[SwellJoe]

"OpenWarp is a community fork of Warp's open-source code. It is not affiliated with Warp Inc. and follows the upstream AGPL / MIT dual license."

It is rude, and possibly a trademark violation, to fork a project and use the same name. And, how can there be a "community fork" when there is no community? It's just been Open Sourced 24 hours ago.

[Hasnep]

I agree on the name, but to me the word community here is used to mean it's not run by a company.

[SwellJoe]

Historically, it means a community of developers have decided to break with the old project for some reason. Jenkins is a community fork. Mariadb is a community fork. Joomla is a community fork. Illumos was a community fork. Rocky Linux is a community fork. Valkey is a community fork.

This is a personal project by someone with no connection to the project or its code. It is misleading to claim to represent the Warp "community". Maybe there will be a community around Warp someday, and maybe there will be a reason for community members to fork it, but for now, it is a newly open sourced project, and this is a person trying to build their own reputation on someone else's work.

Forks are a good and natural part of the Open Source and Free Software world. But, a good fork doesn't look anything like this. It involves stakeholders, it respects the work others have put into the project in the past, and it doesn't confuse users with a misleadingly similar name.

At the very least, you change the name when you fork something, if you have any decency or respect for Open Source and its historical mores. I wouldn't have said a word about it, if they'd changed the name, I would have ignored it (as I assume most people would have, if it didn't share a name with something people are already talking about). But, since they're coming out of the gate being an entitled jerk about software that folks have chosen to Open Source, I'm inclined to point out that they're not behaving ethically on multiple fronts.

[hbn]

> Historically, it means a community of developers have decided to break with the old project for some reason.

That seems more like it should be called an "alumni fork"

"Community" makes more sense for people who aren't necessarily affiliated with the official project but were in the community that spawned around it.

[SwellJoe]

I've never seen the term "alumni fork" used.

[skrtskrt]

Rocky Linux was a corporate fork with numerous dubious ethical decisions early on

[SwellJoe]

Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation is a benefit corporation founded by the original founder of CentOS and other CentOS developers in response to CentOS becoming a stream OS instead of a stable OS.

You'll have to be specific about what dubious ethical decisions you mean. I'm unaware of any, and I feel like I'm pretty tuned into this specific story.

[skrtskrt]

I mean here are just a few of the issues re: the founding https://hackernoon.com/the-case-against-rocky-linux

If you’re “pretty tuned in” you would at least know that all this founder & foundation fluff is a load of corporate PR BS.

I was also referring to them shipping broken releases early on and them fighting with users about it instead of fixing and figuring out why they were publishing broken garbage.

[jauntywundrkind]

It's ok to start new things with aspirations. Spare us such melodrama, such pedantry.

[SwellJoe]

Yep, start a new thing with a new name. Go for it.

[blitzar]

I would like to introduce my new venture, OpenOpenAi.

[bestouff]

Warp is already an Alacritty fork with no acknowledgement. I feel they deserve no respect for this.

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47939527

[SwellJoe]

I don't know anything about that (I didn't know what Warp was until yesterday, still kinda don't know, as it seems to be a terminal plus AI and I don't know what that actually means). But, alacritty's license seems to allow proprietary forks.

The license requires copyright notice to follow the code and that seems to be present: https://github.com/warpdotdev/warp/blob/6d7a01cc9727472a1bcb...

I dunno if they adhered to the license previous to open sourcing, though, as you have to include it somewhere in the actual binary distribution, as well, and some folks don't do that. And, that's also shitty and unethical.

[scosman]

But calling it OpenAlacritty would be worse, which is what happened here.

[iamveen]

Domain Squatting 2.0

[ElijahLynn]

Agreed. They should not be using the name Warp inside of the fork.

[BeetleB]

Definitely disagree about rudeness.

Only a trademark violation if a trademark has been registered. IANAL.

[SwellJoe]

One can claim a trademark without registering it (the difference between ™ and ®). But, if one wanted to sue, you'd probably register it first. But, a claimed trademark that is suitably unique for your product is defensible if you can prove consistent usage pre-dating the new user of that mark.

I'd be pissed if someone took one of my open source projects, forked it, and also stole the name (and put "Open" in front, despite the fact that the thing they forked is Open Source), misleading users and diluting the brand with software I have no control over.

I don't even know what Warp is, but I'm mad as hell about it. As an Open Source developer of 30 years, I expect people to operate with something like honor and decency and respect for other people. Taking someone's open project and launching a competing fork with the same name is hugely disrespectful and dishonorable behavior.

[selcuka]

https://uspto.report/TM/90342558

> WARP® trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of [...] Downloadable computer terminal emulator program [...]

[ai_slop_hater]

How were they able to register it? So many other things are named Warp, for example Cloudflare Warp.

[selcuka]

Cloudflare Warp is also trademarked: https://uspto.report/TM/88455403

They are the same class (Class 009, software and electronic goods) but apparently the trademark examiner determined that a terminal app and VPN/security software are distinct enough not to cause a confusion.

[ButlerianJihad]

Here are some links to the official website of the actual United States Patent and Trademark Office, commonly and distinctly abbreviated "USPTO", whose domain name is duly registered at uspto.gov

https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90342560

https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90342558

https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/88455403

Search for "wordmark" "warp", filter for currently live and 009, shows 44 results.

A search for "openwarp" yields 0 results, none dead, none historical; nowhere in the system is this unique name registered.

A banner at top-of-page offers various pointers for consumers on how to discern official US Gov websites from imposters, domain squatters, and name-stealers

[illiac786]

Mixing etiquette and copyright.

It is not only rude but also misleading and frankly, stupid.