Hacker News Reader

Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

Handshake has been co-opted by the same person who took over Freenode. That handshake has become toxic should come at no surprise.

I feel for this dev, I had a similarly unpleasant experience with the Aragon team and decided the community was not for me.

View on HN

If we're talking about the same person, he was the only one who actually encouraged what I was doing and even gave me the idea for Zooko.

However, the admins on their discord, were less than encouraging.

EDIT: As per the same person's advice, I'm going to start a new discord community without the toxicity.

Have you talked to Zooko about using his name for your project? He might not appreciate you trading on his reputation this way, particularly if your designs or implementations turn out to be fundamentally flawed.

Indeed - the developer here could ask Zooko, & be open to consider other names that convey homage & inspirations without wholesale endorsement. (1st thing that comes to mind: 'Zooter', combining suggestive fragments of 'zooko' & 'twitter'.)

Even cypherpunks soured on conventional IP often believe in folk trademarks, enforced by the reputational pressures to not mislead.

I e-mailed him about it days ago.

By the way, are you familiar with Zooko's triangle?

Are you joking? You emailed him and then launched your project with his name on it without waiting for a reply?

The dude doesn't own the name Zooko just 'cause his parents named that, if he has a problem with it the dev can remove the part of the README that mentions it's named in honor of him. That doesn't mean this Zooko person (my first time hearing of him) can demand or should demand the name of the project change.

My 2 cents but you seem a bit too incredulous over it.

Why are you commenting here if you don't know who Zooko is? That's like commenting on US history without knowing that the US is a country. How could your opinion possibly add anything of value?

Oh and yes obviously I'm familiar with Zooko's triangle.

I walked away from the crypto community at large, highly recommended. There are many more meaningful things to put you talents towards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com