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Suggestion to change the name "Subversion"

From: Bill George <billkgeorge_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 21:24:03 -0400

Hello Apache,

I know it is standard practice in programming to use common words in the
English language for specific software terminology or naming. However, this
has often caused confusions.

If you go through the story of Goldman Sachs programmer Serge Aleynikov who
was accused & convicted of "stealing" open source software code, the link
below, you will see that one of the factors that affected the case was that
to the FBI investigator who was a software layman, the word "subversion
repository" had a negative connotation to it. He assumed it was the verb
form of the word 'Subvert'. In the story below, Agent McSwain of the FBI,
who took the investigation of Aleynikov, had no idea about version control
of code, let alone SVN. Later Aleynikov was found innocent and released
from incarceration.

Hence this is my strong suggestion : next release, please consider altering
the name subversion to something else. At least "Sub-version". This is to
prevent confusion to non-technical people who could mistake the meaning of
the name and associate it to negative activity like hacking or stealing.
Just a thought and suggestion that could have far reaching implications.
Please consider this.

Thank you,
BG

*Link to the story*:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer

*Quote from the story*: The Web site Serge had used (which has the word
“subversion” in its name) as well as the location of its server (Germany)
McSwain clearly found highly suspicious.
Received on 2013-08-12 07:10:12 CEST

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