Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

So Google owns the IP but doesn't support the maintainers that do all the work and keep it running. They take the credit, the value of the brand and do nothing.

Can't the maintainers do a fork, continue their work with a new name and then maybe start a foundation or something to attract money and support it? Fastlane is a very mission critical piece of software for many companies, I'm sure some of them would support it if it's an indie project and not a Google property.

Edit: there's actually a recent discussion about this and the idea of moving it to the Mobile Native Foundation. https://github.com/MobileNativeFoundation/discussions/discus...

Re: Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

#6

Post by riku_iki » Sun, Feb 19, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

sethd wrote: post #4

vdddv wrote: post #2

How can Google own the IP if this is open source

Google holds the copyright and they choose to license their IP under an open source license. You could be thinking of public domain.

So, maintainers can just fork it under different name?

Re: Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

#7

Post by Oxidation » Sun, Feb 19, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #3

vdddv wrote: post #2

How can Google own the IP if this is open source

IP =/= copyright See Audacity. Open source but the name is registered trademark and owned by the Muse Group https://www.audacityteam.org/copyright/ https://github.com/audacity/audacity Or Blender also another open source project but registered trademark https://www.blender.org/about/logo/ https://github.com/blender Krita too https://krita.org/en/item/krita-trademark-policy/ https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita There…

Indeed, Linux is probably the most famous. It's trademarked because someone else tried to trademark "Linux" and then shake down vendors for 10%. It went to court, the trademark troll lost and the trademark itself was assigned to Torvalds.

It's now administered by the Linux Mark Institute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Mark_Institute

Re: Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

#8

Post by joecool1029 » Sun, Feb 19, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

riku_iki wrote: post #6

sethd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google holds the copyright and they choose to license their IP under an open source license. You could be thinking of public domain.

So, maintainers can just fork it under different name?

Just call it fasterlane or betterlane lol

Re: Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

#9

Post by politelemon » Sun, Feb 19, 2023, 10:22 PM UTC

joecool1029 wrote: post #8

riku_iki wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, maintainers can just fork it under different name?

Just call it fasterlane or betterlane lol

Or as is the fashion currently, librelane

Re: Google is no longer sponsoring Fastlane

#10

Post by calibas » Sun, Feb 19, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

There are still maintainers, Google's just not paying them.

Google gets credit for Fastlane and owns the IP, while a small army of contributors do all the work for free...