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![]() | On 2 December 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to Apptainer (software). The result of the discussion was not moved. |
Evidence of notability in cited sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] ~ Kvng ( talk) 03:13, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
According to The Linux Foundation's announcement and the new project website, the software project named Singularity was renamed "Apptainer" on November 30, 2021.
The website listed in the article ("singularity.hpcng.org") already redirects to the new website.
Should we rename the article to "Apptainer (software)", or put in a redirect page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by D Johnston2 ( talk • contribs) 19:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Withdrawn by proposer. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Tol ( talk | contribs) @ 02:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Singularity (software) → Apptainer (software) – According to The Linux Foundation's announcement ( https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/new-linux-foundation-project-accelerates-collaboration-on-container-systems-between-enterprise-and-high-performance-computing-environments/) and the new project website ( https://apptainer.org/), the software project named Singularity was renamed "Apptainer" on November 30, 2021. The website listed in the article ("singularity.hpcng.org") already redirects to the new website. I'm a new user and cannot move it myself yet. D Johnston2 ( talk) 19:52, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
I read the discussion from late last year about renaming this page. I think the proposal should be re-raised.
Here's how I view things. Right now it's still really the same one piece of software, but distributed from two separate organizations/codebases. The original creator of the project as well as notable organizations in the industry (Linux Foundation and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) maintain the original codebase, now distributed as Apptainer. Sylabs, which had been overseeing the development on the "offical" codebase for some time, now maintains its own forked codebase, distributed as SingularityCE. There is still considerable cross-pollination between the projects. I understand based on the discussion that there are probably hurt feelings from the political maneuvers that resulted in the fork, but as a third-party observer (but a user of singularity), it's hard to argue that the project that this page is about hasn't been renamed Apptainer.
I think we should rename the page Apptainer, and change the lede to say "Apptainer, (formerly known as Singularity) is a free, cross-platform and open-source computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization also known as containerization." This is what I would add to the History section (with citations to be added), possibly under a section called "Renaming and project forks":
In 2017, Kurtzer founded SingularityWare, which later became Sylabs, a company which directed the development of Singularity and built additional projects such as Sylabs Cloud and enterprise support plans to complement Singularity. The official distribution and documentation of Singularity was done via the sylabs.io domain during this time. In April 2020, Kurtzer left Sylabs and the control of the main Singularity repository was left to an organization called HPCng, for which Kurtzer was the chairman of the board. In May 2021, Sylabs forked the HPCng codebase to create its own project, also called Singularity. For a brief time after this, there were two separately maintained sets of codebases and documentation that were both named Singularity. To prevent confusion, the Sylabs project was subsequently renamed SingularityCE (Community Edition). In November 2021, the HPCng Singularity project was transferred to the Linux Foundation and was renamed Apptainer to further separate it from the forked project.
If the projects diverge further in the future then perhaps 2 articles will be necessary.
Isaac rowe1 ( talk)
I do not second the suggestion above, and I find the information misleading. First, about the forks not being "different enough." Although Apptainer currently takes a lot of commits from SingularityCE, that number seems to be decreasing, and comparing the roadmaps the projects are likely to continue to diverge. As a community member, and someone that was part of the project before splitting, I want to see both projects fairly represented. I also find the statement that "the community is following Apptainer" misleading. There was a recent meeting at the ISC High Performance Computing Conference (2022) https://www.isc-hpc.com/ and specifically the containers Birds of a Feather (BOF) https://container-in-hpc.org/isc/2022/2_bof.html and most of the attendees (national labs, other national and international academic centers) are not using Apptainer, but instead Podman and SingularityCE. I can attest this is true at my institution and the institutions that I collaborate with. Now that I've addressed these statements, I want to step back and say that this rivalry needs to stop. It is not healthy for the community that uses the software, whether that be Apptainer or SingularityCE. We need to focus on transparency and acknowledge that the project has split into two directions, both being used and valued by various parties. Instead of trying to focus on silencing the other side or arguing about some "true" lineage, I would encourage the authors here to focus on equality and transparency. To delete one project from the history here is not transparent. To claim that one is somehow better or more "true" than the other is misleading and frankly wrong. A project is driven by its contributors, and there are (still) an entire cohort on both sides. I suspect if we did a survey across centers we would find similar. We need to maintain this original history page, and each of the two projects, Apptainer and SingularityCE, can develop their own pages from that. That is what is fair, transparent, and not biased to an opinion or hurt feelings from the events that happened in these last years. The two projects need to move forward and minimally respect one another and not take action that comes across as malicious to harm the other one.
Vsoch ( talk) 19:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Dcat52 ( talk) 16:11, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I came across the draft article for apptainer Draft:Apptainer and Robert provided this comment:
I believe the way to remedy this would be for this page to be more or less frozen in time with present-day knowledge through time. We would need something like a derivative works section where both are listed (any future ones could be added too). Authors writing can write about topic they are more familiar with, SingularityCE and Apptainer on their respective pages should they exist by work of authors. If the two projects diverge substantially enough that this page is deranked, I believe that is a question for Wikipedia/users to determine in the future.
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. |
![]() | On 2 December 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to Apptainer (software). The result of the discussion was not moved. |
Evidence of notability in cited sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] ~ Kvng ( talk) 03:13, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
According to The Linux Foundation's announcement and the new project website, the software project named Singularity was renamed "Apptainer" on November 30, 2021.
The website listed in the article ("singularity.hpcng.org") already redirects to the new website.
Should we rename the article to "Apptainer (software)", or put in a redirect page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by D Johnston2 ( talk • contribs) 19:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Withdrawn by proposer. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Tol ( talk | contribs) @ 02:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Singularity (software) → Apptainer (software) – According to The Linux Foundation's announcement ( https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/new-linux-foundation-project-accelerates-collaboration-on-container-systems-between-enterprise-and-high-performance-computing-environments/) and the new project website ( https://apptainer.org/), the software project named Singularity was renamed "Apptainer" on November 30, 2021. The website listed in the article ("singularity.hpcng.org") already redirects to the new website. I'm a new user and cannot move it myself yet. D Johnston2 ( talk) 19:52, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
I read the discussion from late last year about renaming this page. I think the proposal should be re-raised.
Here's how I view things. Right now it's still really the same one piece of software, but distributed from two separate organizations/codebases. The original creator of the project as well as notable organizations in the industry (Linux Foundation and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) maintain the original codebase, now distributed as Apptainer. Sylabs, which had been overseeing the development on the "offical" codebase for some time, now maintains its own forked codebase, distributed as SingularityCE. There is still considerable cross-pollination between the projects. I understand based on the discussion that there are probably hurt feelings from the political maneuvers that resulted in the fork, but as a third-party observer (but a user of singularity), it's hard to argue that the project that this page is about hasn't been renamed Apptainer.
I think we should rename the page Apptainer, and change the lede to say "Apptainer, (formerly known as Singularity) is a free, cross-platform and open-source computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization also known as containerization." This is what I would add to the History section (with citations to be added), possibly under a section called "Renaming and project forks":
In 2017, Kurtzer founded SingularityWare, which later became Sylabs, a company which directed the development of Singularity and built additional projects such as Sylabs Cloud and enterprise support plans to complement Singularity. The official distribution and documentation of Singularity was done via the sylabs.io domain during this time. In April 2020, Kurtzer left Sylabs and the control of the main Singularity repository was left to an organization called HPCng, for which Kurtzer was the chairman of the board. In May 2021, Sylabs forked the HPCng codebase to create its own project, also called Singularity. For a brief time after this, there were two separately maintained sets of codebases and documentation that were both named Singularity. To prevent confusion, the Sylabs project was subsequently renamed SingularityCE (Community Edition). In November 2021, the HPCng Singularity project was transferred to the Linux Foundation and was renamed Apptainer to further separate it from the forked project.
If the projects diverge further in the future then perhaps 2 articles will be necessary.
Isaac rowe1 ( talk)
I do not second the suggestion above, and I find the information misleading. First, about the forks not being "different enough." Although Apptainer currently takes a lot of commits from SingularityCE, that number seems to be decreasing, and comparing the roadmaps the projects are likely to continue to diverge. As a community member, and someone that was part of the project before splitting, I want to see both projects fairly represented. I also find the statement that "the community is following Apptainer" misleading. There was a recent meeting at the ISC High Performance Computing Conference (2022) https://www.isc-hpc.com/ and specifically the containers Birds of a Feather (BOF) https://container-in-hpc.org/isc/2022/2_bof.html and most of the attendees (national labs, other national and international academic centers) are not using Apptainer, but instead Podman and SingularityCE. I can attest this is true at my institution and the institutions that I collaborate with. Now that I've addressed these statements, I want to step back and say that this rivalry needs to stop. It is not healthy for the community that uses the software, whether that be Apptainer or SingularityCE. We need to focus on transparency and acknowledge that the project has split into two directions, both being used and valued by various parties. Instead of trying to focus on silencing the other side or arguing about some "true" lineage, I would encourage the authors here to focus on equality and transparency. To delete one project from the history here is not transparent. To claim that one is somehow better or more "true" than the other is misleading and frankly wrong. A project is driven by its contributors, and there are (still) an entire cohort on both sides. I suspect if we did a survey across centers we would find similar. We need to maintain this original history page, and each of the two projects, Apptainer and SingularityCE, can develop their own pages from that. That is what is fair, transparent, and not biased to an opinion or hurt feelings from the events that happened in these last years. The two projects need to move forward and minimally respect one another and not take action that comes across as malicious to harm the other one.
Vsoch ( talk) 19:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Dcat52 ( talk) 16:11, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I came across the draft article for apptainer Draft:Apptainer and Robert provided this comment:
I believe the way to remedy this would be for this page to be more or less frozen in time with present-day knowledge through time. We would need something like a derivative works section where both are listed (any future ones could be added too). Authors writing can write about topic they are more familiar with, SingularityCE and Apptainer on their respective pages should they exist by work of authors. If the two projects diverge substantially enough that this page is deranked, I believe that is a question for Wikipedia/users to determine in the future.