Fedora and Python 2

Posted Apr 12, 2018 4:50 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338)
In reply to: Fedora and Python 2 by bandrami
Parent article: Fedora and Python 2

They will not. If they start *changing the language* and still call it "Python", then they'll get a polite request to change the name to avoid confusing people and protect the "Python" trademark – that's what happened with Tauthon. But the poster you're replying to isn't talking about that, they're talking about making regular old Python 2 available outside of the normal distribution channels, and that's totally ok and very common (see pyenv, conda, etc.).

Fedora and Python 2

Posted Apr 17, 2018 13:27 UTC (Tue) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link] (3 responses)

You're leaving out a HUGE part there. Someone took over development of Python 2 *after it had been abandoned by its original team* and was threatened with legal action for keeping the name if he maintained that language.

Can you think of any other situation in free software where a team that has abandoned a codebase has not just discouraged someone willing from taking over maintenance, but in fact used legal pressure to prevent it?

Fedora and Python 2

Posted Apr 17, 2018 14:00 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

>Can you think of any other situation in free software where a team that has abandoned a codebase has not just discouraged someone willing from taking over maintenance

That's not what happened here. Maintenance of the codebase is perfectly fine. The name however is not free to use for forks. That is a situation that is quite common in Free software projects.

Fedora and Python 2

Posted Apr 17, 2018 20:22 UTC (Tue) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

What do you mean, "abandoned"? It's not. The Python 2 branch contains a whole lot more changes (looking at the last half year) than Tauthon.

Fedora and Python 2

Posted Apr 28, 2018 20:07 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

>Can you think of any other situation in free software where a team that has abandoned a codebase has not just discouraged someone willing from taking over maintenance, but in fact used legal pressure to prevent it?
A few years back the libav gang attempted to sue the legitimate FFmpeg project out of existence over its use of the logo. They failed because they didn't actually own any rights to the image to begin with; a third party contributed it. Hasn't stopped them using it, mind you.

This Python naming dispute isn't an act of malice - it's a simple trademark defence. Mozilla does exactly the same thing, which is why we have IceCat, IceWeasel, PaleMoon, Seamonkey etc.