[R-pkg-devel] Changing a package's name

[Joris Meys]

I'll chime in from the other side of the ocean: I didn't even know that the
Huxtables was their family name, and I've watched the Cosby show often as a
kid. I did a quick check in the office and of the 12 R users I asked,
exactly 0 knew who the Huxtables were.

So I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Cheers
Joris

On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 3:58 PM, Dason Kurkiewicz <dasonk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Honestly I'm from the US and know about the scandal with Cosby but
> don't think that it would be an issue for your package.  First off
> it's the name of the fictional family - not Bill Cosby's name
> directly. There are more members of the family than just what Bill
> portrayed.  If you show me anybody that sees your package name and
> says something like "well I guess that author is for sexual assault"
> then I doubt they're really thinking at a capacity to do any sort of
> real work anyways.  There are other "Huxtable"s that exist by the way:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Louise_Huxtable is a prime example
> that comes to mind for me.  A quote from Carter Wiseman: "Huxtable's
> insistence on intellectual rigor and high design standards made her
> the conscience of the national architectural community".  That doesn't
> seem like a bad person to have an association with if you ask me.
>
> Changing the package's name seems to be much too high of a cost (if
> even possible) to shake the extremely loose association one might see
> the package having with Bill Cosby.  It's not like you called your
> package "ISIS". I would highly recommend just not worrying about it.
>
> -Dason Kurkiewicz
>
> On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Fox, John <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> > Dear David,
> >
> > No one at CRAN has responded yet, so I'll take a stab at it.
> >
> > First, you're right about the resonance of "huxtable" for North
> Americans, and if the package were mine, I'd be slightly embarrassed about
> the name.
> >
> > CRAN generally will not allow you to rename a package, for several
> obvious reasons: For example, packages that depend on yours would break
> (but there don't appear to be any yet), users might be confused, and there
> would be a discontinuity in archived versions of the package. See <
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-August/067264.html> for a
> comment by one of the CRAN maintainers about renaming packages.
> >
> > You could, however, ask the CRAN maintainers for a dispensation,
> explaining the reason for the desired change.
> >
> > Best,
> >  John
> >
> > -----------------------------
> > John Fox, Professor
> > McMaster University
> > Hamilton, Ontario
> > Canada L8S 4M4
> > web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: R-package-devel [r-package-devel-bounces at r-project.org] on behalf
> of David Hugh-Jones [davidhughjones at gmail.com]
> > Sent: June 11, 2017 9:51 AM
> > To: R package devel
> > Subject: [R-pkg-devel] Changing a package's name
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > A short while ago I released the "huxtable" package for writing HTML and
> > LaTeX tables:
> > https://www.github.com/hughjonesd/huxtable
> >
> > The name seemed cute to me, but I later found out that to Americans it
> has
> > special associations. The Huxtables were the family in the Cosby show.
> That
> > would be fine, except that Bill Cosby is now on trial for one case of
> rape,
> > and there are accusations of many other cases.
> >
> > So, two questions:
> >
> > * Do you think I should change the name?
> >
> > Comments welcome from Americans and others on this difficult cultural
> issue.
> >
> > * If I do, what's the best and least disruptive way to do it? Bear in
> mind
> > that I have a couple of thousand users.
> >
> > My first thought would be to release an update which gives a warning
> about
> > the future change when the package is loaded; then release a package with
> > the new name and continue development on this branch.
> >
> > David
> >
> >         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> > ______________________________________________
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> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >
> > ______________________________________________
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>
> ______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Joris Meys
Statistical consultant

Ghent University
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bio-Informatics

tel : +32 9 264 59 87
Joris.Meys at Ugent.be
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