[Jare]

> How many forks of left-pad could one expect to find?

Javascript github repos: 70 of left-pad and 29 of leftpad. Some are jokes, but still...

If you try the C++ package manager conan.io you will likely run into similar troubles. See for example https://github.com/lasote/conan-zlib/issues/23

[krapp]

Fair enough... that's a lot more than I would have expected. But I still think on balance there are more benefits to using namespaces than drawbacks. Without namespaces, the same problems of quality control exist, but the decisions are being hidden from you or made on your behalf by a central authority, or you're just stuck with whomever got to the name first.