Connect Project Name Ideas

[bnb]

It seems that connect is a very popular name, and there's plenty of ways to confuse it with other products. It can get lost in the crowd of projects named connect. We need to come up with a new name.

To start it off, I like

• coupling
• origin
• lineage
• pedigree

[bnb]

More:

• Authentee
• Authentic

[bnb]

More:

• Authem
• Monoauth
• Authage
• Authalon
• Authsome
• Authent

[adalinesimonian]

This issue raises up the question: What exactly is Anvil Connect's brand identity? Does it have a specific vision defined?

Name, logo, all of it plays into brand identity. I think any discussion around name, logo, imagery or otherwise should be part of the larger discussion. That's just my two cents.

Don't get me wrong; I like the proposed names - I just think that it should play into the bigger picture as well.

[christiansmith]

I think a little background is needed here to give context to the discussion. For me, Anvil's brand and identity are deeply rooted and evolving. Five years ago I needed a new email address and wanted something personalized. It's hard to get a short, memorable, domain name these days. The timing was right to get in on .io TLDs and so I picked up anvil.io.

But why Anvil? Given my surname, there's obviously a degree of vanity in this choice. However, it's not just a conveniently available domain. An anvil is very close to the inception human technology. It's at the root of all modern toolmaking. It's a tool itself that's used to shape other tools from raw material. That means it needs to be able to take a beating in the pursuit of an envisioned outcome. This is highly symbolic of the kind of work I have found I most enjoy: building foundational tools and infrastructure that can be used to make an infinite variety of other things.

When I bought anvil.io, I knew it would eventually be a great domain name for a venture. I was in between startups and searching my soul for the next great thing to dive into. But I didn't know right away what that would be. So I used anvil.io for my blog and held it in reserve.

Fast forward to mid 2013 and the genesis of this endeavor. It wasn't immediately clear that this would be the one to call Anvil. The first prototype of this product was called OAuth2Server. About 6 months in, we discovered OpenID Connect and realized that protocol solved a lot of problems we were struggling over with plain OAuth 2.0. Instead of bolting OIDC onto OAuth2Server, we wanted a clean slate with no assumptions. So we started in a separate repository.

By that time, I knew that this work was worthy of bearing the name Anvil. It was also clear that "anvil" by itself wasn't differentiated enough to be a good name for a piece of software. So we added "Connect", in reference to OpenID Connect. It also bears a useful and relevant similarity to developer facing OAuth APIs like Facebook Connect, etc. Recently, everyone has started calling their API "____ Connect".

Even though there was a sense from the beginning that this work could evolve into a startup, I knew too well the hazards of putting the cart before the horse. Incorporation, branding, legalities, tax issues, getting funded... all of these things cost money and distract from the most important tasks at the earliest stage: writing code and working with users. So I waited to formalize a venture until there was a clear business need for that, and until the right cofounders came out of the woodwork. In the mean time, users funded development by way of consulting. Early this year it became apparent that we were starting to miss out on opportunities beyond consulting by not being ready to do business as a business.

It was painfully obvious that the time had come to incorporate. We needed a name for the business. It's first task would be to provide commercial support for Anvil Connect, build it into an IDaaS, and eventually leverage that service to bring other ideas to fruition. Shamelessly, we appropriated the name Anvil and the domain anvil.io for this new company, Anvil Research, Inc.

We then created an organization for the company on GitHub and moved the repos there from my personal account. This created a problem: anvilresearch/anvil-connect is a little redundant. So we dropped the "anvil" from the product name and we're left with Connect.

Connect is a little generic on its own (which is why we still call it Anvil Connect in conversation among the uninitiated). A few days ago I made a comment to that effect and added I would consider renaming the software if something better came up.

I really appreciate the energy coming into the project and I am so grateful to everyone contributing. It makes me incredibly happy to see us gaining momentum. As far as the name goes, for now, I think we need to stick with what we've got. We still have lots of work to do around our brand identity and how we want to engage with our users, and that's a bigger conversation that would be great to have in a hangout.

[bnb]

@christiansmith I would be completely open to jumping in a hangout to discuss naming, on my usual schedule (anything before 3PM EST). Whenever @oren and @vsimonian can make it is good, if they're interested.

[Cynfusion]

@christiansmith I can make myself free for a broader conversation on our identity and and user engagement philosophy this week. I agree that a name change at this point isn't on the table, but yes, time to get other things in motion. If you put it on the agenda for the hangout I'll be there.

[christiansmith]

@bnb the weekly hangout on Thursdays is an appropriate place to have these kinds of discussions, so that everyone who's been involved in the project has an opportunity to join in.

However, I want to reiterate: changing the name is not seriously on the table right at this moment. The timing isn't right and we have much higher priorities. I don't want to spend a great deal of everyone's time discussing it when we really need to make progress on other fronts, like the docs ;-)

@Cynfusion please do join in the hangout so we can talk through branding, governance models, etc. I think it's important to have a good understanding of the tradeoffs in different approaches before we actually need them. Time to show off the new logo too :)