How should I name packages if I don't have a domain associated with me? [closed]

Answer 1

For my own personal work when I don't have a namespace, I go for something simple like org.<myname>.*

Answer 2

Why not register a domain?

They're fairly cheap and doing so will guarantee that you don't clash with anybody else (or at least give you the satisfaction that if a clash does occur, it's the other person who will have to rewrite their code).

Either register your own name, or try to make up a name that you may use as the basis for a business at a later date.

• bernard.surname.net
• madeupname.net

This will cost you less than 10GBP per year.

Personally, I'd go for the made up name approach, as it's likely to look more professional (unless you choose something really strange).

An added advantage is that a lot of domains will come with email capabilities, giving you a better email address than bernard.surname@hotmail.com.

Answer 3

Good advice on this topic found on the web: "Start your package names with your email address, reversed.[...] Or, host your code at a site which will give you a slice of their domain."

Answer 4

Note that the "reverse domain name" thing is just a convention: useful since it definitely avoids clashes if everyone adhers to it, but you don't have to follow it.

Just choose a name that you can be reasonably sure nobody else will use and which is not registered as trademark by anyone - because that's the one way you could actually get into legal trouble.

And that means it's in fact a rather bad idea to use some sort of "subdomain" of a free service you're using, like deviantart or a dyndns or free mail service! Because most (if not all) of those domains are trademarked terms, and if your projects ever gets widely distributed, it could be seen as violating the trademark. Just because they allow you to use that name as an email address (or whatever) doesn't mean you can use it for anything else - in fact, their EULA almost certainly restricts usage to exactly that one purpose.