Notepad++ Creator Calls Out 'Fake' Mac App Over Trademark Violation

[vantelimus]

Yeah, I know what the Ship of Theseus problem is. But again, I don’t see how it applies.

Think harder about the difference between the name of the program and the trademark. They are not the same concept, even though they are represented by the same string: Notepad++.

As a trademark, Notepad++ identifies the source of an official distribution and gives the trademark holder control over commercial uses that would imply endorsement, origin, or affiliation. I am not disputing that.

But as the name of a program, Notepad++ also denotes an abstract software object: a codebase, design lineage, UI conventions, user practices, documentation history, and community meaning. That abstract object is not identical to one Windows binary released by Don Ho.

This is the Ship of Theseus problem applied to software. If the source code is ported piece by piece to macOS, preserving the behavior, structure, and lineage, at what point does it stop being "Notepad++"? If the answer is "whenever the trademark owner says so", then we have collapsed software identity into trademark control. That may be legally convenient, but it is conceptually wrong.

So the issue of trademark is straightforward. But, what strikes some people as wrong is the issue of whether trademark control should be treated as ownership over the abstract identity of the program itself. Those are different things.

 

[LogicalApex]

I'd guess because he doesn't like Apple or MacOS.
I've run into too many anti-Apple zealots.
There's the flip side too. Jobs himself famously said on stage in 2003 "Hell froze over" to describe the launch of iTunes for Windows having previously said he'd never port iTunes to Microsofts platforms.
Why do people get all religious about technology?

He could also just not own any Macs...

There isn't a standing rule that he has to buy every piece of computing hardware and port Notepad++ to it for no money...

He could also not want to invest the time to learn how to develop Mac specific programs and keep up to date on the changes needed to keep his app working on every new macOS release. Apple is famous for deprecating then killing older APIs that developers need to update their code to use new ones (like how Rosetta 2 is dying in macOS 27 when a LOT of legacy macOS programs only have x86 versions)...

But I guess you could always reach out to Ho to donate some Apple hardware to him and fund his endeavors to release a Mac version...

 

[chrfr]

…like how Rosetta 2 is dying in macOS 27…

Rosetta is being removed in macOS 28, not 27. 27 loses support for Intel Macs but Rosetta will continue for another year, so developers still have time to do their porting.

 

[tech_enthusiast_]

But, what strikes some people as wrong is the issue of whether trademark control should be treated as ownership over the abstract identity of the program itself. Those are different things.

I don’t get what you’re not getting…it literally doesn’t. We’ve said over and over in this thread that the issue is not that the person who ported the program to Mac used the code. They were within their rights to do that under the GPL license. The issue is that they used the trademarked name to represent it. The trademark is not “treated as ownership over the abstract identity of the program itself.” It is simply the trademarked name, and it can’t be used by someone else without the trademark owner’s permission, because it misrepresents the ported software as the creation of the trademark owner when it is not their creation. It’s a port of the software they created.

The person who ported it could probably have even gotten away with breaking it as Project XYZ and then saying “Project XYZ is a port of Notepad++ for Mac” because then it would’ve been clear that it was exactly that. But they can’t just use the trademarked name and logo to represent their port, because that puts the reputation of the trademark owner at risk.

 

[vantelimus]

I don’t get what you’re not getting…it literally doesn’t. We’ve said over and over in this thread that the issue is not that the person who ported the program to Mac used the code. They were within their rights to do that under the GPL license. The issue is that they used the trademarked name to represent it. The trademark is not “treated as ownership over the abstract identity of the program itself.” It is simply the trademarked name, and it can’t be used by someone else without the trademark owner’s permission, because it misrepresents the ported software as the creation of the trademark owner when it is not their creation. It’s a port of the software they created.

The person who ported it could probably have even gotten away with breaking it as Project XYZ and then saying “Project XYZ is a port of Notepad++ for Mac” because then it would’ve been clear that it was exactly that. But they can’t just use the trademarked name and logo to represent their port, because that puts the reputation of the trademark owner at risk.

I think the one thing you don’t get is that other people see it differently from you. They aren’t necessarily wrong. They are making a different point from the one you are arguing against.

It doesn’t matter how many times you and others pound the table proclaiming you are right and that others are stupid, you are not talking about the same thing as they are. And yes, that has to do with the Ship of Theseus.

I think we’ve exhausted all that can be had from this discussion. Thanks for playing.

 

[LogicalApex]

Rosetta is being removed in macOS 28, not 27. 27 loses support for Intel Macs but Rosetta will continue for another year, so developers still have time to do their porting.

Either way, my point still stands.

Apple aggressively prunes their APIs and developers need to adapt. Microsoft doesn't do the same. Making less work for OSS projects.

Macs lost a LOT of games, for instance, once Apple dropped 32bit support in 10.15 (2019). In comparison, MS dropped 16bit support in Windows 10 with no plans to drop 32bit support.

So, it makes sense that a Windows focused OSS project wouldn't be interested in Mac development as a result.