Hi everyone,
I was very excited at first but sadly, it seems this discussion isn't going anywhere. I believe cooperation is always beneficial to both sides so I will try to help moving the debate forward.
Jacek listed 5 discussion topics but I think for sake of clarity we should create 5 threads. I will start with the "mingw-w64 name" topic and see how far it'll go. If no one responds, I won't start the other threads.
A project name is like a corporation brand, a part of its identity. People associate (project) name to some feelings and events (forks, project leader leaving, takeovers...). For instance, github is now part of Microsoft ecosystem and some people changed their mind after the acquisition.
Changing a name may help constructing a new (better) identity. Doing it is a strong signal that tell users things change (new maintainer, new goals...). For instance XBMC -> Kodi told people it became more than an Xbox media player. But if you change the name, you have to improve the project (features, bug handling, test coverage..). Otherwise, some users may feel fooled.
I think Jacek idea was just that, if mingw-w64 project is going to change, it may be a good idea to rename it, it was not a Wine takeover attempt.
Of course, a name change imply communicating to users so that they take the change into account. Some people are reluctant to this but in fact, it regularly happens (mingw-w64, Kodi, libav project, LibreOffice, MPC-HC, MariaDB...) and if it's justified, people do accept it.
So, is there any reason to change mingw-w64 name ? Yes if you want to change the way people see the project and you're ready to change a bit the project. To answer that, you should ask ming-w64 users. What do they like and dislike about the project and what is missing. How do they feel about its name ?
I only read Phoronix dedicated thread so it's not really objective but I can't ask users for you. A user https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1101258-wine-mingw-w64-might-tighten-up-their-relationship-possible-winesdk finds the name bulky (and the project pretty obscure). Another one https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1101258-wine-mingw-w64-might-tighten-up-their-relationship-possible-winesdk?p=1101443#post1101443 is confused about the w64 suffix vs Win64.
As for the WineSDK proposal, a user explains "[borrowing] Wine branding suggest that it's somehow involved in porting Windows software [...] which is not".
I personally agree with him and would suggest mingw-next or mingw-ng to keep the well-known prefix while adding novelty. I don't like the SDK suffix as mingw-w64 is not a sofware development kit.
If you decide to change the name, the next step is to decide what could be done to improve the project (will be covered by the 4 remaining discussion topic).