Re: [help-GIFT] GIFT/giFT conflict: your opinion wanted!

[Stephane Marchand-Maillet]

Dear All,
 My view is twofold. As as been said, the giFT project is very active. 
Ours is less. GIFT may not be the best name for Google. Further, GIFT is 
a research prototype and could evolve in some other branch (renamed). 
And the giFT's aim is noble (?)
 However, GIFT is known in the CBIR community as one entity. Renaming 
it  would definitely not be a good idea.

 But I think the main point is the following: there is not a valid 
argument from the original message that would support this renaming (I 
actually feel very much offended):
[snipped from Josh Guilfoyle]:
> It would appear that our projects inadvertently collide with the "gift" name
 These things happen. Look how many "Smart" projects exist on the web 
(I wanted to create one but that was to much mails to ask all to rename 
their projects :o)...

> My project was originally registered somewhere in very early 2001, and has now
> reached its first major public release.  Thankfully I maintain a casing
> distinction from yours (we use giFT rather consistently), although I fear this
> may create some confusion and tension if not properly addressed.  I would be
> willing to concede that the ownership of the name legitimately belongs to you
 Thank you so much! I do not think there is ownership here. I thought 
we were on the "open" branch :o) Let's "share"..

> (you registered first, yada yada), however your project appears to be
> significantly less active and I would prefer not to rename mine unless some
 I beg your pardon Mr Darwin. I am sure you did not mean that!
 If I follow well, this is the survival of the fittest. So, if someone 
makes a trully successful Gift, you will rename yours? even if that's 
Micro$oft for example (all right, Micro$oft is unlikely to make Gift :o)
 I do not like the "Pousse toi de la que je m'y mette" principle....

> legitimate conflicts will arise.  I like the name, what can I say :)
 Sorry, we do like the name also (sentimental value :o) And why 
legitimate conflicts???

> As it stands now, we exist on sourceforge at
> http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gift, however we have recently considered
> a move to savannah.nongnu.org (how I found your project).  I had considered
> using the name "giftproject" when we complete that move to avoid literal
 We did the same for the "luxproject" on Sourceforge.

> collision, although I don't want to step on your toes if that is possible to
> avoid.
 Thanks for trying.

 In summary, I really don't think that renaming less active projects is 
a good policy to follow.

 To be pragmatic, I do not think that having 2 projects with the same 
name will kill any of them. However, we can even help each other: if we 
cross-refer each project, people will only be one click away from the 
project they actually look for.

 Best regards,
 Stephane
> Hi,
>
> I would prefer to keep the name GIFT for our project as I really like it. As 
> David said, we are always referring to GIFT, the web pages and so on and it 
> would be good to keep all that up and working. It is kind of our brand.
>
> I would prefer to have links on both web pages to the other project, so the two 
> are not being confused.
> giFT might be more active than GIFT at the moment but I really hope that this 
> will change and GIFT will become more active. I am actively working on GIFT.
>
> When searching at google for gift you might get a lot of bad results but "GNU image 
> finding tool" turns up all the good links instantly.

--
Dr. Stephane Marchand-Maillet (MER)     Head of the Viper group
address@hidden                    http://viper.unige.ch/
Computer Vision and Multimedia Lab, CUI,   University of Geneva
24 Rue du General-Dufour - 1211 Geneva 4 - Switzerland
Tel: +41 (0)22 705 7631 / +41 (0)22 705 7660
Fax: +41 (0)22 705 7780
http://www.mrml.net/                http://www.benchathlon.net/