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I noticed the company who wanted to add their service directly into Owncast, and I said no, started releasing their own version of Owncast with their own changes in it to support this use case.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. It's kind of a fork, but it's really just another release of Owncast by somebody else. They're releasing something called Owncast with functionality and decisions that have nothing to do with the real Owncast. It specifically says stuff like "Owncast does X", and Owncast does not do X, and will never do X. Only their changes do X.

I fear this may confuse people. If something goes wrong with their version of the software, people are going to ask me for support, and might make the real Owncast look bad. But I don't know if this is wrong, or if this is completely acceptable. It's open source, and the name "Owncast" isn't owned by anybody, as Owncast is an open source project, not a company. So I guess they have the right to do whatever they want and call it Owncast.

But it feels wrong, and it seems like really bad things could come of this.

in reply to Gabe Kangas

If they want to fork #Owncast, they legally can, but they should not call it Owncast anymore. I know #Mastodon & #WordPress are open source as well, but they vigorously protect their trademarks to prevent this type of confusion.

If possible, I would encourage them to rename their fork something else. If they refuse, let us know which company it is so we can avoid doing business with them.

in reply to Darnell Clayton :verified:

@darnell The trademark part is something I've never been able to figure out. I've asked around, but nobody has been able to answer it for me. Who owns a trademark for an open source project? Mastodon is a company, they own their trademark. Owncast is not a company, it's not a legal entity. It can't own anything.
in reply to Gabe Kangas

@darnell I use a trademark. The IzzyOnDroid logo/icon is based on a trademark I hold, see https://gitlab.com/IzzyOnDroid/repo/-/tree/master/assets?ref_type=heads#assets (the IzzyOnDroid app uses that, and it's not my work; I granted them usage). And there are others, which might be more relevant to your case (check F-Droid apps having NonFreeAssets).

Speaking of F-Droid: the policy for forks there is they must use a unique package name and app name. For a.o. this very reason.

in reply to IzzyOnDroid ✅

@IzzyOnDroid @darnell I completely understand the need for a trademark. But I completely do not understand who can hold the trademark for an open source project. Wordpress and Firefox are run by companies. Those companies hold those trademarks. Owncast is not a company.
in reply to Gabe Kangas

And why should a person not be able to hold a trademark? I do so for 20 years now. But yeah, I am no lawyer… @darnell
in reply to IzzyOnDroid ✅

@IzzyOnDroid @darnell A person absolutely should. But Owncast isn't a person, it's an open source project. A single person shouldn't hold all of its assets.
in reply to Gabe Kangas

You can transfer ownership later, as was already pointed out. But as also was pointed out, you would need to have something in place in case "the other side" tries this. @darnell