Author: Aymeric Vitte 2018-02-13 15:45:17
Published on: 2018-02-13T15:45:17+00:00
The issue being addressed is the use of Bitcoin core code by fork coins, which may deceive people. The proposed solution suggests altering the license terms to disincentivize fork coins from using the word Bitcoin. However, Jameson Lopp argues that a social or marketing-based defense would be more effective since the problem is social and marketing-based. He believes that Bitcoin should not rely on courts or governments to defend itself against attacks. Another suggestion made is to use trademarks instead of the software license to prohibit any reimplementation that is not formally verified to be fully compatible from using the name Bitcoin. This would also add legal uncertainty and not affect anyone forking older versions of Bitcoin or those using existing independent blockchain implementations. Additionally, the license does not affect the blockchain data and may create issues if an old version is technically incompatible with a future version by the Core team. Finally, the author suggests that there may be a need to study this issue to determine if a legal solution can keep some open source aspect of the code.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T00:42:34.106903+00:00