As covered a fortnight ago, the core Hudson commiters were considering whether to rename to Jenkins. The problem rested on the fact that Oracle had applied for a trademark and could not give any guarantees that it could be used.
In response, Oracle posted a process summary of how they saw the Hudson project continuing to evolve under the same name. They assert that “they have made no claim against anyone using the Hudson trademark” – but since they don't legally own the trademark yet, to do so would be impractical anyway.
Others are less keen on Oracle's proposed plan. The creator of Hudson, Kohsuke Kawaguchi, has this to say:
This “our way or highway” theme can be seen in many places throughout our conversation. They are going to dictate their will on us, when they contribute less than 1% of commits since I left Oracle. They think they have a proven record of leading open-source projects, when the record shows otherwise.
Not only that, but Oracle seems keen to break Kohsuke's hold on Hudson:
When the representative of Oracle says it to my face that I should just go find something else to work on, or that I need to immediately stop making [infrastructure] changes or the next email I will receive will be from their lawyers, or when you hear him describe me as a hurdle to the community, I think writing on the wall is pretty clear to me.
As a result, the Hudson community has stood by its plan to rename, with the first part being a ballot to rename on the existing dev list. Andrew bayer posted:
The vote between renaming and status quo starts now. Anyone currently subscribed to either hudson-dev or hudson-users as of when I send this email out is eligible to vote. You can only vote once - if you vote multiple times, only your last vote will be counted. The voting will run for 72 hours, until noon PST on Saturday, after which I will announce the results.
The membership requirement was to stop ballot stuffing (from either side) and only allow those dev members who participate in the development of Hudson to make a decision as to what to do.
The results will be announced tomorrow.