Previously, for Maya versions 2010 and below, the characters '<' and '>' would get converted to '_' if encountered in a node name or namespace name. Any leading invalid characters are removed, and all others are converted to underscore.
namespace -add "<foo>" // Result: foo_ createNode transform -n "<bar>" // Result: bar_ namespace -add "foo<bar>" //Result: foo_bar_
For Maya 2011 and above, the characters '<' and '>' will still be removed and converted to '_' for node names. However, for namespace names, Maya will consider everything in between those characters as a placeholder namespace. Therefore, you should update your code if you are using these characters and relying on Maya to correct them. For example, in Maya 2013:
namespace -add "<foo>" // Result: <foo> createNode transform -n "<bar>" // Result: bar_ namespace -add "foo<bar>" //Result: foo_bar_
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