<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Well, that's a mess. I thought I was replying Bryan via private mail. But now that what I said is public, I stand by it. Bryan or Trent in no way suggested a lawsuit, but I stand by what I said.<br><br></div>Your little rule about theme naming is restricting interstate commerce. Even though WP.org is a non-profit, volunteer driven organization, WP.org is still the basis for an extremely large fraction of the world's websites. You open the repository to developer's from all over the world. So you fall under all sorts of USA and international law. This law would look very unfavorably at the sort of restrictions that stop people from using a well developed brand name, legally trademarked or not.<br><br><br></div><div>Whether you want to believe it or not, WordPress.org supports a huge global economy in building websites. It is subject to trade law, and this branding restriction not doubt violates countless laws over the world. You've provided the mechanism for supporting commerce, and you can't arbitrarily restrict it by this naming rule.<br><br></div><div>Sorry, but this is reality! You are bigger than you think, and you have a huge set of responsibilities not to destroy commerce and people's livelihoods based on this engine you've created.<br><br></div><div>Bruce.<br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Bruce Wampler <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:weavertheme@gmail.com" target="_blank">weavertheme@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">I just sent a note to
Trent, too.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Bruce<br>
<blockquote style="border:0px none" type="cite">
<div style="margin:30px 25px 10px 25px"><div style="display:table;width:100%;border-top:1px solid #edeef0;padding-top:5px"> <div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;padding-right:6px"><img src="cid:part1.06080209.07040401@gmail.com" name="148b7e1c4a1afbb2_postbox-contact.jpg" height="25px" width="25px"></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle;width:100%">
<a href="mailto:bhadaway@gmail.com" style="color:#737f92!important;padding-right:6px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Bryan Hadaway</a></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle">
<font color="#9FA2A5"><span style="padding-left:6px">September 27,
2014 at 10:02 AM</span></font></div></div></div>
<div style="color:#888888;margin-left:24px;margin-right:24px"><div><div class="h5"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><b>@Bruce</b>
- 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.<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>Thank you.<br></div>
</div></div><span class=""><div>_______________________________________________<br>theme-reviewers
mailing list<br><a href="mailto:theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org" target="_blank">theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers" target="_blank">http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers</a><br></div></span></div>
<div style="margin:30px 25px 10px 25px"><div style="display:table;width:100%;border-top:1px solid #edeef0;padding-top:5px"> <div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;padding-right:6px"><img src="cid:part2.09000809.08070302@gmail.com" name="148b7e1c4a1afbb2_postbox-contact.jpg" height="25px" width="25px"></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle;width:100%">
<a href="mailto:weavertheme@gmail.com" style="color:#737f92!important;padding-right:6px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Weaver Theme</a></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle">
<font color="#9FA2A5"><span style="padding-left:6px">September 27,
2014 at 9:54 AM</span></font></div></div></div><span class="">
<div style="color:#888888;margin-left:24px;margin-right:24px"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div>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.<br><br></div><div>And it make sense the that same deal
be accorded to existing "Responsive" and "Weaver II" users.<br></div><div><br></div>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. <br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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?<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>Bruce
Wampler<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br></div>
</div>
</span><div style="margin:30px 25px 10px 25px"><div style="display:table;width:100%;border-top:1px solid #edeef0;padding-top:5px"> <div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;padding-right:6px"><img src="cid:part2.09000809.08070302@gmail.com" name="148b7e1c4a1afbb2_postbox-contact.jpg" height="25px" width="25px"></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle;width:100%">
<a href="mailto:weavertheme@gmail.com" style="color:#737f92!important;padding-right:6px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Weaver Theme</a></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle">
<font color="#9FA2A5"><span style="padding-left:6px">September 27,
2014 at 9:23 AM</span></font></div></div></div><span class="">
<div style="color:#888888;margin-left:24px;margin-right:24px"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div>I've
just seen this whole discussion, but at the risk of really killing my
own theme, I need to give some input.<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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".<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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".<br><br></div>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.<br><br></div>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.<br><br>Bruce Wampler<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br></div>
</div>
</span><div style="margin:30px 25px 10px 25px"><div style="display:table;width:100%;border-top:1px solid #edeef0;padding-top:5px"> <div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;padding-right:6px"><img src="cid:part4.04060207.09030801@gmail.com" name="148b7e1c4a1afbb2_postbox-contact.jpg" height="25px" width="25px"></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle;width:100%">
<a href="mailto:lianeblanco@gmail.com" style="color:#737f92!important;padding-right:6px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Liane Blanco</a></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle">
<font color="#9FA2A5"><span style="padding-left:6px">September 27,
2014 at 8:04 AM</span></font></div></div></div>
<div style="color:#888888;margin-left:24px;margin-right:24px"><span class=""><div dir="ltr">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....</div></span><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div><span class="">--
<br>Insert clever phrase here
</span></div><span class="">
<div>_______________________________________________<br>theme-reviewers
mailing list<br><a href="mailto:theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org" target="_blank">theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers" target="_blank">http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers</a><br></div></span></div>
<div style="margin:30px 25px 10px 25px"><div style="display:table;width:100%;border-top:1px solid #edeef0;padding-top:5px"> <div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;padding-right:6px"><img src="cid:part5.01040103.00060500@gmail.com" name="148b7e1c4a1afbb2_compose-unknown-contact.jpg" height="25px" width="25px"></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle;width:100%">
<a href="mailto:rohitink@live.com" style="color:#737f92!important;padding-right:6px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Rohit Tripathi</a></div> <div style="display:table-cell;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:middle">
<font color="#9FA2A5"><span style="padding-left:6px">September 27,
2014 at 7:32 AM</span></font></div></div></div><div><div class="h5">
<div style="color:#888888;margin-left:24px;margin-right:24px"><div>I don't think that's a
problem. But if it was Haunted 2.0, then it would have been a problem.<br><br>Sent
from my iPhone</div><div><br>On 27-Sep-2014, at 5:20 pm, Liane Blanco
<<a href="mailto:lianeblanco@gmail.com" target="_blank">lianeblanco@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">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". <div><br></div><div>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!</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 26, 2014
at 10:15 PM, Trent Lapinski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:trent@cyberchimps.com" target="_blank">trent@cyberchimps.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>On Sep 26, 2014, at
10:02 PM, Bryan Hadaway <<a href="mailto:bhadaway@gmail.com" target="_blank">bhadaway@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><b>@Otto</b> - No worries man
:).<br><br></div>Sure, Responsive is a dumb name, but it's our dumb
name, a name that is beyond established and that will continue on.<br><br></div>Let's
remain objective and on-point though.<br><br>We're asking for an
exception in a unique situation. Hopefully we can get a definite yes or
no on whether we can get <a href="http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive-ii" target="_blank">http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive-ii</a>
live while also still supporting <a href="http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive" target="_blank">http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive</a>
for end-users and making the upgrade optional, not mandatory.<br><br></div>Please
think on it and if it's a no, we'll figure out something else, we
always do.<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div><div>Well put
Bryan.</div><div><br></div><div>Again from the beginning here I was
simply looking for an alternative or a solution to this problem.</div><div><br></div><div>I
e-mailed this list for help, not to be pushed around.</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><span><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>-Trent</div></font></span></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
theme-reviewers mailing list<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Insert
clever phrase here
</div>
</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>theme-reviewers
mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org" target="_blank">theme-reviewers@lists.wordpress.org</a></span><br><span><a href="http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers" target="_blank">http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers</a></span><br></div></blockquote><pre>_______________________________________________
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</pre></div>
</div></div></blockquote><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<br>
<div>-- <br>----------- <br>
Bruce Wampler, Ph.D.<br>
<br>
Software developer <br>
Creator of first spelling checker for a PC <br>
Creator of Grammatik(tm), first true grammar checker <br>
e-mail: weaver at weavertheme dot com<br>
<br>
</div>
</font></span></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>