I don't wanna be rude but it looks like this guy just arrived on the Internet this year - around March-April and it doesn't seem like he has any prior activity. He just decided to roll this Notepad++ for macOS and that's it

Also, his medium avatar looks awfully generated.

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RobotToaster 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It reads to me like English isn't his first language. Either way the complexities of open source licensing are something a lot of people don't understand.

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matsemann 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As stated multiple times in the linked discussion: the licensing of the open source code is not the issue. It's the use of the trademark, and making their fork look like an officially endorsed one.

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koiueo 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

russian is most probably his first language.

Make your own conclusions

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RobotToaster 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There's a term for making conclusions about someone based on their race.

	▲	koiueo 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		1. It's not a race, make your terminology straight 2. I'm not even making a generalization. I'm pointing out an interesting fact in the context of blatant violation of internationally established behavioral norms, and even laws in sone jurisdictions 3. I'm offering you to make your own conclusion So based on 1, 2, 3, you are welcome to gtfo.

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rotational 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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i_think_so 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Does he remind you of anyone?

https://www.wired.com/story/jia-tan-xz-backdoor/

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azrazalea_debt 15 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

His linkedin (on which he posted about notepad++) is pretty light publicly but it does have a post about him speaking at a conference in NY on product management and people actually commenting that they saw his talk. That was a year ago, so definitely possible that there's some "setup an account to look real" BS going on but at first glance my take is that he's a real person.

The people on HN might be surprised by how little the average naive software-adjacent person knows about intellectual property law. I've been following it since I was 12, but most people barely know what a trademark is let alone what enforcement looks like.

Here's my guess: Eastern European origin, currently working and likely living in NY, PM gets ahold of Claude and decides to vibe code himself a port of Notepad++. Maybe he really has good intentions, maybe he is looking to make donation money, maybe a bit of both, whatever. Probably looking for donation money. Regardless, he thinks "Oh people fork/port open source projects all the time, I'll just do that" and has no conception whatsoever that he is going to piss people off OR that he's violating the law. English is not his first language either I'd bet, and he's using Claude to write a lot of / all of his comments. Acts frankly ignorant and confused and dumb in response, doesn't know what to do, etc. AI can't help him because he's not even givin the AI context well. A shitstorm ensues.

FWIW, I did a quick/not that advanced static analysis of the code compared to the published binaries and couldn't find anything malicious. I'd leave that to the experts though for any real opinion.

TLDR;; My guess: Dumb PM gone mad with power and looking for a donation-based cash grab, possibly with the good intention of keeping the project going long term, does not know the first thing about IP and does not speak english as his first language. But an actual dude.

We'll see how it shakes out.