ADR-0022: Keep the name redlines
Status: Accepted Date: 2026-08-26 Deciders: houfu
Context
Section titled “Context”The name collides. python-redlines on PyPI is a different, actively maintained project doing DOCX comparison. redlines.opensource.legal is its demo. redlines.free is jubarte’s commercial site. Searching for “redlines” surfaces all of them.
A rename before a 1.0 rewrite would be the cheapest moment to do it.
Decision
Section titled “Decision”Keep the name. redlines stays the package, the repository and the project.
Rationale
Section titled “Rationale”The name carries the distribution: 3.7M downloads, the course material, existing notebooks and blog posts, and whatever search authority the project has. A rename would forfeit all of it to solve a marketing nuisance rather than a product problem — nobody has ever installed the wrong package and been unable to tell.
The demo site’s domain is a separate and much cheaper decision, and can differentiate without touching the package.
Alternatives considered
Section titled “Alternatives considered”Rename to escape the collision. Rejected for the reasons above. If a rename ever becomes necessary, the moment is a 2.0 with a transitional meta-package, not a quiet swap.
Consequences
Section titled “Consequences”Positive: continuity, and no migration work.
Negative: ongoing confusion in search results and in conversation, particularly with python-redlines, whose maintainer is a plausible collaborator (ADR-0014) — which makes clear positioning in the README more important than usual. Both projects should probably say what the other is.
Revisit when
Section titled “Revisit when”If a legal conflict arises, or if the collision demonstrably costs adoption (measurable as people arriving at the wrong project and saying so).
Related
Section titled “Related”ADR-0014, ADR-0019.