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Comment by lbotos | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately this will probably run afoul of Git's trademark:

"In addition, you may not use any of the Marks as a syllable in a new word or as part of a portmanteau (e.g., "Gitalicious", "Gitpedia") used as a mark for a third-party product or service without Conservancy's written permission. For the avoidance of doubt, this provision applies even to third-party marks that use the Marks as a syllable or as part of a portmanteau to refer to a product or service's use of Git code."

How enforceable that is... I'm not a lawyer.

https://git-scm.com/about/trademark (section 2.3)

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How do gitlab, github, gitea, etc get away with it then?

GitLab team member here.

Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our use of 'GitLab' is under license.

GitLab and GitHub predate the trademark, and were explicitly granted an exception when the trademark was approved.

Is that kind of extension to trademark even legal anywhere?

That's so aweful how pissing territory behaviors are driving mindset of people involved in intellectual works.

Unless someone has agreed to a contract binding them to the Git trademark policy, the policy would seem to serve as nothing but a statement as to the Conservancy’s preferences (except where it explicitly permits something, where it may constitute a gratuitous license); what is enforceable is trademark law.

But, for a git-related service offered in commercial trade, there would seem likely to be a trademark violation independent of the policy, so the Conservancy is probably within their rights to enforce the policy in this case.

It would be a stretch but git has another meaning, which some find consistent with their perception of SWEs ;)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git

So does Apple but you'd have a hard time defending your Apple Phone in court on that basis

Strange. What about GitLab and Gitea? And probably others.

In the case of Gitea, an argument could be made that it's actually `gi•tea`, not `git•ea` :)

Not how trademark law is argued I think. Mike Roe Software (mikeroesoft) had a similar challenge. Trademark law is kind of inane but what are you going to do.

Gitea is a portmanteau, which is explicitly covered.

EcmaScript all over again. As I understand, letter reversal doesn't count?

Could they keep the same domain and change the name to gitly.org?

So I should be seeing incoming lawsuits for GitLab (Who also acquired Gitorious and Gitter) GitHub, Gitea, GitKraken, Gitcoin, Gitpod, GitSense and a VSCode tool called GitLens?

Why haven't they happened yet?

Downvoters: So you have ALL sources to your claims that these aforementioned Git-related services have the necessary permissions to use the Git trademark from the Software Freedom Conservancy?

I don't want 'probablys' or 'maybes' but full sources to ALL these services that explicitly show the permission granted for using the Git trademark under license.

GitLab is covered. Evidence for the rest?

You can add my startup GitSense as well

https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?q=wind...

The thing is, from what I've read, if you were using Git<plus something> before Git started cracking down, they will let it slide. I also think they don't care until you hit it big and cause issues for them.

They almost certainly have permission to use the phrases that way.

One simple question:

Do you have evidence of this 'permission' on all of them excluding GitLab? Any sources?

They're used under license. [0][1]

> Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our use of 'GitLab' is under license

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28062305

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/corporate-market...

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