[development] API module namespace reservation

[Daniel F. Kudwien]

add1sun suggested me in IRC to post this question in the development list:

I have an idea for a new module/project that would merge the functionality of approx. six different modules into one API-like module. There's no code yet, just the idea. Would it be too rude to already create the project on d.o, primarily to invite others to join and contribute to the project?

I was thinking of this to protect the generic project namespace, because it is not yet occupied and IMHO it should be reserved for such an API module. Personally I don't like project registrations for modules that do not yet exist. However, there has been a similar case in the past with the "file" module/project/namespace. IIRC, it was used by an E-Commerce contrib module, which was useful for specific use-cases, but was not an API-like module for integration with other modules. Today I'm getting an Access Denied error on http://drupal.org/project/file, but that is *not* the point - I think you get the idea.

The amount of contrib modules is constantly increasing. IMHO it is important for Drupal to reserve certain generic names for API extensions or even Drupal core extensions. On the other side, it obviously makes no sense to reserve any generic namespace, if there is neither an idea nor code existent. However, in this case there is an idea and most of the code could be merged from existing modules.

Of course, the idea is not top-secret and I could have boiled this issue down to that particular case description. However, I would like to hear the basical opinion of the developer community, which might be added to the handbook pages, too.

sun