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creditstxt / credit-requirement

require credit for your software work
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Choose a distinctive name? #5

Closed kemitchell closed 5 years ago

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

"Credit Requirement" is 100% descriptive of what the legal text tries to do, and therefore not protectable as a trademark, or particularly fun.

Perhaps we could think of a memorable and suggestive name for the project?

ioistired commented 5 years ago

What are the advantages of trademarking the name?

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

If someone else tries to publish an alternative or changed form with the same name, I could use the trademark to stop them. It may also help to secure names on various platforms that assign organization handles, like GitHub.

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Hmm… I don't have any solid name ideas yet, but here's some brainstorming: Blue Oak came out of Oakland, where the project started. This project started online. Maybe something related to that? Especially since the project itself also relates to network use. Ah, that leads me to X-Clacks-Overhead. The Clacks continue to carry Terry Pratchet's name through the wired. How does "Clacks Exception" sound? A little weird, but I could get used to it.

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Actually I really like the symbolism of X-Clacks-Overhead since its mission statement is "A man is not dead while his name is still spoken." :smiley:

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

That's definitely the gist of the tool! But I'm afraid deep Pratchett refs are a bit niche. I'd prefer to go with something that nearly everyone understands intuitively, rather than something that makes them search Google. ;-P

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Aww ok :(

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

Put the quote in README?

ioistired commented 5 years ago

If someone else tries to publish an alternative or changed form with the same name, I could use the trademark to stop them.

Wouldn't that be handled by a DMCA letter due to the license in the README file?

It may also help to secure names on various platforms that assign organization handles, like GitHub.

Well this wouldn't be handled by the license, so that's fair.

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

If Bob writes an entirely new legal text, without starting from mine, and calls it "Credit Requirement", why does he have to follow my license rules?

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Put the quote in README?

I'd like to try and change it to use gender-neutral language if possible. It is a quote though.

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

Your aren't dead while your name is still spoken.

After Sir Terry Pratchett

ioistired commented 5 years ago

That's definitely the gist of the tool! But I'm afraid deep Pratchett refs are a bit niche. I'd prefer to go with something that nearly everyone understands intuitively, rather than something that makes them search Google. ;-P

See, and here I was thinking of using a Lain reference :P

ioistired commented 5 years ago

@sayaks got any ideas?

ioistired commented 5 years ago

What if we tried translating "attribution", "credit", "honor", "trust", etc into other languages? I tried in Spanish with "attribution" and "credit" but just got words that sound like English :/.

ioistired commented 5 years ago

My friend came up with "DevCred" which I think sounds too hip, sounds unrefined to me. "Credi" sounds neat but maybe a bit too cutesy? "Cover Charge" perhaps, to somewhat relate back to mechanical royalties, or maybe something else related to royalties, if it's possible to do so without implying commercial aspects. Or something about norms, perhaps. "Credical"? Or maybe something relating to signatures, like on artwork.

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Credi is starting to grow on me btw :P

lilizoey commented 5 years ago

How about something like, heritage, lineage, kinship, or similar? Referring to how names of families or places and so on could live for several generations.

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

@sayaks, welcome!

I really appreciate the name suggestions. More than I've been able to come up with on my own! But I'm starting to think plain-Jane descriptive may just be the way to go. I'm coming up with any names that do as much to convey what the text does, and I think that's the most important thing the name can do.

ioistired commented 5 years ago

Is it worth it to forgo trademarking?

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

I do plan to trademark a name of some kind, to protect the integrity of the terms that I release. But I think it best to set this issue aside for now.

I suspect it may be easier, and more important, to come up with a distinctive name for a complete license. I could easily see announcing both a permissive license with credit terms, as well as the credit terms alone, for use as an addition to other licenses.