This is The Ship of Theseus updated for the software age. If a program is written on Windows is it still the same program if it is run under a VM on Macintosh? Run under Wine? How about if it recompiled for Macintosh? What if it is recompiled under Macintosh and then a bug is fixed? How about if a module is rewritten to use a native Mac facility? What if two bugs are fixed and two modules converted to a more Mac native API? What about one thousand bug fixes and twenty-five module rewrites?
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Notepad++ Creator Calls Out 'Fake' Mac App Over Trademark Violation
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This is The Ship of Theseus updated for the software age. If a program is written on Windows is it still the same program if it is run under a VM on Macintosh? Run under Wine? How about if it recompiled for Macintosh? What if it is recompiled under Macintosh and then a bug is fixed? How about if a module is rewritten to use a native Mac facility? What if two bugs are fixed and two modules converted to a more Mac native API? What about one thousand bug fixes and twenty-five module rewrites?
KENESS
macrumors 6502
tomdar2
macrumors newbie
He did apologize, multiple times, in the GitHub discussion thread. He got excited about it, released it without discussing it with the originator first (a bad move) but at least sent an email to Don Ho. No one’s perfect. Asking for forgiveness rather than permission/cooperation beforehand wasn’t smart, but they’ve (the PC Notepad++ community and its creator) bashed him pretty hard over the whole thing. Too much, in my opinion.
ItsASpider
macrumors 6502
The mere fact that you seem to think the GPL (or any open source license for that matter) has anything to do with trademarks shows that you have no idea what you're talking about... Copyright - what the GPL governs - and trademark are 2 completely different legal domains.
As for DolphiniOS, guess what; that's because the folks over at Dolphin allow such usage as long as these forks respect the GPL license and remain open source. That has nothing to do with the GPL license itself. That's just a requirement the Dolphin developers put on using their brand.
KENESS
macrumors 6502
That's good to know.
That said, based on the tone of his statement, I suspect he deserved everything he got.
Yes, I've heard you say that before. Anything new to add? Perhaps you could comment on what I said about the philosophical problem, which was partially in response to someone likening the present case to a rewrite of the original using AI?
KENESS
macrumors 6502
Why? This isn't a philosophical debate. It is a
It isn't a copyright violation. Copyright and trademark are two different things. There was no copyright violation.
KENESS
macrumors 6502
Thanks. I typed the wrong thing. I fixed it.
Regardless, there is no need for "philosophy" here. Naming it the exact same thing is the core issue. Not what he did with the code.
I'm okay if I'm wrong on the letter of the law. I can learn and change my mind. That said, I'm less interested in the strict legality than I am on the social dynamics, psychology, and ethics surrounding open source. This case in particular has a relationship to the Ship of Theseus problem that became clear when someone talked about naming and rewrites of programs. It's okay if you cannot see or are not interested the philosophy problem.
pigeonguy
macrumors member
I might be in the minority, but I don’t think he did anything wrong.
No++ is an open source project, some guy created a fork. Happens all the time.
Did you ignore the entire comment thread here?
Edit: given that your profile photo is an AI-generated ripoff of someone else's art style, I'm not surprised that you think it's okay for someone to reproduce someone else's work and use their trademarked brand name and logo for their reproduction.
I'm not understanding how the Ship of Theseus applies here, or to open source
KENESS
macrumors 6502
Oh I am interested in those kinds of things. I do spend a lot of time in my own head... haha Not everyone even knows the Ship of Theseus. 😉
But this isn't a theoretical construct to examine, it is a specific situation that has HAPPENED.
Examining the philosphy of open source is grand. But when there are established rules, and by using the original developers codebase he accepted those rules, it is no longer a matter of philosophy.
It is not a matter of me "not seeing it" it is simply a black & white situation in this case. Because the primary issue, as I said before, is NOT what he did with the code, rebuilding it, rewriting it, porting it, whatever. That's all largely fine. The issue is what he named his resulting work and there are clearly defined rules about that. So it isn't really up for interpretation.
KENESS
macrumors 6502
Please... Just READ THE THREAD before you reply.
The issue isn't the fork, the issue is he named his project the exact same thing! That is not and has never been okay in open source. (Unless the original developer specifically permits it, but that is extraordinarily rare.)
Mousse
macrumors 601
That was the first person I thought of when I read that name. I've got a few vinyls of his music somewhere.
Tiny bubbles... in the wine... make me happy... make me feel fine.😁
alecto42
macrumors newbie
I appreciate that MacRumors has updated the original article to reflect that this port is unofficial - but it was a huge misstep to publicize this illegitimate & vibe coded port in the first place. Before the edits the original article read as if this was an official Notepad++ project.
gegy
macrumors member
Notepad++ is so ugly by it‘s interface that i moved away from this editor long ago. I am no a fan of Microslop but Visual Studio Code is much nicer and can be controlled by using short-cuts mostly.
So for me: No need for Notepad++ on mac.
So for me: No need for Notepad++ on mac.
Phaseangle
macrumors member
And it should be styled around TextEdit not Notepad and actually make it feel like a Mac app.
edit: Where's the quote? This is broken.
edit: Where's the quote? This is broken.
Last edited:
spyguy10709
macrumors 65816
spyguy10709
macrumors 65816
Again, the GPL explicitly states "Users can run, study, change, share, and redistribute modified versions of the software."
what is a port to a different platform other than a "modified version of the software" ???
Yes, without using the brand name or images from the original developer. That’s the key that you’re missing. You can’t take something and redistribute using the original brand name or logo. The GPL does not apply to those things.
Given everything we hear about Claude Code and given that it's a text editor, it really shouldn't be that hard to make a Mac version, no?