Sounds like an opportunity. Maybe a name/brand search tool dedicated to software projects that gives a report on conflicts that costs a few bucks or is ad-supported.
Re:Kiln
by psycr on Sunday March 31, 2013 @08:07PM
(#5470742)
Changing its name would be an appreciated gesture, I think. I'm sure others will agree. I confused it initially thinking it would be related to Fog Creek.
Clearly not that well-known, then. I've never heard of it either. The Fog Creek Kiln project doesn't have its own Wikipedia page (which I consider a rough threshold for notability).
Re:Kiln
by gecko on Sunday March 31, 2013 @08:00PM
(#5470711)
We've been on HN a half dozen times, been featured in some trade magazines, have been a gold Mercurial sponsor, and have built-in support in competitor's products (e.g. SourceTree). We're also the second link if you google for "Kiln". I think that qualifies as relatively notable.
We also have a trademark on the name Kiln in the context of developer tools.
Edit: That last line sounds like a threat, which it absolutely isn't. Just, due to how these things work, picking another name probably makes sense.
Re:Kiln
by mpyne on Monday April 01, 2013 @09:01AM
(#5472742)
Ooh, good point. Though one issue I've noticed popping up of late is that people are starting to associate "open source" with "GitHub" instead of with checking whether the source is open or not. So who knows, maybe a GitHub mirror of their own Kiln-hosted source for April Fool's?
Google and whois are the minimum threshold for picking names these days. If you intend to start a business, add a trademark search to that.
There's also no law against picking descriptive names.
Did you develop an egg smashing simulator? Where's the harm in calling it "Egg Smash Simulator Kit" instead of "Humpty" or some other confusing bloody puntastic name?
Re:Kiln
by rdl on Sunday March 31, 2013 @08:53PM
(#5470865)
Developer tools for iOS, on iOS. You probably don't really care about the domain name, so there are a lot of possibilities.
Kiln is kind of a shitty name to begin with, so I'm sure you'll think of something better. I'd focus on how it's self-hosted, handheld, mobile, lightweight, and portable.
"Phone Self Exam" is one bad idea, with the obvious non-Ada Initiative approved branding concept...
Re:Kiln
by objclxt on Sunday March 31, 2013 @07:47PM
(#5470671)
I suspect most software developers worth their salt have heard of Joel Spolsky, and by extension Fog Creek. Aside from them actually having their own pages on Wikipedia (which someone else has linked to), Kiln is a trademark of Fog Creek, so not an ideal choice of name for an OSS project.
Your original post said "Fog Creek doesn't have it's own Wikipedia page". Then you edited it to say Kiln project after you saw these links. How about some integrity?
> Your original post said "Fog Creek doesn't have it's own Wikipedia page". Then you edited it to say Kiln project after you saw these links.
Wrong, my post originally said "The Fog Creek project" (as opposed to the OP's project). The only word I added was "Kiln", to make it clearer.
> How about some integrity?
How about stopping to think before making accusations about other people's integrity, rather than shooting from the hip? I see you're new to HN. Why don't you learn some etiquette by reading the HN guidelines, it'll help you to avoid the banhammer: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Re:Kiln
by mion on Sunday March 31, 2013 @09:58PM
(#5471044)
This is awesome, great work! However, and I don't mean to be rude, lemme just give you a tip about your documentation.
I'm not a "documentation expert" or anything, but IMHO I'd say there is too much information on your "landing page" and not a clear "call to action":
- How about some installation instructions?
- Basic usage? (addressing the main features, those which most users will probably use most of the time)
If I were you I'd put the details about plugins somewhere in the Wiki.
I don't have a lot of spare time to check out your thing, so the project becomes increasingly unattractive as I have to waste more and more time to figure out how to use it / how to get it up and running for a basic test.
Again, IMHO, I believe this applies to most hackers, and to open source documentation in general. Very often I see great hackers who can code 1000x better than I do, but fail to write 'attractive' documentation for their projects.
Re:Kiln
by objclxt on Sunday March 31, 2013 @07:49PM
(#5470680)
It's not totally clear from the project page, but I'm pretty sure this particular project is for RubyMotion, and you'll need to be writing your apps with that to benefit. You wouldn't be able to integrate Kiln straight into an existing Objective-C/XCode flow, unlike DCIntrospect. Someone do correct me if I'm wrong on this though.
Re:Kiln
by colinta on Sunday March 31, 2013 @08:17PM
(#5470777)
Thanks! PonyDebugger is solid, though, and much more useful from when you're at a computer. This project is all about getting debugging information from your device.
Re:Kiln
by colinta on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @11:03AM
(#5479673)
name is resolved, so all the trolls and snipes that are hung up on the NAME instead of the PRODUCT, please continue your trolling and sniping, but on a new topic (like this comment! it's perfect!)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kiln
I'm not blaming anyone or saying anyone is wrong.
But I almost named a project I was involved "beaver" something. (No, I am not a native speaker)
We also have a trademark on the name Kiln in the context of developer tools.
Edit: That last line sounds like a threat, which it absolutely isn't. Just, due to how these things work, picking another name probably makes sense.
Edit: I'm brainstorming names on the rubymotion google group. F-ing naming, it's so annoying. I'll try and get it renamed soon.
There's also no law against picking descriptive names.
Did you develop an egg smashing simulator? Where's the harm in calling it "Egg Smash Simulator Kit" instead of "Humpty" or some other confusing bloody puntastic name?
You're joking, right? Yes. You need to pick a name for your product that doesn't clash with a well established product in the same field.
I only clicked this article because I thought Joel had gone open-source. I suspect most everyone reading this thread thought the same thing.
Kiln is kind of a shitty name to begin with, so I'm sure you'll think of something better. I'd focus on how it's self-hosted, handheld, mobile, lightweight, and portable.
"Phone Self Exam" is one bad idea, with the obvious non-Ada Initiative approved branding concept...
Having heard of Joel or Fog Creek is one thing. Having heard of their Kiln project is another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Spolsky
Wrong, my post originally said "The Fog Creek project" (as opposed to the OP's project). The only word I added was "Kiln", to make it clearer.
> How about some integrity?
How about stopping to think before making accusations about other people's integrity, rather than shooting from the hip? I see you're new to HN. Why don't you learn some etiquette by reading the HN guidelines, it'll help you to avoid the banhammer: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm not a "documentation expert" or anything, but IMHO I'd say there is too much information on your "landing page" and not a clear "call to action":
- How about some installation instructions?
- Basic usage? (addressing the main features, those which most users will probably use most of the time) If I were you I'd put the details about plugins somewhere in the Wiki.
I don't have a lot of spare time to check out your thing, so the project becomes increasingly unattractive as I have to waste more and more time to figure out how to use it / how to get it up and running for a basic test.
Again, IMHO, I believe this applies to most hackers, and to open source documentation in general. Very often I see great hackers who can code 1000x better than I do, but fail to write 'attractive' documentation for their projects.
https://github.com/domesticcatsoftware/DCIntrospect
Different, though, because Kiln is meant to be more generic, and pluggable.
[1]: https://github.com/square/PonyDebugger
https://github.com/colinta/motion-xray