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

[Weaver Theme]

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


On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Liane Blanco <lianeblanco at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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....
>
> On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Rohit Tripathi <rohitink at live.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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>
>
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>
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