian Berendt <christian at berendt.io> wrote:
>
>> On 05/29/2015 09:40 PM, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
>> We're following the current convention for some time already and I see
>> no reason to change, let's keep the current convention. If there're
>> problems, let's fix them...
>
> +1
>
> --
> Christian Berendt
> Cloud Computing Solution Architect
> Mail: berendt at b1-systems.de
>
> B1 Systems GmbH
> Osterfeldstraße 7 / 85088 Vohburg / http://www.b1-systems.de
> GF: Ralph Dehner / Unternehmenssitz: Vohburg / AG: Ingolstadt,HRB 3537
>
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