sk8glad: and how would you merge the two communities /without/ a new name? Here? Or over there (beryl?)? Or somewhere else entirely, with a new name?

1 & 2 doesn't work because neither project wants the appearance of being absorbed into the other (and it's not just beryl's ego; there's a real danger that the valuable contributions compiz-extra can bring to a merge could get lost in the general kerfluffery, since Beryl is so much bigger at the moment)... 3 is what everyone wants, but for some reason, we're arguing over whether to do it before or after the real (development) work of merging takes place. 

I think it's more sensible to do it at the same time. There's been a lot of fluff about salving beryl's ego in this thread, but this seems more like salving the ego of compiz-extra right now.