darwinports.com

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

I think there's little point in pursuing this further.   We went  
through the whole froo-frah about this back when MacPorts was called  
DarwinPorts and darwinports.com was first brought to the project's  
attention.  At that time, we negotiated unsuccessfully for the domain  
transfer and ultimately chose to change the project name to MacPorts  
and extensively rebrand the project (after, of course, obtaining all  
the appropriate macports domains this time around).

The matter should now rest since it's hard enough just enforcing your  
actual project name much less going after derivatives.  What next?   
Someone could register any one of macosports.com, macosxports.com,  
macsoftwareports.com, etc etc (all of which are closer to macports and  
even more likely to cause confusion) and the project would quickly  
find itself spending more time chasing people with sticks than  
actually maintaining ports.  The darwinports.com horse is already dead  
and buried, and the set of folks who still remember it as  
"darwinports" is a decreasing number of people, so at some point the  
problem will ultimately solve itself.

- Jordan

On Jan 7, 2008, at 10:55 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> Well, we're aware that this problem exists. Partly as a result of  
> this problem, since no agreement on the transfer of the domain name  
> into our control could be reached, the name of the project was  
> changed to MacPorts. The correct official web site for this project  
> is http://www.macports.org/ . It was previously http://www.darwinports.org/ 
>  . It has never been darwinports dot com.
>
> I don't know if anyone has attempted to contact the owner of  
> darwinports dot com recently to negotiate a transfer. I'd be happy  
> to do so on behalf of the project if desired, but we should  
> coordinate this so that we don't all independently try to contact  
> him. Someone from portmgr should chime in here and advise.
>
>
> On Jan 8, 2008, at 00:38, Michael Witten wrote:
>
>> Maintainers of MacPorts,
>>
>> There is a fairly benign, but terribly frustrating
>> issue with which you should deal swiftly.
>>
>> Somebody by the name of Mat Caughron is running a
>> mirror of the MacPorts project at
>>
>> 	http://darwinports.com/
>>
>> Unfortunately, such a usually kind favor is actually
>> a mischievous attempt to garner advertisement revenue
>> and glean user email addresses.
>>
>> While these ulterior motives are trashy, what disturbs
>> me most is the confusion that results from 2 seemingly
>> viable ports systems, especially since Mat Caughron not
>> only hosts the system under the name DarwinPorts, but he
>> also tries to hide the direct connection with MacPorts.
>>
>> Which one is the "correct" system?
>>
>> This semblance of disorganization and trashiness drives
>> people away from open source or at least to other projects
>> like fink.
>>
>> It is a branding issue.
>>
>>
>> I advise the following:
>>
>> 	(1)	Clarify the situation in the FAQ, in the Wiki,
>> 		and on the main page.
>>
>> 		It should be stated in rather clear terms that
>> 		darwinports.com is attempting to rebrand MacPorts
>> 		mischievously for email gathering and unwarranted
>> 		advertisement revenue.
>>
>> 		A strong statement makes it clear which project
>> 		is official.
>>
>>
>> 	(2)	Explicitly state somewhere that derivatives must
>> 		acknowledge MacPorts clearly; this will help with
>> 		future troubles.
>>
>>
>> 	(3)	Try to negotiate the transfer of the ownership of
>> 		darwinports.com to the MacPorts team; he can app-
>> 		arently be contacted at
>> 		
>> 			Mat Caughron
>> 			(408) 910-1266
>> 			caughron at gmail.com
>>
>> 		In any case, this subject of darwinports.com came up
>> 		once in discussions:
>>
>> 			http://osdir.com/ml/opendarwin.darwinports/2004-02/msg00090.html
>>
>> 		and though Mat Caughron pretended to be a novice, who
>> 		was just having fun and trying to support a project, it
>> 		came to light that he had tried and is still trying to
>> 		peddle other projects:
>>
>> 			http://osdir.com/ml/opendarwin.darwinports/2004-02/msg00091.html
>>
>> 		Furthermore, James Berry contacted Mat Caughron a couple
>> 		of years ago in order to resolve this point of contention
>> 		by initiating a transfer of the domain ownership to the
>> 		project. In return, Matt Caughron required a PowerBook.
>>
>>
>> 		With (1), it won't really matter if this transaction
>> 		is refused.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Michael Witten
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