JSecurity

Hi JSecurity Community,

After a months of pondering, discussion and debate, the development community has voted in favor of changing the project name from 'JSecurity' to 'Ki' (pronounced "key").

This change comes due to many reasons:

• To ensure that, as a project of the Apache Software Foundation, the project name can be as free and clear as possible from any potential naming conflicts that might be cause for legal conflict. After much research, we discovered that the name 'jsecurity' might potentially be a risk, and we wanted to avoid that
• By having a name without the 'J' prefix, we are free to more intuitively provide support in the project for languages other than Java. Of course you can do that with a name prefixed with 'J', but it is certainly less intuitive. This might be a very real benefit, as we could potentially see remoting stubs for Flex/ActionScript, C# and/or others that want to talk to a Ki Java-based backend server.
• Although a 4-year old project, we are new to the Apache Software Foundation and the Incubator. A name change can represent a fresh start for the project, and for anyone that might wish to join and contribute (note this was not a factor in the decision, just a side benefit moving forward).
• Ki, because of its pronunciation ("key"), can be a source for good branding and design - security 'ki's, Lock and 'Ki', etc, etc. The possibilities are wide open. If you're a designer, we'd love some ideas!
• Lets face it, a super short domain and package name (ki.apache.org / org.apache.ki) is pretty darn cool.

Once the ki user and developer mailing lists are set up, we'll make another announcement so you all can change over at that time. Jira has already been transferred here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KI. We will have a proper Apache Incubator Ki website set up sometime soon. The existing jsecurity.org website will be online for a while, but will change to make it clearly known about the project move. After some time, we'll shut it down completely, probably simply redirecting to the new ki website.

So, finally, you might ask, "Why the name Ki?".

Answer:

'Ki' is a pronunciation for the Japanese Character 柵 (i.e. 城), which can mean 'fortress' or 'castle'. It also carries the underlying connotation of being surrounded by a protective barrier - like a wall or moat. This is a nice fit for a security framework which is the protective barrier surrounding and used within your application. So, we're lucky enough to have a 'web 2.0y' name, but one that actually still has meaning in our problem domain.

Feel free to ask questions and leave comments, and we hope you'll migrate us as we all move forward into this new stage in the project's life.

Best regards,

Les