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

Sat Sep 27 15:54:21 UTC 2014

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

On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Weaver Theme <weavertheme at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
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