7 ms·

Kik's side of yesterday's story

20 points by bhollan 11y ago

bhollan 11y ago
I'm still pretty eager to hear NPM's justification for it's actions.
chillingeffect 11y ago
I think it's hypocritical of kik to say that threatening to bring in lawyers is substantially different from actually bringing them in. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fact that it's a pig. Being superficially polite, by using polite-sounding words in a threat, is still a threat.
- ahstilde 11y ago
  I don't think it's a threat at all. If you have a trademark, you must defend it. Otherwise you risk losing it. It's as simple as ABC.
  - sintaxi 11y ago
    Kik.com can only defend the term `kik` within the domain that they use the mark. Which by their own words is "Computer software for use with mobile devices, namely, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones for downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files" https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html Based on this description of service the `kik` npm package does not infringe on the Kik.com trademark in any way.
- csbrooks 11y ago
  I think hearing from a reasonable person is better than just getting a Cease & Desist letter.
codelectron 11y ago
"I found out about this problem like a lot of you, when our builds started failing because we use the extremely helpful JSCS. Through a long chain of dependencies, JSCS relied on left-pad@0.0.3, which was removed by the author yesterday. Our team was confused at the time as well." Ironically we will be witnessing the same thing if an hypothetical company 'leftpad' threatened the developer to change the name.
askyourmother 11y ago
Some will laugh because Kik started all this, and got affected by it. Some will laugh when they look at npm, and the state of js "devs". Some will then turn back to their current project, thank the stars it is coded in anything but js, and move on.
bcg1 11y ago
Pro tip: if you find yourself starting a sentence with the words "I don't mean to be a dick but...", it probably means you're about to say something that qualifies as "being a dick". Also, who uses that kind of language anyhow? Certainly not a professional communicating in good faith. To be honest "Kik's sides of yesterday's story" doesn't make them look good at all. NPM doesn't look very good either.
c3t0 11y ago
Already submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845
- gus_massa 11y ago
  It has been submitted many times. The one you choose is the one that has much more discussion than the others: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 (147 points, 22 hours ago, 111 comments)
  - c3t0 11y ago
    First posted as far as I could tell.
sintaxi 11y ago
I really don't understand npm Inc. line of thinking here. > In this case, we believe that most users who would come across a kik package, would reasonably expect it to be related to kik.com By this logic a trademark will automatically be awarded to the largest company regardless of all other factors but this is not how Trademark law works. Is Azer's use of `kik` disingenuous or misleading in any way? I would say no. His use of `kik` is in reference to "Kick starter" which has nothing to do with Kik.com [who has a Trademark registered](https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html) with the following description... > Computer software for use with mobile devices, namely, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones for downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files Azer's `kik` package is clearly not infringing on kik.com marketshare and his use of the term "kik" appears to be valid as it relates to "Kick starter" and has nothing to do with "downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files". npm Inc. should return this package name back to Azer. Kik.com is overreaching here and I see no case law to suggest that Kik.com should get this name handed to them just because they are the larger entity.

20 points by bhollan 11y ago

I'm still pretty eager to hear NPM's justification for it's actions.

I think it's hypocritical of kik to say that threatening to bring in lawyers is substantially different from actually bringing them in. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fact that it's a pig. Being superficially polite, by using polite-sounding words in a threat, is still a threat.

ahstilde 11y ago
I don't think it's a threat at all. If you have a trademark, you must defend it. Otherwise you risk losing it. It's as simple as ABC.
- sintaxi 11y ago
  Kik.com can only defend the term `kik` within the domain that they use the mark. Which by their own words is "Computer software for use with mobile devices, namely, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones for downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files" https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html Based on this description of service the `kik` npm package does not infringe on the Kik.com trademark in any way.
csbrooks 11y ago
I think hearing from a reasonable person is better than just getting a Cease & Desist letter.

codelectron 11y ago

"I found out about this problem like a lot of you, when our builds started failing because we use the extremely helpful JSCS. Through a long chain of dependencies, JSCS relied on left-pad@0.0.3, which was removed by the author yesterday. Our team was confused at the time as well." Ironically we will be witnessing the same thing if an hypothetical company 'leftpad' threatened the developer to change the name.

askyourmother 11y ago

Some will laugh because Kik started all this, and got affected by it. Some will laugh when they look at npm, and the state of js "devs". Some will then turn back to their current project, thank the stars it is coded in anything but js, and move on.

bcg1 11y ago

Pro tip: if you find yourself starting a sentence with the words "I don't mean to be a dick but...", it probably means you're about to say something that qualifies as "being a dick". Also, who uses that kind of language anyhow? Certainly not a professional communicating in good faith. To be honest "Kik's sides of yesterday's story" doesn't make them look good at all. NPM doesn't look very good either.

c3t0 11y ago

Already submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845

gus_massa 11y ago
It has been submitted many times. The one you choose is the one that has much more discussion than the others: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11346845 (147 points, 22 hours ago, 111 comments)
- c3t0 11y ago
  First posted as far as I could tell.

sintaxi 11y ago

I really don't understand npm Inc. line of thinking here. > In this case, we believe that most users who would come across a kik package, would reasonably expect it to be related to kik.com By this logic a trademark will automatically be awarded to the largest company regardless of all other factors but this is not how Trademark law works. Is Azer's use of `kik` disingenuous or misleading in any way? I would say no. His use of `kik` is in reference to "Kick starter" which has nothing to do with Kik.com [who has a Trademark registered](https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html) with the following description... > Computer software for use with mobile devices, namely, computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones for downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files Azer's `kik` package is clearly not infringing on kik.com marketshare and his use of the term "kik" appears to be valid as it relates to "Kick starter" and has nothing to do with "downloading, displaying, transmitting, receiving, editing, extracting, encoding, decoding, playing, storing and organizing text, sound, images, audio files and video files". npm Inc. should return this package name back to Azer. Kik.com is overreaching here and I see no case law to suggest that Kik.com should get this name handed to them just because they are the larger entity.