Wine and mingw-w64 cooperation [mingw-w64 name]

[Sveinar Søpler]

As a user, and not a coder with "a name", i might just be contributing to noise by this... Sorry if i am stepping on any toes here tho. 

Since mingw-w64 is NOT a "wine project", and can be used for a lot of stuff totally outside of wine, I think it will be completely wrong to rename it to something that indicate that "now this has become a wine project". 
That said, i agree that mingw-w64 is somewhat misleading in a way, so I think mingw-ng would be just as fine. If the "cost" of a namechange needs to be "more features - better stuff", the world is sadly filled to the brim with ruined projects that WAS great, but is now become a spam-ridden mess of "pay-to-get-crap", or adding useless features just to get a "fresh feel". 

Don't ruin a good thing just for a namechange :) 

Sveinar 

----- On May 25, 2019, at 8:58 PM, M. GOUJON <ale.goujon at gmail.com> wrote: 

> Hi everyone,

> I was very excited at first but sadly, it seems this discussion isn't going
> anywhere.
> I believe cooperation is always beneficial to both sides so I will try to help
> moving the debate forward.

> Jacek listed 5 discussion topics but I think for sake of clarity we should
> create 5 threads.
> I will start with the "mingw-w64 name" topic and see how far it'll go.
> If no one responds, I won't start the other threads.

> A project name is like a corporation brand, a part of its identity.
> People associate (project) name to some feelings and events (forks, project
> leader leaving, takeovers...). For instance, github is now part of Microsoft
> ecosystem and some people changed their mind after the acquisition.

> Changing a name may help constructing a new (better) identity. Doing it is a
> strong signal that tell users things change (new maintainer, new goals...). For
> instance XBMC -> Kodi told people it became more than an Xbox media player.
> But if you change the name, you have to improve the project (features, bug
> handling, test coverage..). Otherwise, some users may feel fooled.

> I think Jacek idea was just that, if mingw-w64 project is going to change, it
> may be a good idea to rename it, it was not a Wine takeover attempt.

> Of course, a name change imply communicating to users so that they take the
> change into account.
> Some people are reluctant to this but in fact, it regularly happens (mingw-w64,
> Kodi, libav project, LibreOffice, MPC-HC, MariaDB...) and if it's justified,
> people do accept it.

> So, is there any reason to change mingw-w64 name ?
> Yes if you want to change the way people see the project and you're ready to
> change a bit the project.
> To answer that, you should ask ming-w64 users.
> What do they like and dislike about the project and what is missing.
> How do they feel about its name ?

> I only read Phoronix dedicated thread so it's not really objective but I can't
> ask users for you.
> [
> https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1101258-wine-mingw-w64-might-tighten-up-their-relationship-possible-winesdk
> | A
>       user ] finds the name bulky (and the project pretty obscure).
> [
> https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1101258-wine-mingw-w64-might-tighten-up-their-relationship-possible-winesdk?p=1101443#post1101443
> | Another
>       one ] is confused about the w64 suffix vs Win64.

> As for the WineSDK proposal, a user explains "[borrowing] Wine branding suggest
> that it's somehow involved in porting Windows software [...] which is not".

> I personally agree with him and would suggest mingw-next or mingw-ng to keep the
> well-known prefix while adding novelty. I don't like the SDK suffix as
> mingw-w64 is not a sofware development kit.

> If you decide to change the name, the next step is to decide what could be done
> to improve the project (will be covered by the 4 remaining discussion topic).
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