The opendarwin .com debacle

[Mark Hattam]

On 22 Oct 2009, at 18:54, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

> Ultimately, I don't think anyone is going to be able to "force" the darwinports.com 
>  folks from doing what they're doing (and I really wish the original  
> poster had managed to keep the notion of opendarwin / darwinports  
> separate in his head, since they're really not related issues, yet  
> there's opendarwin in the subject on this whole thread).   Those who  
> were around back when macports was chosen as the new name will know  
> that this was, in fact, one of the big reasons for doing so.  This  
> "problem" has been around for as long as MacPorts has been renamed.
>
> The real problem at this point, however, is not darwinports.com and  
> all this chest-thumping and hand wringing is giving me nothing but  
> feelings of deja-vu since we have done it all before.  It didn't  
> help then and it's utterly unlikely to accomplish anything now.  The  
> real problem here is one of branding.  Why/where are users even  
> hearing the name "darwinports" when it's been essentially dead for  
> over 3 years?  Projects rename themselves all the time and somehow  
> manage to make the name change stick.  What this project needs to  
> ask itself is why the name change has not stuck as successfully here  
> and then fix that problem rather than re-fighting old battles.
>
> - Jordan


Go to Google ... enter something like ... mysql5 port macosx

1. mysql.com
2. out of date way to get php5, mysql5, apache2 using MacPorts ...  
what's gawk & nawk ???
3. the "unwanted" site
...
8. again the "unwanted" site, with a sublist of lots more results
...
further down some hits for the trac to with bugs
...
nowhere in the first 100 hits is    www.macports.org

So it's little wonder that the "other" site keeps cropping up.

Google does have a good number of pages ... search for ...  
site:www.macports.org

In fact there are 328 hits for
site:www.macports.org mysql5

but having found which of those is a relevant one ... most of them  
have the generic "The Macports Project - Available Ports" page title.


Mark