[bigiain]

>>> 1. As a developer I can not know with certainty that a package I publish will remain published under its current name.

>> You can as long as your package name isn't trademarked or likely to confuse users installing the package.

> Trademarked where exactly? You know, there's quite a lot of world beside US.

And, if I recall correctly, trademarked when? Wasn't leftpad.js's author using the name kik well before the company Kik existed? So you don't just need a name that's not trademarked _now_, you need to pick one that no-one else trademarks sometime in the future (in whatever jurisdictions the npm people care about)...