AddOn Naming Conventions?
 

I originally started this topic on the official Rift UI forum, here. However, I'm moving it over to this site for a couple different reasons; one having been listed in the original post over there, the other being that I know there are some people that read on our sites that would never touch official forums with a ten foot pole due to forum trolls.

So, the topic for discussion is this:

If you are creating an AddOn that is either:

1. a port of an AddOn from [some other MMORPG]
2. or has a similar intended purpose,

And if you:

1. are not the original author of the AddOn that was first created for [some other MMORPG],
2. or haven't gotten their 'blessing'

should you use unique names for your addon, or should you go ahead and recycle the name of that [other addon]?

i believe if you are not the original author you should ask for permission from the original author first.

Pretty much this.


In my humble opinion, if you are not the original author (or a maintainer), or you don't have permission, you should not recycle the name. At best, go along with how the community deals with fan updates, and list it as a fan port. If the author of the original requests it's removal, it should be honored.


This might not be a very popular opinion among everybody, but I'd suggest a ban on ports lacking permission from the original author/s. Well, aside from those that are GPL'd, or were placed into public domain obviously.

I agree. And is fully support a policy both here and on Curse to disallow hosting AddOns with identical names from different authors (regardless of the game) unless the original author has given her blessing to use the name or it is PAINFULLY obvious that this is not the original author's work (ie a name of, say, "Recount [port]".

In the case of GPL and public domain, those imply that the author has given permission :)

I say in this situation you should use the Hurricane method. If the addon before it was very succefull then the name should be retired, if the addon wasn't very succesfull than it is ok to retire it, but it is a good ideal to use a citation of some sort to let the end user beaware of where the name came from.

Edit: I agree that you should always ask permission

I think pure ports of addons should keep the original name BUT they shall change it accordingly to show that it is an unofficial port, UNLESS they are endorsed by the original addon's author(s).

Addons that only copy the functionality of another addon should have their unique names since the addon IS NOT the same addon as the original.

Implying that something is what it is not is fraudulent.

When porting some addons, there occasionally is legal ramifications, even if you have blessing from the original author.

I ran into this porting LibDataBroker to Rift: I got permission to do the port, specifially stated clearly the original authors cannot and will not support the port, BUT I cannot legally host the download on riftui.com. Curse or no-go.

As a permissable workaround, I created a project page here, with a dummy file, and explained why, and where to get the actual file. Unfortunately, and I expected this, the RiftUI page was removed by the admins.

I bear no hard feelings; as I said, I didn't expect to be allowed the workaround on this site.

The point being, I got permission for the port; clearly stated the support limitations; and followed the legal hosting terms. Just saying to other authors to be careful of everything. Afterall, an addon by someone else is considered an Intellectual Property under the Copyright Act(s) of various countries.

Re: unofficial ports
 

Don't do them. See my previous comment about Intellectual Property.

With regards the names of products/addon, we're dealing with trademark law and this differs quite considerably between countries. There is no such thing as an international trademark (although there are a couple of treaties that work around this limitation for ofiicailly registered trademarks).
The common-law Trademark (poducts not officially registered with the official trademark office of a country) is pretty much impossible to enforce across borders and is not even recognised within the borders of some countries.

Addon hosting sites may/should likely take a more conservative position so that they don't get bogged down in such arguments between authors.

With regards the capabilities of an addon and writing an addon with similar capabilities ...brings to mind apple/samsung... We're not taling about copyright here, but patents (and other less tangiable things). I really hope we can be sensible and we don't end up with something reminicent of the mess that is the US patent office... Either way, there is no possible way an addon author could enforce such across borders (unless it's a commercial addon bringing in millions...).

Again, addon hosting sites may want to take a conservative position just to keep out of any arguments between authors.

It would be polite to ask the previous author if you can reuse a name though... or tell them of your intent.