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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

It took me a few seconds to figure out that this isn't a "Raspberry" product. I don't know if the "Pi" name is protected but even if it isn't it's pretty misleading to use it.

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Especially as there already is a PiZero https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-zero/

Maybe confusing, but it's standard at this point. See RockPi and OrangePi.

NanoPi and Banana Pi as well.

Let's call all the rest Clone Pi, there are so many and it's hard to count.

To be fair, Raspberry Pi got its idea from BeagleBoard then Beagle Bone along with Arduino, small ARM boards with Linux.

The problem with Clone-Pi series is that none of them are FCC-certified, while Raspberry Pis are.

What does it mean to be FCC-certified?

I believe it means you can manufacture products that use them.

exactly, currently those clone-pi are sold as a devkit basically, but they're essentially used like an official product which is 'illegal', I never got the idea why the vendor did not certify their boards, it is really not much when they are shipping (tens of) thousands of these boards.

They're probably trying to make them as cheap as possible.

And LicheePi Zero, LicheePi Nano...

I forgot about the Banana Pi. I was using one as a router for a while, but it kept crashing and the whole thing turns into a switch when it can't load an OS (not great for security):

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/banana-pi-bpi-r1-fails-into-a...

I think the issue comes from the fact that rpizero is an actual raspberry thing, so zeropi is 90% of that name in a different order. Pretty confusing tbh.

If you omit Raspberry, sure. If you're going to truncate the whole thing to rpizero, the rpi being first, is quite important.

From 36,000ft, there's perhaps a similarity if you squint a bit, but as soon as you see the product, you know it's not a Raspberry Pi Zero. And that matters even if you don't know what a Raspberry Pi Zero looks like, because you have no frame of reference to confuse this with (everybody who's heard of a Raspberry Pi Zero, knows what it looks like).

"Pi" is the new "-ola" [1]. But I agree, very confusing since there is already a "Pi Zero".

[1] http://www.friendsofthephonograph.org/Factola/Factola%20Defi...

This isn’t uncommon. Other non-raspberry SBCs use the pi suffix. RockPi and OrangePi are a couple that come to mind.

...and they all get cease-and-desists.

Somehow, I doubt it, seeing they're all still active.

You'll be shocked to learn that people don't always do what you want.

Actually I'd be shocked more if the sites were offline. Trying to prevent the use of the "Pi" suffix seems like a waste of time.

As a trademark holder, you have to make reasonable attempts to protect it, or you risk losing it.

"Raspberry Pi", yes. But they don't have a trademark on "anything Pi".

Yawn.

"ZeroPi" is not just a "pi suffix". It is too similar to the name "Raspberry Pi Zero"...

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