👀

I did not follow the details so far.

but I have high respect for and trust in Matt.

isn’t it about a trademark misuse? that could have easily be solved?

Would the closest equivalent be something like zbd but if it was a huge organisation that keeps nsecs away from users? 🤔

( I have no idea if zbd continues to withhold nsecs from users still)

I think the fact that there's no secret creator of nostr kind of alleviates the risk of a csw style attack. Perhaps the real risk is private equity coming in with a centralised app and calling is nostr. I don't really think this could be successful though, because I feel that nostr users will always be those who use it for its decentralised nature and are aware of it.

Redundancy; run a node or two. Who's going to take your node away?

"not contributing" is fine, much worse would be if they tried to capture the protocol

🫡

Thanks for sharing. I read the information from the link you provided. Here are my thoughts.

It sounds like another story of greed and ego. Just like the WeWork post I recently made about greed. It never fails that a good thing turns bad because of…money and pride. I don’t want to see this happen to Nostr.

From my understanding, Fiatjaf created the protocol. Is Nostr for sale and available for a private equity firm to buy in to?

Private equity companies have the means and will happily fund projects that will generate great returns. My concern is that they’ll create a key component of the Nostr ecosystem. That component /feature is then used to help create app/clients. Right now it’s free, but it could be monetized later because it’s secretly part of the investment strategy. If developers don’t pay for it, then they could be denied access and their app/client will not work properly.

There’s nothing stopping firms from contributing to the Nostr ecosystem today. And then changing their mind later.

I think the focus right now should be on continuing the grassroots efforts to build apps/clients, collaboration, teamwork, and support. Creating a real life web of trust of individuals who have bought into Nostr and its future. Currently, Nostr is grassroots. I like it. But the startups and investment firms with loads of cash are on their way (if they’re not secretly here already). And it’s nothing for them to roll out a premier Nostr app within six months. Get their marketing and sales team to promote it. Convince celebrities and influencers to use it. Onboard new users in droves. Conveniently not recommended other Nostr apps unless it benefits them. And the people currently putting in the grassroots work on Nostr (there are too many to name) will be looking like…😔. Responding in ways similar to when users in Brazil went to BlueSky. 😑

The idea of a Nostr foundation sounds great. I know OpenSats and other organizations contribute to Nostr. But can there be a dedicated Nostr foundation that contributes to the things built on Nostr? Will the foundation have enough funds to form great teams and pay them? I believe in paying people appropriately for their hard work. I don’t believe in just asking for favors. There’s *value* in people’s labor, ideas, and contributions.

Then the question is…who will fund the foundation? Donors? Investors? Private equity companies with good intentions? Users? Donors usually contribute because they care. Investors *typically* are financially driven. I’m sure there are investors with good intentions but they’re rare and hard to find. Trust me. I know.

By the way, I like your posts. You ask good thought provoking questions and share interesting ideas. ✨

Part of the problem is releasing things under particular licenses that don't actually list expectations that one silently has.

Is there some agreement stating what "contribute" means and what amount of it would be sufficient?

I understand the general intent that most people have when they say they want companies to contribute back to projects. But vague wishes and desires are not the same thing as a legal licensing document. It's ridiculous to get mad at a company for not doing something you never told them they had to do. The whole point of a legal document is to hold people accountable when they don't do what you think is right.

I think the dude is grasping at straws to destroy a competitor and looks like an asshole in the process. He's trying to go back on terms they didn't set and agreed to years ago. At least from what I've seen of the issue.

I would say the only appropriate action would be to make your license define what you expect from people who rally around the technology. Otherwise, you have no right to later get upset when people do what you gave them the right to do. No one will ever agree on every principle. That's why licenses exist.

👀 my sites run on WP 🥺

nostr:note1uetsu4ntxpatwu522wstp9hz4y52pg8ugcryufwz5vur40lzdu3szrvccg

No billionaires should own any form of media.

Word press people need to come here.

How would we handle if private equity came in to the Nostr ecosystem and didn’t contribute?

1. Many are here under alts. Obviously.

We don’t have clear expectations

1. Each entity chooses their own expectations.

of the role of companies in the Nostr space

2. Their choice again. Some choose to give freely while others always choose to exploit. Anyone here who believes their work won’t eventually be used to make profit somehow is ignoring basic human rights.

It always happens. Now how others choose to react is their choice again. Same as in all things. ✌️

Private Equity is already here.

If you have something to protect, you should've trademarked everything ages ago. I know some commies want to make everything unpatentable and untrademark-able but for long haul protocol R&D the originator has to get something back unless you believe grifting is ok.

Grifting is not OK, OKAY?

You are not entitled to take in unlimited quantity from people whose decades of original research was never compensated for.

Listen to the Wordpress Trademark drama here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd8h_6vYPJ8

Afaik, BenArc owns the nostr.com and I believe, nostr.org domains. something to think about.

Ah, interesting! That word has its roots in Joyce's Finnegans Wake:

"rubrickredd out of the wordpress else is there no virtue more in alcohoran"

It reminds me a bit of when FJ once mentioned, "It's my project, I can do what I want." Since then, I've personally felt that Nostr leans proprietary in some ways, though I still hold out hope that most of it remains open and that it eventually becomes more community-driven. I’m not overly optimistic, but I'll continue using the protocol for as long as it remains available to us.

I really do hope Nostr doesn’t meet an unfortunate end, though I’m no legal expert, so it’s hard to say for sure. That said, one of the big benefits of working at the W3C is the bullet proof, royalty-free patent protections—it’s a real comfort when navigating these kinds of issues.

This situation with WordPress really highlights the tension between open-source values and corporate interests.

Nostr's decentralized nature might protect it from a similar scenario, but you're right—without clear expectations or a foundation, the ecosystem could face challenges if private equity gets involved without contributing.

We should consider creating community-driven guidelines for companies entering the Nostr space, to ensure they contribute meaningfully without monopolizing or undermining the ethos of the network.

Learning from Bitcoin's history and the WordPress case, it's crucial to think ahead about governance in a decentralized ecosystem.

#asknostr

nostr:nevent1qqswv4cw2e4nq74hw2998g9sjm32j29q5r7yvpjwyhp2xwp6hl3x7gcpzdmhxue69uhhwmm59e6hg7r09ehkuef0qgs8d3c64cayj8canmky0jap0c3fekjpzwsthdhx4cthd4my8c5u47srqsqqqqqpw8a5sf

Can someone file the trademarks under a Creative Commons license, or has that already been done? I don't know copyright law, but if some corporation files for a trademark on NOSTR, they can claim it. That would be a nightmare.

I agree with nostr:npub1melv683fw6n2mvhl5h6dhqd8mqfv3wmxnz4qph83ua4dk4006ezsrt5c24 below. Nostr lacks the legitimacy to be considered a community and open project when the governance is so opaque.

It's an experimental hobby, very much like ham radio, which is all fine, but for the protocol to grow it will need to form it's equivalent of W3C.

The community knows this but no one has dared to broach this so far as this will likely be painful process.

Those who have invested most in this project will eventually need this question answering or they will leave nostr for other more commercially viable projects.

One more reason to quit the Wordpress ecosystem. It will take time to migrate all clients, but i see only benefits (in terms of hosting costs and technical debt), but also to quit having projects at the whim of one guy that decides that starting today we not using ACF anymore but his own fork. Insane ego fights harming everyone using the software that now has to explain clients wtf just happened. #FOSS is great, authoritarian egomaniacs are not.

Is the a nostr-native alternative to WordPress? I have a WordPress blog but this sort of thing makes me uneasy...