Hi Linus,
Thanks for typing up your thoughts -- comments inline!
-Rasmus
On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 05:07:45PM +0100, Sigsum General wrote:
Warning: Boring naming scheme discussion ahead. And as if that wasn't enough I'm going to propose that we become more boring, not less.
## What I would like for us to move away from "pet names" for stable Sigsum services, including log instances. Or if we decide to keep them, choose them in a way that provides some context.
What context do you want to provide?
## Why Pet names without any context requires everybody to memorise a token and connect it to a Sigsum service. While this might be ok for those who work
The alternatives I see without pet names are:
- We talk about "foo's sigsum log" - We talk about a Sigsum log with <pub key / key hash>
The first option doesn't work well if foo operates >1 log or witness, unless they have their own unique contexts of course. Hence my question above (and further down below) about what context you want to provide.
The second option doesn't work well in conversation, and is the main reason why we have names like jellyfish, seasalp, etc., for our logs.
with them a lot, I find it a bit presumptuous to ask everyone else to do that. Compare Debian release names.
## How One kind of context that would have particular value for all but the few of us who work with Sigsum daily would be a connection to Sigsum. Prefixing names with "sigsum-" would be one way of doing this.
Another type of context could be provided by including in the name the type of service provided. "log" and "witness", "wit" or "wtn" come to mind. It could be argued that the cleverly chosen families of animals currently used provide such context but I don't think that is helpful.
FWIW I don't view "seasalp" and "jellyfish" as clever sigsum aliases. It might have been better if seasalp had actually had this base URL:
https://sigsum.glasklar.is/seasalp/
But I still think it is helpful that "seasalp" is included. It's a way to refer to a particular Sigsum log that is operated by Glasklar.
Yet another, useful in cases where we know that there is an upcoming incompatible protocol change, would be to include a version number.
Related:
https://git.glasklar.is/sigsum/project/documentation/-/blob/main/archive/202... https://git.glasklar.is/sigsum/project/documentation/-/blob/main/proposals/2...
## Random, minor Non stable services, like current test log "jellyfish", are presumably used by fewer and more involved people and can keep being named like pets.
## Going forward Happy to turn this into a proposal if there's any support for this position.
If you have a suggestion for a context that's helpful I think that would be much better than pet names. But I'm not sure what that context is.
Sigsum-general mailing list -- sigsum-general@lists.sigsum.org To unsubscribe send an email to sigsum-general-leave@lists.sigsum.org