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Comment by niftich | Hacker News Reader

As of posting, the info on this site is very lean, but going forward sourcehut seems to be the name for the software suite of the service 'sr.ht'. The linkage is implied by the quote on the site that "sr.ht is a hosted instance of sourcehut provided for your convenience".

The impetus behind the branding clarification seems to be this HN thread [1]. For more history, see the the debut announcement [2] and its corresponding HN thread [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18929709#18930413 [2] https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general-availabilit... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458908

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Seems to be otherwise - https://meta.sr.ht is now branded as "sourcehut". I'm guessing sourcehut.org is a marketing page while sr.ht continues to be the service domain.

Well, the default config itself has been updated with the new name [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] -- this what you'd self-host, and is also what's hosted out of 'sh.rt', but we're splitting hairs to pedantic, and both of us are mostly right.

It seems 'sh.rt' will continue to be the service domain while the software (but not the identities of the artifacts) have been renamed for ease, and it's all being done in a way to maximize benefit and minimize breakage.

Definitely glad that he changed it. I was concerned about that holding his growth back when he did the Show on Lobsters. Also, some people can't access sites with weird domains due to corporate firewalls. A .org might prevent that.

Looking back at the thread, it looks like the new name was suggested back then by neuromanc:

https://lobste.rs/s/cqangw/sr_ht_hacker_s_forge_now_open_for...

I like how the proposed name fit with the existing one. Good example of backward compatibility, but with project names. ;)

I imagined someone asked if "sr.ht" was pronounced "sourcehut" and he said "uhhh... Yea!"

Funny to see it came from reddit, thanks.

lobste.rs ≠ redd.it

I think this is a bad move.

There is already:

SourceTree

SourceView

SourceForge

TheSource

SourceCode

SourceDaddy

OutSource

By adding more "Source", you are just diluting value of source brand.

It will be interesting to see how many more "Source" untill we stop using Source at all?

Same is the thing with "Git" and Docker escaped this issue by prohibiting use of "Docker" in non docker owned companies.

GitHub, GitLab, Gitea. Those all work fine. As long as you can easily tell the difference between them.

Agreed. Taco Bell, Del Taco, Taco Cabana, Taco Bueno, Del Taco, Fuzzy's Tacos... and it keeps going.

"Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell. "

Pizza Hut...

My wife still misses Taco Tico, and every time I call some other restaurant that, she's incredibly disappointed.

So yeah, there's more to branding than a single word of the name.

> you are just diluting value of source brand

"Source" is not the brand, it's the literal description of what most (all?) of these products and services deal with.

The prefixes/suffixes make the brand. Having a very relatable/descriptive term like "Source" in that brand adds clarity.

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