Why is there a restriction that project name's be unique?

Question

When creating a project, there are constraints that both the project name and project key are unique.  Why isn't having the project key unique enough?  Shouldn't all the data be tied to the project key and the project name would just be a display string?

Our use case is that we're migrating hundreds of repositories and want to have the same repository organization for each product.  For example, we would like a project named Common with a key PROD1_COMMON and a second project named Common with a key PROD2_COMMON.  It seems that in order to do this, we actually need to name the projects Prod1Common and Prod2Common.

Is there any way to remove this restriction?  It would be acceptable for this to be an administrator setting.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

It does, but there are plenty of places where only the name is shown to the user, so there would still be a problem there.

David Scheck · Answer

In general I would agree with you, however shouldn't that be left up to the administrator to decide? I would consider this an advanced option that would be off by default with some "use at your own risk" documentation.

When using this add-on https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/de.communardo.plugin.stash-project-categories/server/overview, we gain an extra layer of organization. When looking at the unfiltered project list, we can still see the project key and description, and as long as those are populated correctly (the product key is and should be unique), there is a hint for the user when selecting.  Then, in general use, as long as the projects are categorized such that there aren't two of the same name with the same tag there should be no confusion.

Does that make sense?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I suspect it's because it's confusing for users to see lists containing projects with the same name.  If they're confronted with three prod-1-common, how do they know which one to select?