I'll chime in from the other side of the ocean: I didn't even know that the Huxtables was their family name, and I've watched the Cosby show often as a kid. I did a quick check in the office and of the 12 R users I asked, exactly 0 knew who the Huxtables were.
So I wouldn't worry too much about it. Cheers Joris On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 3:58 PM, Dason Kurkiewicz <das...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi David, > > Honestly I'm from the US and know about the scandal with Cosby but > don't think that it would be an issue for your package. First off > it's the name of the fictional family - not Bill Cosby's name > directly. There are more members of the family than just what Bill > portrayed. If you show me anybody that sees your package name and > says something like "well I guess that author is for sexual assault" > then I doubt they're really thinking at a capacity to do any sort of > real work anyways. There are other "Huxtable"s that exist by the way: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Louise_Huxtable is a prime example > that comes to mind for me. A quote from Carter Wiseman: "Huxtable's > insistence on intellectual rigor and high design standards made her > the conscience of the national architectural community". That doesn't > seem like a bad person to have an association with if you ask me. > > Changing the package's name seems to be much too high of a cost (if > even possible) to shake the extremely loose association one might see > the package having with Bill Cosby. It's not like you called your > package "ISIS". I would highly recommend just not worrying about it. > > -Dason Kurkiewicz > > On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Fox, John <j...@mcmaster.ca> wrote: > > Dear David, > > > > No one at CRAN has responded yet, so I'll take a stab at it. > > > > First, you're right about the resonance of "huxtable" for North > Americans, and if the package were mine, I'd be slightly embarrassed about > the name. > > > > CRAN generally will not allow you to rename a package, for several > obvious reasons: For example, packages that depend on yours would break > (but there don't appear to be any yet), users might be confused, and there > would be a discontinuity in archived versions of the package. See < > https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-August/067264.html> for a > comment by one of the CRAN maintainers about renaming packages. > > > > You could, however, ask the CRAN maintainers for a dispensation, > explaining the reason for the desired change. > > > > Best, > > John > > > > ----------------------------- > > John Fox, Professor > > McMaster University > > Hamilton, Ontario > > Canada L8S 4M4 > > web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > From: R-package-devel [r-package-devel-boun...@r-project.org] on behalf > of David Hugh-Jones [davidhughjo...@gmail.com] > > Sent: June 11, 2017 9:51 AM > > To: R package devel > > Subject: [R-pkg-devel] Changing a package's name > > > > Hello all, > > > > A short while ago I released the "huxtable" package for writing HTML and > > LaTeX tables: > > https://www.github.com/hughjonesd/huxtable > > > > The name seemed cute to me, but I later found out that to Americans it > has > > special associations. The Huxtables were the family in the Cosby show. > That > > would be fine, except that Bill Cosby is now on trial for one case of > rape, > > and there are accusations of many other cases. > > > > So, two questions: > > > > * Do you think I should change the name? > > > > Comments welcome from Americans and others on this difficult cultural > issue. > > > > * If I do, what's the best and least disruptive way to do it? Bear in > mind > > that I have a couple of thousand users. > > > > My first thought would be to release an update which gives a warning > about > > the future change when the package is loaded; then release a package with > > the new name and continue development on this branch. > > > > David > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel > > ______________________________________________ > R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel > -- Joris Meys Statistical consultant Ghent University Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bio-Informatics tel : +32 9 264 59 87 joris.m...@ugent.be ------------------------------- Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
