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

Sat Sep 27 16:32:37 UTC 2014

@Bryan, there is nothing new in your information except the FUD that you
have trademark to "Responsive"

On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 9:54 PM, Weaver Theme <weavertheme at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Bruce.
>
> On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 10:11 AM, 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.
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>   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
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Insert clever phrase here
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing listtheme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.orghttp://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>
>>
>> --
>> -----------
>> 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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