[theme-reviewers] Why can't theme authors have a second version of a theme?

Sat Sep 27 16:16:42 UTC 2014

Did i miss something?

Vote was already cast :

Otto -> No
Emil -> No
Justin -> No
Cais -> No

Even if Tammie says Yes, its still 4 to 1

On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Bruce Wampler <weavertheme at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I just sent a note to Trent, too.
>
> I'm not 100% sure that these people recognize that they really aren't a
> little free software organization any more, and even though the base
> organization is non-profit, they are certainly subject to a whole lot of
> interstate commerce law. I have little doubt that depriving us of our brand
> name is not even remotely legal.
>
> I  would seriously consider joining with you in seeking legal counsel and
> even in a lawsuit if it comes to it. They are wrong, and they would be
> depriving us of our legal rights, even if they are a volunteer non-profit.
> And they are so wrong.
>
> Bruce
>
>   Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com>
>  September 27, 2014 at 10:02 AM
> *@Bruce* - Thank you very much for hopping into this discussion, as
> ironically, everyone has been using your theme as an example for precedence
> of how this situation should be handled in favor of NOT allowing us to do
> what we need to, when in fact how you handled the major Weaver upgrade is
> exactly how we would like to handle Responsive's new upgrade.
>
> Not confusing at all and definitely in the best interest for the end-user.
> The alternative suggestions so far, just develop backwards-compatibility
> (bloat), discontinue one version to open another (dropping support for
> users that don't want to switch), changing the theme name (confusing users
> who are looking for the newest incarnation), update directly over version
> 1.0 (inevitably breaking many websites and taking the blame for it) etc.
> have all been both more difficult in terms of development and more
> confusing for users, besides being contrary to logic.
>
> What you've done and what we would like to do is hands-down the most
> graceful way to handle the situation. Hopefully, we get a yes on that.
>
> Thank you.
> _______________________________________________
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>   Weaver Theme <weavertheme at gmail.com>
>  September 27, 2014 at 9:54 AM
> And by the way, "Weaver" and "Weaver II" co-existed as live themes for a
> couple of years. And there was MINIMAL confusion by users between the two.
> But I can't imagine the chaos that would happen if "Weaver" were dropped
> when "Weaver II" was released. They were not compatible! But the existing
> "Weaver" user base deserved the "luxury" of automatic theme updates, which
> occurred with "Weaver" for at least 2 years after "Weaver II" was include.
>
> And it make sense the that same deal be accorded to existing "Responsive"
> and "Weaver II" users.
>
> And to be honest about this whole thing, would I really be allowed to
> submit a theme called "Twenty Fifteen" right now? NO WAY! "Twenty
> Anything". Nope. "Twenty Whatever" belongs to WP core. I know that, You
> know that.
>
> But according to some of the logic being given in this discussion, the
> release of "Twenty Fourteen" should result in the immediate removal of all
> the other Twenty Something themes. That would obviously be absurd.
>
> Twenty-something is a brand. Any theme is a brand, really. I always
> understood the rule against name variants was to prevent using an overly
> generic name, to reduce theme cloning, and to protect the brand name of the
> original theme author. But I can't that this situation will be that
> burdensome to theme reviewers.
>
> Is the goal of all this to totally prevent using trademarked names
> (whether legally trademarked names, or de-facto trademarks) in the
> repository, even if the theme authors believe in the principles of GPL, and
> the way is now does, and always has, allow developers to make money from
> free software?
>
> So what can we do? "Super Responsive", "New Responsive", "Responsive
> Revised", "NextGen Weaver", "Weaver Rewired"? It is really important that
> theme shops be allowed to leverage brand names, and as long as there aren't
> theme directory name conflicts, it seems that authors of existing themes
> should in fact be allowed variants on the same name. Perhaps a simple
> revision to the policy that only the original developer (or authorized
> successor) (like WP and Twenty-something!) can submit theme with variants
> on the name.
>
> Bruce Wampler
>
>
>   Weaver Theme <weavertheme at gmail.com>
>  September 27, 2014 at 9:23 AM
> I've just seen this whole discussion, but at the risk of really killing my
> own theme, I need to give some input.
>
> A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, (so it seems now), I released
> my first theme called 2010 Weaver. I changed that pretty quickly to simply
> Weaver. For quite some time, the original Weaver theme was a top 20 most
> popular theme. So the "Weaver" became a known and respected brand.
>
> After some time, I did a major rewrite of the theme that was essentially a
> completely new theme. But the "Weaver" brand was recognized and important.
> So, I released the new version as "Weaver II", and continued to support the
> old "Weaver" theme for a couple of more years. So there was "Weaver II" and
> "Weaver", and I really had little issues with confusion of the users, and
> over time, I finally discontinued support for the original "Weaver".
>
> So today, Weaver II also has tens or hundreds of thousands of users, just
> like "Responsive". But time for a new generation, which I've been working
> on for over half a year now, and which has been undergoing extensive
> testing by my user base. I have intended, following a marketing plan based
> on past experience, to release the completely new, completely rewritten,
> and completely incompatible version as "Weaver X" - not the roman numeral
> X, but X as in X Games or other "eXtreme" brands. The goal, of course, is
> to release a new, updated, state of the art options based theme, while
> keeping my pretty large user base connected, and the "Weaver" brand active.
>
> This is really critical - whether that be "Responsive" or "Weaver" or
> whatever.  In many many ways, this is no different than the WP brand of
> "Twenty-Something" themes. How, really is "Responsive", "Resposive II",
> "Weaver", "Weaver II", or "Weaver X" any different than "Twenty Eleven",
> "Twenty Twelve", etc. The brand is "Responsive", "Weaver", and "Twenty X".
>
> I've developed a highly successful and popular theme using the "Weaver"
> brand. I've worked very hard to make the free version found on the WP theme
> repository to be a robust, fully featured theme that is not a limited,
> restricted "Lite" version. Sure, I have an upsell version, but the base
> versions are still extremely functional. My history of developing and
> releasing GPL software goes way way back - over 20 years.
>
> But - I recognize the value of a brand name, and deeply believe that as
> long as the themes we contribute truly fall into the spirit of free
> software, there should be minimal restrictions on limitations of how theme
> developers choose to leverage that brand name.
>
> Bruce Wampler
>
>
>
>   Liane Blanco <lianeblanco at gmail.com>
>  September 27, 2014 at 8:04 AM
> Cool, I didn't think so but wanted to make sure. I would hate to have to
> rename it since the name fits it so perfectly. I generally like one-word
> names for some reason....
>
>
>
>
> --
> Insert clever phrase here
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> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>   Rohit Tripathi <rohitink at live.com>
>  September 27, 2014 at 7:32 AM
> I don't think that's a problem. But if it was Haunted 2.0, then it would
> have been a problem.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 27-Sep-2014, at 5:20 pm, Liane Blanco <lianeblanco at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can y'all clarify something for me re: names. I have submiited a new theme
> called "Haunted" to the directory, which has not yet been reviewed. There
> is another theme called "Haunted House" that I did not write. The two
> themes are quite different in appearance and style. However, in my theme
> trac page for Haunted, the list of previous versions pulls up "Haunted
> House".
>
> Should I change the name? I would rather not as it really fits the look of
> the template, I don't think there's any way someone could confuse the two
> themes. Thanks!
>
> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 10:15 PM, Trent Lapinski <trent at cyberchimps.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 26, 2014, at 10:02 PM, Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> *@Otto* - No worries man :).
>>
>> Sure, Responsive is a dumb name, but it's our dumb name, a name that is
>> beyond established and that will continue on.
>>
>> Let's remain objective and on-point though.
>>
>> We're asking for an exception in a unique situation. Hopefully we can get
>> a definite yes or no on whether we can get
>> http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive-ii live while also still
>> supporting http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive for end-users and
>> making the upgrade optional, not mandatory.
>>
>> Please think on it and if it's a no, we'll figure out something else, we
>> always do.
>>
>>
>> Well put Bryan.
>>
>> Again from the beginning here I was simply looking for an alternative or
>> a solution to this problem.
>>
>> I e-mailed this list for help, not to be pushed around.
>>
>> Otto, just a year ago we were working on solving problems together in
>> person at WordCamp SF, I’m not sure why can’t do the same online.
>>
>> I don’t make the trends, I just follow them. We just want to release our
>> new theme that we’ve been working on most of this year.
>>
>> -Trent
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>
>>
>
>
> --
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>
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>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> -----------
> Bruce Wampler, Ph.D.
>
> Software developer
> Creator of first spelling checker for a PC
> Creator of Grammatik(tm), first true grammar checker
> e-mail: weaver at weavertheme dot com
>
>
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>
>
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