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Comment by metaphorm | Hacker News Reader

> But in a situation like that, I can't blame npm because their hand was forced

was it really though? can you show me where NPM had any kind of obligation to unilaterally take one side in this dispute?

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They were not "forced" by court order or any other legal means, but they were "forced" because I can imagine going to court over the entire ordeal would have been incredibly draining on their finances and manpower and ultimately pointless. I'm willing to bet that whatever fallout this results in for npm (even as big as this has become) is ten times better than whatever would have happened if they'd decided to fight Kik over it. They probably just wouldn't exist anymore as a company.

I don't think it would have affected NPM whatsoever. The "draining" court battle would have been between Azer and KIK. to me the most confusing and inappropriate behavior in this whole sorry situation was that of NPM.

its easy for me to see where both KIK and Azer had legitimate claims to the name and its also totally legitimate for two parties to NOT come to an agreement outside of court. We have courts to settle disputes. That is where this should have ended up.

NPM effectively denied Azer his potential legal remedy by unilaterally supporting KIK.

I'm not a lawyer but I imagine it would be taken care of as a court order in the lawsuit between Kik and Azer. Suing npm or github for a trademark dispute they have with Azer would be silly. The most I could see levied directly against npm is a cease-and-desist. But I guess just mentioning lawyers is enough for npm to hand over a module namespace.

But Kik Interactive wouldn't have taken them to court over this. It's a 100-person company. No one has the time, or the motivation to go on a tangent like that. Especially since they'll be paying hundreds or low-thousands in lawyer fees just to file.

npm dun goofed.

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