To prefix or not to prefix

[jvandemo]

Currently the motivation to add a prefix to a git repository name is to provide better support for forking:

Without SemGit

The repository names are changed during the fork process to prevent name collisions:

cats/blog              --> me/blog
dogs/blog              --> me/blog-1

With SemGit

The original repository names are retained:

cats/cats-web-blog     --> me/cats-web-blog
dogs/dogs-web-blog     --> me/dogs-web-blog

Arguments for prefix

• makes forking straightforward

  Arguments against prefix

• one could argue that forking is not a true Git concern, rather a concern of a provider like GitHub, BitBucket, etc.
• prefix makes name longer
• prefix makes all repository names in an account a bit repetitive

  Alternative

Maybe a best-of-both-worlds situation is possible where

• repositories that are created by the user are not prefixed
• repositories that are forked from others are prefixed

So:

cats/web-blog     --> me/cats-web-blog
dogs/web-blog     --> me/dogs-web-blog

This requires an intermediate step to rename the repositories after forking.

Immediately after forking, the situation looks like this:

cats/web-blog     --> me/web-blog
dogs/web-blog     --> me/web-blog-1

So a manual rename (e.g. in GitHub UI) for both repositories is needed:

cats/web-blog     --> me/cats-web-blog
dogs/web-blog     --> me/dogs-web-blog

More thoughts and proposals are needed to figure out a way to handle this in a concise and semantic way.

Please feel free to add comments or alternatives in the comments section below.

Thanks!