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[Bioc-devel] inquiry about possibility of package name change

5 messages · Martin Morgan, Dario Strbenac, Zhu, Lihua (Julie)

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Martin,

The lab, who developed the GUIDE-seq protocol, just published a python tool called guideseq in Nature Biotechnology, which is too similar to our Bioconductor package name GUIDEseq.

I am wondering if  there is an easy way to change the package name, or perhaps give it an alias to point to the same package.  Thanks!

Best regards,

Julie
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On 07/01/2016 10:45 AM, Zhu, Lihua (Julie) wrote:
Changing package names is strongly discouraged, since the internet tends 
to have a strong memory. However, the recommended approach is like 
deprecating a function, as described at

   http://bioconductor.org/developers/how-to/deprecation/

In the current devel, we would clone your current code base to XXX, and add

     .onLoad <- function(...) {
         warning("Package 'GUIDEseq' is deprecated, use package 'XXX'")
     }

in the next devel cycle, you'd change that to

     .onLoad <- function(...) {
         stop("Package 'GUIDEseq' is defunct, use package 'XXX'")
     }

and remove all code other code / documentation from GUIDEseq. In the 
devel cycle after that, we'd remove GUIDEseq from the manifest.

Your users would see the deprecation warning after the next release 
(October?) and would have to switch by the release after that (March?).

Martin
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Thanks Martin!

Best,

Julie
2 days later
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Hello,

If your software was released first, why would you want to change its name ? It would make more sense to write to the creators of the newer software and ask them why they didn't check if someone else already used that software name before releasing their software with an identical name to yours.

--------------------------------------
Dario Strbenac
PhD Student
University of Sydney
Camperdown NSW 2050
Australia
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Thanks, Dario!

That would be one way to deal with this if I had seen the other software before its Nature Biotechnology publication.

FYI, we will stick to our original name if reviewers are ok with it.

Best,

Julie