I second this proposal.

I also think this would be the right decision. FactoryBot provides a good precedent, and the feel of the name could even be preserved somewhat by calling it RuboLint or similar.

I wholeheartedly hope that police violence will go down drastically.

I don't feel the best way towards this goal is with blind intolerance towards all cops, including virtual ones like RuboCop's. Many policemen are doing their best in difficult conditions and don't rely on undue violence. Some support protesters today. In many countries, cops aren't feared like they can be in some parts of the US. (Disclosure, I'm Canadian)

My hope is that the word "cop" regains the trust of people. I hope the name RuboCop remains.

I sympathise with the situation in the US and I'm truly hoping that the protests will succeed in bringing some much needed changes there (and that we'll see the end of the police violence soon). That being said, I'd rather keep politics out of software, as I feel we can't put a stigma on a word due to the actions of some misguided individuals. I live in a country with a real dictator (although not on paper), unchecked police that's just an instrument in the hands of the government, and while no one here has any fondness of the Bulgarian police as an institution or our cops, I don't have any issues with the words "police" and "cop". The fundamental idea (serve and protect) is great, but the implementation sucks.

There's also the fact that renaming projects is extremely painful, especially at the scale we're at and will bring a ton of frustration to maintainers of related projects and our end users.

I hope that everyone will accept RuboCop for what it was meant to be - a fun pun on RoboCop, and not try to charge it with any additional negative meaning. Naming is always hard, but I'm quite fond of the name RuboCop and we won't be changing it.

Hey @bbatsov I really think you should reconsider this position:

1. All software is political, and I think we should acknowledge that
2. An association with the cops will cause harm to and otherwise marginalise potential contributors.

I live in a country with a real dictator (although not on paper), unchecked police that's just an instrument in the hands of the government, and while no one here has any fondness of the Bulgarian police as an institution or our cops, I don't have any issues with the words "police" and "cop".

"works on my machine"

I echo what @penelopezone and @emilyst both said.

1. All software is political
2. And even if that wasn't true (it is) and you'd "rather keep politics out of software", then we shouldn't name software after an inherently political force in our society which has always existed to protect white supremacy.[^1]

@bbatsov I urge you to reconsider. A rename is possible. Is it a bumpy transition? Sure. Does that matter in the long run? Of course not! Does anyone remember or care anymore that Firefox was originally named Phoenix? Nah. We've moved on with our lives.

RuboCop is still pre-1.0. It's allowed to make API breaking changes. This is that.

As @awolfson noted above, FactoryGirl to FactoryBot is a great example of prior art.

In the meantime, I forked rubocop and renamed it to ruby_lint.

Here: https://github.com/ruby-lint/ruby_lint
And here: https://rubygems.org/gems/ruby_lint
And here: https://twitter.com/ruby_lint

I will happily hand over all of the those accounts to the Rubocop folks if yall agree to rename rubocop to ruby_lint (or similar[^2]).

1: See: https://crimethinc.com/2017/03/15/slave-patrols-and-civil-servants-a-history-of-policing-in-two-modes
2: ruby-lint is abandoned and archived. https://rubygems.org/gems/ruby-lint https://github.com/yorickpeterse/ruby-lint. ruby-style is also abandoned https://rubygems.org/gems/ruby-style. rubylint is available though. https://rubygems.org/gems/rubylint

If you feel like software isn't political, I recommend that you re-watch the movie that this project is named after - it's plot revolves around corrupt police forces and barriers presented to people seeking justice by software, from algorithmic policing to specifically embodying oppressive political structures in code.

This linter has been valuable for our team - but even conversations in the office note the violence implied by the name. Just think carefully about this, and remember that even Murphy doesn't want to be associated with the name in the end.

I would disagree on the note that software is not political. Facebook and Palantir are key examples of this. Others have phrased this better than me above so I will leave those comments to their merits and instead discuss a few other concerns with the name.

Cops are Enforcers, not Correctors

The reasons, in addition to the negative connotation of the word "cop", that I would consider changing this is that the gem is inherently a linter and auto-corrector. I don't really think that these align well with RoboCop or the punning to RuboCop.

If we set aside the connotations for a moment a "cop" to me is an enforcer of the law, not necessarily a corrector. Perhaps this is more the role of a guide, a mentor, or something else. The goal of RuboCop is not only in highlighting the rules but providing solutions through autocorrection.

Code Modification

Perhaps one of the most powerful features of RuboCop is its autocorrect capabilities and NodePattern syntaxes. Neither are immediately discoverable or intuitive when glancing at the name of the gem.

The sheer amount of surprise I get when I mention autocorrect to other Rubyists is concerning considering how useful it can be. I feel the name can and does hide these capabilities.

Language Parity

The name, while having uniqueness, will lead to confusion for newer developers looking for a linter, code mod, or other similar tool from other languages. Much as we do when debating features for the Ruby language we take other languages naming conventions and habits into serious consideration. I believe this should be the same for common gem names.

This can present discoverability issues. Consider Net::HTTP vs Typhoeus as an example. One is very easy to find for a lot of other language-fluent developers, the other requires domain knowledge of Ruby tooling. I think Typhoeus is a much better API and enjoy using it over the native one, but the native libraries name is far more accessible when starting from zero.

Now to be abundantly clear I do think the name can be harmful to marginalized communities, and do not mean to discount those points above in the least. I merely wished to highlight other reasons why the name of this gem may not be the best fit for the purposes it serves.

Words matter. As an industry, we're moving away from words that exclude folks (you can see this, for example, in Rails rails/rails#33681).

I'd rather keep politics out of software, as I feel we can't put a stigma on a word due to the actions of some misguided individuals.

As long as people are using software, it will be political. There is a stigma on the word, whether we like it or not.

As you prepare for the v1.0 release, now is the ideal time to consider the name of and I encourage you to do so.

To echo @barmintor's point, no matter how you feel about policemen in general, the specific movie "Robocop" is clearly using it the word/idea an ominous and oppressive way. If your preferred feeling is "some cops are fine" or "policing in general is fine," your current name is undermining that point.

If you had named the gem "Rubycop", it would be different: it would be about cops in general. The name "Rubocop" is clearly alluding to the movie.

(I'm not suggesting "Rubycop" as a rename.)

I also like @baweaver's point that the code-autocorrect is a powerful enough feature to be worth calling out with a rename. I think he's right on that. The current name makes that surprising.

I completely understand the idea of changing the name. Especially to those who do not understand the context.

I was down on River Walk in protest of more fair policing, defunding corrupt systems, and for change. However, I find it highly offensive that anyone would even consider trying to change the name of something which was meant for good. Alex Murphy was a good cop who fought against corruption. The same kinds of corruption I am protesting against. If you're fighting to change the name Rubocop which is a pun off of Robocop because it is offensive, and you understand the context of what Robocop symbolized, then you are the very people that we are protesting against.

To echo @baweaver and @noahgibbs point on 'corrector'. I do stand by that and if a name change is in order to have it more aligned to what it's doing, I totally support that.

There's a lovely idea from Neuro Linguistic Programming that "the meaning of your communication is the response you get, not what you think you said". I'm old enough to somewhat appreciate the cheeky movie reference, and to be aware of that movie's anti-corruption message, but that's not the message many users are getting from the name, and I totally understand why.

This feels like a great opportunity to double down on the Ruby community ethos and get a ton of positive publicity by rebranding. At the same time, let's recognise that the request implies a bunch of time and even some material expense for @bbatsov (registered domain names, doc sites etc. beyond "just" renaming in code), and some help scoping that out would probably be appreciated if the request is to seem actionable.

If there are material costs associated with this I would be glad to help pay them.

I have made a gentle fork of RuboCop called rbhint: https://github.com/zspencer/rbhint

My goal here is to support parallel development in a manner that can be safely merged upstream, if at any point @bbatsov decides that it's worth rebranding. I've begun by sprouting a new namespace for rbhint and renaming the command line program.

I'm not particularly sure I know how to do a gentle refactor this large; but I'd be curious to hear what some of the folks who know ruby a bit better think about the following plan:

1. Sprout new public classes in the RbHint namespace that inherit from or alias the RuboCop equivalents
2. Begin to prioritize configuration from rbhint.yml files instead of rubocop.yml
3. Migrate documentation as appropriate.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit stretched too thin to do too all the work on this, but would be happy to share maintainership with others who are enthusiastic to take on this work.

P.s. Sorry @veganstraightedge - Did not see yours until I had did mine :X. I think there may be some parallels and some subtler differences in that I'd also like to shift the degree of assertiveness that rubocop brings to the table down a bit.

RuboCop is a great pun, but the name has always felt a bit authoritarian and oppressive. Especially for a Ruby tool.

Disclaimer: I'm starting to write this at 7 am in my morning, so my thoughts are a bit incoherent.

I wonder how all of you would feel if suddenly a ton of people who haven't done anything for the project appeared here, told you're a horrible person and started bullying you into doing what they want...

For almost a decade I've been doing pro-bono work on the style guides, RuboCop and many related projects, but all of this gets easily forgotten. You come out of nowhere, you vilify me over this, you fork the project without even discussing this idea with our team... Whatever. The US has many issues, but so does the open-source community. If even I wanted to rename the project we're talking about 300+ extensions, usages in tens of thousands of projects, messing up with search results that have been building up for years, etc, and an insane amount of work associated with this. I've made nothing out of RuboCop and now you're adding a huge pile of disappointment and frustration on top of this nothing.

This feels like a great opportunity to double down on the Ruby community ethos and get a ton of positive publicity by rebranding. At the same time, let's recognise that the request implies a bunch of time and even some material expense for @bbatsov (registered domain names, doc sites etc. beyond "just" renaming in code), and some help scoping that out would probably be appreciated if the request is to seem actionable.

@purcell It's nice to see you around! You might remember how the rename of nrepl.el to CIDER went down - this meant so much additional work and so many confused people for years, that I'd really don't want to walk this path again. And the funny thing is I'll get a lot of hate either way... A couple of years ago I had to undergo the painful process of renaming a widely used project again (tools.nrepl -> nrepl) and there are still people confused today about why there are two of them, why some deps don't work in some cases and so on.

Everyone, I understand your frustration very much. I've had my share of political activism, I truly support the cause of the people protesting in the US these days, but I think you've got no idea what you're really asking for. If you hate the name you're obviously free to do whatever you wish. I will only ask you to acknowledge the work our team has been doing for such a long time and be a bit more respectful of our time and efforts. I don't even do much Ruby myself these days, but I'm still dedicating a lot of time to RuboCop, because I love the Ruby community. Seems the feeling is not mutual.

P.S. I haven't seen RoboCop in a while, but I have a vague recollection he was a good guy, who was fighting against the oppressive system.

Don’t get discouraged because of this nonsense. Your response is appreciated and the new “forks” of this project are nothing more than cruel jokes. Wastes of time. Unbelievable that users would treat this project with such disrespect when they should know exactly what it stands for.

@bbatsov - Hey, I apologize for not being clear. My goal is not to tell you that you should spend a bunch of time and attention renaming rubocop pro-bono. My goal is to step forward and take responsibility for doing what I can to make that path easy for you to take if you so choose.

There are two things here that are true, and I believe that we can find a happy path that bridges the two of them.

First, in the United States of America, the police force may choose to extra judiciously execute people. The probability of cops getting away with it is directly related to the color of their targets skin. This is a cold truth. A brutal truth. A truth that cuts so hard that to look at it is to suffer and encourage us to skirt our eyes away and close our minds. And it's a truth that is far worse when experienced.

Second, the effort it takes to rename a project of this size is significant. Further, it is unreasonable for those of us who live in the U.S. and make six-figure plus salaries to demand you, a non-U.S. Citizen do that work. It's a reflection of American imperialism extended into the digital sphere. Your country is not responsible for the United States problem. Your lifestyle is (as far as I know) not subsidized by companies that make billions of dollars a year on surveillance.

My goal with my fork, rbhint, is not to replace RuboCop, but to do the work to reframe the project for an American reality. Just like Ubuntu doesn't replace Debian, just reframes it for home use.

If, at some point, you want to merge the whole kit and kaboodle, I intend to make it easy to do so.

None are free until all are free.

In Solidarity, Zee

I am 100% in support of BLM and the protests, but I don't think there's any need to change the name. That would just create too much inconvenience for so little gain.

It's a fun discussion, but not applicable. Lots of people would be confused about a sudden name change.

Different people associate words in different, disparate ways.

+1 for retaining the name rubocop. Rubo, the cop, enforces the styles for use in a particular code base. That makes sense. And while I am totally in favour of US folks transitioning into a fair democracy, the name rubocop has nothing to do with any political movement and should not be attempted to tied down to one. So -1 for the threadstarter from me.

It's really interesting how so many have such strong opinions about what others should and should not do. I stand with @bbatsov!

The only single comment in all of this mess being anywhere close to reasonableis @zspencer's. Because he's the only one willing to put anything on the line for a change to happen.

RuboCop has as much to do with real cops as "photocopy" or "telescope". It is a smart pun and that's about it.

@bbatsov is right, and I'd hate for the name to change.

@bbatsov Thank you for all your hard work on this gem! That cannot be said enough.

I'm just as clued into the BLM protests as anyone and have been right from when the movement originated after the Trayvon martin and Michael brown shootings.

I think something that is being subtly missed here is that the aim of the protests is to reform Police, to get them to treat us the same way as everyone else, and not to erase them from life, or history. We'll always have police, and we'll always need them ... and we should not be applying the antipathy of current events to a piece of software that has done nothing wrong :)

More importantly, police Forces all over the world could learn a thing or two from Rubocop. It de-escalates conflict while achieving compliance because we as engineers trust it as a neutral and impartial arbiter of agreed upon standards. Black lives clearly matter to Rubocop! Which is exactly why I think Rubocop should remain the name of this gem. 😄

cheers all!

I've appreciated @bbatsov's work for years, so to see a sudden deluge of people who've contributed nothing appear out of the ether w/ the gall to order a project maintainer make a completely nonsensical breaking change is worth at least two sneers & a round of mockery.

It'd be almost funny were it not obviously hurting conscientious maintainers who care way more than they should about keeping a community of infantile finger-pointers happy. It's to be expected that those who do the least demand the most--c'est la vie--but when demands turn into cyberbullying, annoying crosses over to execrable.

As far as "cop" is concerned, police keep communities safe and uphold the law. Sometimes they fail to maintain the expected standards when dealing w/ dangerous individuals, for which they should be held accountable, but they remain the thin blue line between civilization & chaos. Moreover, police encounters are made risky by the very criminals whom the proposers of the name switch champion. Yet those who shed crocodile tears for felons seem to simultaneously celebrate the assault of business owners and smashing of shops, many of which are owned by immigrants and low-income families.

I'm going to raise a 🍺 to @bbatsov and all the other maintainers putting in work to create projects enjoyed by thousands. You deserve all the thanks in the world and none of the venom spat by those who've never lifted a finger to give back to the community.

I'm also raising a 🍺 to law enforcement everywhere risking their safety to keep rioters & looters from ruining the lives of the hard-working, law-abiding many. Unfortunately in the real world there's no Robocop to give thugs their comeuppance, only men & women who put on a uniform each morning and do their duty on behalf of ingrates who don't know right from wrong.

Finally, I raise a 🍺 to 🇺🇸, my beloved adopted country, for which I came halfway around the world. It's not the first time she's been attacked by goons, and it won't be the last, but no matter the adversity, we will carry the torch of civilization forward, and the 🔥 of liberty shall not perish from this earth!

I think "keeping politics out of software" is impossible, software is ultimately inherently political because it effects people.

That said, I really don't think renaming the project would be particularly useful or worth the significant effort it'd take. I'd be opposed to it.

Thank you @bbatsov for your work on rubocop over the years, and I'm sorry you've had to deal with this today.

and SJW appear...

this is a joke. there is also a lot of problems in the world, beside cops, should we cover also that? and the world is not USA.

let change ruby, because people in africa are being kill, for some rich white asses that needs diamonds.

alias ruby_lint=rubocop in your .bashrc

This is absurd.. Glad the maintainers did not opt to rename the project.
Whatever stigma is associated with the term cop is only temporary and will soon pass..

To those who are advocating the rename, are you all suggesting that:

• if there was a project named corona, it should now be renamed to something less traumatizing in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic?
• Or if in the future a nation was attacked by an extremist group named R.U.B.Y, the programming language should be renamed altogether as well??

Hands that help are holier than lips that pray.

If you give a shit about people's circumstances & have time, go volunteer in young women's and teen's education.

Making token efforts at "change" in such an absurd way ... word replacementism??? ... is sad

@bbatsov don't let the whining wear you down, keep being industrious & live your life man

This is ridiculous...

The problem isn't in the word "cop".

If you want to make a difference, take a meaningful action.

• Make children and raise them well. Emphasize on good education, a proper believe system and moral values.
• Organize a social event and make an appeal.
• Join a protest.
• etc

But picking on open source projects and demand dropping the "cop" part is just nonsense.
The RuboCop project has nothing to do with the situation in the USA. Here's its mission:

We're committed to promoting the best Ruby programming practices and helping people write better Ruby applications.

Changing the name won't change the desperate situation in the USA.
You are talking about "uncomfortable feeling" and "respect for vulnerable people in the community".

How changing the name "RuboCop" will make a difference?

Or if in the future a nation was attacked by an extremist group named R.U.B.Y, the programming language should be renamed altogether as well??

Spot on, @ashmaroli

God bless the thumb democracy.

I’ve seen a statement “Open Source should not be political” hundred times since 2014 regarding the aggression against Ukraine, where more than 10000 civilians, including kids, have been killed and more than 2 million forced to leave their homes and everything they had.

What changed? Have any of you, dear participants, gave a single shit? Can you even find Bulgaria on the map?

GTFO from @bbatsov he doesn’t owe you anything. You owe him

I disagree with everybody supporting the rename. If this means so much to you - stop using the project, fork the repo, do all the work required to change the name and advocate for adoption of your fork. Nobody owes you this, nobody has to feel offended by some word just because you do. Put in some effort or GTFO.

Congrats @bbatsov for standing up to these bullying activists that never put a minute of their time in the great RuboCop project!

They are the same people that threatened Linux's future with the dumb and disgusting code of covenant that openly claimed to be against meritocracy!

It's disgusting to read comments claiming that software is political!
Software IS NOT political and never shall be.
OpenSource software is a monument to meritocracy, where merit lies in quality of code and dedicating your time to it for free.

Products can be political and it is done by altering the content and access to your product (I am disgusted by this practice, but you do what you want with your product to indulge the little authoritarian in you, but stay out of other people's work)

The vitriol in this thread is disappointing me greatly.

I don't see anyone demanding the name change, nor bullying others to make a change happen. Those who've asked for this change to happen are requesting politely, explaining their reasons calmly.

And while I don't think 'being a contributor' should be a requirement for people casting their opinions here, let's be clear: I recognise a bunch of folks who are asking for the project's name to be changed as significant contributors to Ruby open source libraries and the community. I've seen them speak or host conferences, lead the development in essential Ruby gems, and strive to make this community and broader industry smarter, more compassionate, and more welcoming. ❤️

I think words matter, I think police brutality is a global issue, I think we should embrace opportunities to make our community more respectful rather than less. There's an opportunity for improvement here, and I think it should be embraced. Much like the original comment by @gcentauri I find myself feeling less and less comfortable using a tool with this name - and that's not a reflection on how useful this gem is, nor a reflection on whether @bbatsov's work is valued. Clearly, people appreciate this gem and what @bbatsov has done, because otherwise they wouldn't be here making a request.

I understand that a name change is not likely. I think that's a shame. I'll certainly be paying attention to alternative libraries.

@gcentauri

u and everybody who wants to rename this project just because there is a cop in the name should be ashamed of yourself.
I know what you should do. Fork the repo, rename it, and use that. Then go to the streets and protest the government.

Dont come here and disrespect a man's years and years of hard work.

I am so surprised to see these people not having thick skin. Anything will offend them. You guys are so soft I just want to laugh.

Renaming this project is equivalent to signing a petition.

Also, @bbatsov can I request you lock this thread from further comments. You've made your decision, and there are some extremely abusive remarks being added that don't help at all.

Yeah, looks like a lot of this anger-pile-on happened because this PR got from linked here about 4.5 hours ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/gy6cza/issue_request_on_github_to_rename_rubocop_due_to/

Doesn't feel like this is going to be a very productive conversation at this point.

Open source isn't independent of politics. But world isn't America and politics isn't same or subset of American politics.

If cops are bad in your country/system, fix that system, banning the usage of the word cop is accepting the failure

This is what happens when fathers are excommunicated, kids

This conversation is going out of hand, yet I'll give my own shot at providing something positive

Please, if you're reading this and you feel like there's a need for a fork of RuboCop, consider joining and supporting other projects, such as Standard. It's a good project, but it needs more momentum.

Being a wrapper around RuboCop, Standard refers to rubocop's docs a lot. With your help, that can change. Improving the ecosystem around Standard will actually allow it to become independent of rubocop.

Please consider joining an existing cause. I'm also appealing to @veganstraightedge and @zspencer in a hope to join the efforts

Perhaps it's best to lock this, as the discussion/conversation is turning toxic for no good reason. The decision was made to not rename the project, and both sides have expressed their views. There really is no need for name-calling people involved in this discussion, as that only increases the heated discussion leading to nowhere.

We all have our views and opinions, but we can still convey them properly.

Please also remove the disrespectful comments by @SRGOM and @evrial. They do not represent the Ruby community.

Yeah, I feel that the conversation here stopped being productive, so it's time to lock it. I'll just mention a few closing words:

Please, if you're reading this and you feel like there's a need for a fork of RuboCop, consider joining and supporting other projects, such as Standard. It's a good project, but it needs more momentum.

I think that's a great suggestion, as Standard has been around for a while and it a great tool.

My goal with my fork, rbhint, is not to replace RuboCop, but to do the work to reframe the project for an American reality. Just like Ubuntu doesn't replace Debian, just reframes it for home use.

@zspencer Thanks for the explanations! That's fine by me.

There are many other things I'd like to add, but I'll need some time process all of this better and to finish the release of RuboCop 1.0 that I promised you exactly 2 years ago and that's only a couple of commits away.

And while I don't think 'being a contributor' should be a requirement for people casting their opinions here, let's be clear: I recognise a bunch of folks who are asking for the project's name to be changed as significant contributors to Ruby open source libraries and the community. I've seen them speak or host conferences, lead the development in essential Ruby gems, and strive to make this community and broader industry smarter, more compassionate, and more welcoming.

Everyone's welcome to suggest anything. That goes without saying. I don't value anyone's opinion more or less because they are famous/well-known in a community or not. I was rubbed the wrong way by the (perceived) tone of some of the messaging that felt to me like a demand to do something because someone expects me to do it. Two forks in one day is definitely not something you see every day. :-)

I've wasted countless weekends and evenings of my life working on OSS projects, I've always tried to be reasonable and accommodating, I've accepted many changes that I don't need or I don't agree with. I've ended up maintaining more and more code that's just a burden for me in the long run. Gone are the days when RuboCop was just a small personal project that brought me only joy. Now everyone expects something from me and I try not to disappoint them, because I want to do right by the community. And yet - I feel people always demand more and more. Renaming a bunch of classes and methods is easy, but the real impact of such changes is what happens afterwards - the broken extensions who nobody's going to update for ages, the confused users, the people who'll be angry with me for doing a change that they are against.

I've already participated in the renames of two very prominent projects in the past and I know very well how this is going to unfold, and believe it or not I've got other things and problems in my life besides open-source. All of this comes at the end of a week marked by significant personal issues that you're not aware of and you probably don't care about.

After some consideration I wrote an article to bring some closure to the topic.