4 ms·

I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? That's why the

I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? That's why the typical workflow is to say in the header of your GPL license "Foo is copyright John Doe... Permission to modify is provided ..." Sourceforge may be allowed to redistribute software with malware but as far as I can tell, copyright law should stop them from calling the software by the same name, right? Does the author have a copyright on the gimp-win name? Maybe I don't understand the law correctly though, IANAL, etc.

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? That's trademark, not copyright. Though I believe some free/copyleft licenses allow you to require a name change if they make changes.
wongarsu 11y ago
> Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? Copyright doesn't apply to names. That's trademark laws. Contrary to copyright, trademarks have to be registered and cost money. There is no registered trademark for Gimp or gimp-win in the US or Europe.
caf 11y ago
You can't copyright a name. You can trademark it, but unlike copyrights, trademarks have to be applied for and registered, and have to be actively defended.
anon1385 11y ago
>I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? Trademarking the name of your project is considered incompatible with Free Software by a number of people. It's one of the issues that lead to the creation of Iceweasel, after Mozilla Corporation told Debian to stop distributing their builds of Firefox[1]. The issue also resulted in RMS telling people not to use Firefox. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel
jrochkind1 11y ago
An open source license, such as the GPL, does not neccesarily give you the right to use the name, it's true. If the name is trademarked, the trademark holder can try to prevent you from using it, and that has happened. But if we go back to the _point_ of open source, especially the GPL: It's to let users keep using and modifying and distributing modifications to the software, without needing the permission of the original authors. That's the whole point, for users to have that freedom, that the authors can not take away from you. That sourceforge can keep distributing the software without the permission of the original authors is the entire point. To the extent that trying to prevent third parties from using the name makes it harder to distribute the software (for instance, would it require changing the source to take the name out? Would it make it harder for users to find software that the authors are _trying_ to suppress?), I think we could argue that it would be against the spirit of the GPL, regardless of what trademark law says.

dec0dedab0de 11y ago

I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? That's trademark, not copyright. Though I believe some free/copyleft licenses allow you to require a name change if they make changes.

wongarsu 11y ago

> Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? Copyright doesn't apply to names. That's trademark laws. Contrary to copyright, trademarks have to be registered and cost money. There is no registered trademark for Gimp or gimp-win in the US or Europe.

caf 11y ago

You can't copyright a name. You can trademark it, but unlike copyrights, trademarks have to be applied for and registered, and have to be actively defended.

anon1385 11y ago

>I'm not sure the GPL allows you to fork something under the same name though, right? Copyright law still lets you own the name of your project? Trademarking the name of your project is considered incompatible with Free Software by a number of people. It's one of the issues that lead to the creation of Iceweasel, after Mozilla Corporation told Debian to stop distributing their builds of Firefox[1]. The issue also resulted in RMS telling people not to use Firefox. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel

jrochkind1 11y ago

An open source license, such as the GPL, does not neccesarily give you the right to use the name, it's true. If the name is trademarked, the trademark holder can try to prevent you from using it, and that has happened. But if we go back to the _point_ of open source, especially the GPL: It's to let users keep using and modifying and distributing modifications to the software, without needing the permission of the original authors. That's the whole point, for users to have that freedom, that the authors can not take away from you. That sourceforge can keep distributing the software without the permission of the original authors is the entire point. To the extent that trying to prevent third parties from using the name makes it harder to distribute the software (for instance, would it require changing the source to take the name out? Would it make it harder for users to find software that the authors are _trying_ to suppress?), I think we could argue that it would be against the spirit of the GPL, regardless of what trademark law says.