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Comments (74)

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  ronsor
  I don't know why people are up in arms about this.No one is mad about the port of Notepad++ to macOS. No one is mad that someone said "I ported Notepad++ to macOS." The problem is the branding and delivery conveys the impression that the macOS port is official, which is deceptive even if deception isn't the goal.
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  jmuguy
  Linked post that shows what the mac port website originally looked like makes this pretty clear https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/npp-trademark-infringemen...GPL and other licenses allow you all sorts of leeway with the code but not the name and branding of the product the code is running.
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  EvanAnderson
  I know it's more nuanced than this, but generally (in the US, at least) holders of a trademark need to defend the mark at the peril of "abandonment" or the mark becoming "generic". I expected to see something about this in the post.
• jonaustin
  Don Ho handled this like an absolute champ.I think the cloner had good intent, but he didn't get approval, so absolutely not okay no matter what.
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  s0ss
  If you don’t actively protect your trademark, you risk losing your trademark. Im surprised that isn’t part of his reasoning.
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  varun_ch
  Notepad++ for Mac was renamed to Nextpad++ (“a small nod to Mac history”)Personally I think NextPad would’ve been a perfectly acceptable (and subjectively better) name
• brian_herman
  Good on you enforcing your trademark!
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  zamadatix
  To hopefully save some here the risk of an embarrassing redaction mistake:Redaction should be done by deleting the content from the media AND THEN adding decoration you want to indicate the material was removed.If you do things any other way you're liable to end up with something like the attempt on the site where the email might as well have been highlighted instead.
• klustregrif
  OpenSource is about freedom have the code, not freedom to have a projects identity. Its disgusting to see people attacking an author of a successful project who's openly allowing forks just because someone decided to go beyond forking the code and tried to also steal the brand.It's a case of someone putting out candy for halloween and someons running away with the bowl screeming! Well you put i out there!I hope to see an appology from the author of the fork who's hopefully understanding that what they did is not ok.
• Etoro1942
  You have to actively protect your trademark
• Analemma_
  There's a problem where generic skepticism of intellectual property law— which isn't bad in and of itself— all too frequently morphs into uninformed all-consuming opposition to any kind of IP enforcement whatsoever, without understanding the purpose it serves or why it might be necessary."The code is open to forking, but we need to enforce our trademarks because otherwise anyone can upload malware claiming to be Notepad++" is a real, legitimate concern and not some kind of ghastly imposition, but I think whoever sent that email didn't even bother thinking about that. They just saw somebody defending IP rights and went straight into attack mode, because that's what a lot of online communities have trained people to do reflexively.
• etchalon
  It's weird everyone is treating this anything other than what Don is saying - port's fine, don't make it sound like we endorsed this. Don't make us responsible for your product.
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  droidjj
  That kind of hate is why we struggle to keep good open source maintainers. Let’s try to be kind to people who gift their time and talent to the world, please.
• anon
  undefined
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  slopinthebag
  Could they call it Notepad+²?After all, Notepad++ is about as different from Notepad as Notepad+² is from Nodepad++.
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  VimEscapeArtist
  OK but just use Zed anyway
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  ryandrake
  I don't have a dog in this race, but I'm having a hard time seeing both sides. The code is GPL, it can be forked. Does the GPL specify that the user has to change the name when it's forked? Or is that some extra clause that this particular developer added to the license? Does the GPL say anything at all about trademarks? The name of the forked project seems to be kind of a weird hill to want to die on.Linux is GPL'ed and the name Linux is also trademarked. But if I decided to port it to run on a lava lamp, what would be wrong with my calling the project "Linux for Lava Lamp"?A fork's existence does not obligate the mainline maintainer to maintain the fork, no matter what the name of the fork is. As long as the forked project makes the relationship (or lack of relationship) and support expectations clear, I'm not sure what this battle was about.