3.13 Naming Conventions

Some names in monotone are private to your work, such as filenames. Other names are potentially visible outside your project, such as RSA key identifiers or branch names. It is possible that if you choose such names carelessly, you will choose a name which someone else in the world is using, and subsequently you may cause confusion when your work and theirs is received simultaneously by some third party.

We therefore recommend two naming conventions:

• For RSA keys, use the name of an active email address you own. This will minimize conflicts, and also serves as a mnemonic to associate your personal identity with signatures made with your key. For example, monotone’s primary author uses the key identifier graydon@pobox.com.
• For branch names, select any name you like but prefix it with the “inverted domain name” of a DNS domain you control or are otherwise authorized to use. This behavior mimics the package naming convention in the java programming language. For example, monotone itself is developed within the net.venge.monotone branch, because the original author owned the DNS domain venge.net.