
Show HN: Kikked – check if any of your NPM repos is trademarked - parro-it
https://github.com/parro-it/canibekiked
======
parro-it
I'm not a native speaker, I had no idea what "kike" means in english before
reading this issue.

I intended the word only in the sense "to suffer the same fate as the azer/kik
project".

I renamed the project, my apologies to anyone who could have been offended by
my mistake.

~~~
nailer
No harm done, node itself has 'gyp' which is a racial epithet for gypsies in
most of Europe.

~~~
DrScump
Even "gypsy" has negative connotations, hence their preference for "Roma",
generally speaking.

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mholt
There's also [https://github.com/egoist/is-trademarked-
cli](https://github.com/egoist/is-trademarked-cli) \- a CLI tool I came across
the other day, to see if a name is trademarked.

~~~
stephenboyd
That's actually the dependency that provides the trademark checking ability of
OP's tool. And its first commit was two days ago, so it was probably also a
response to the NPM kik-storm.

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zachrose
I have an NPM package named "barrel"[0], which apparently is also a trademark
for some kind of sunglasses company. I would expect there to be some kind of
fair-use-like rule for common nouns that are used in different industries or
domains?

[0]
[https://www.npmjs.com/package/barrel](https://www.npmjs.com/package/barrel)

~~~
Amorymeltzer
At least in the US, the rule is essentially confusion: is a consumer likely to
be confused? In both cases (yours and kik) the likelihood of real confusion is
unlikely, although admittedly sunglasses are a couple steps more removed than
a messaging app.

Good reading is the Apple V Apple series of court cases:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer)

~~~
nickodell
True, but the brouhaha over kik was over npm's module name dispute policy.

So, it seems like the operative questions are 1) How likely is X to create an
npm package? and 2) If a node.js developer types `npm install X`, are they
more likely to expect X's package, or my package?

For the parent commenter, 1 is a definite no, and 2 is kinda wishy-washy.

~~~
michaelmrose
I don't think anyone on earth installs a package with npm without specifically
knowing what they are installing. This is in contrast to users going to
foo.com expecting to find foo corps website.

Going to foo.com is a very serviceable strategy for getting foo corps website
and if it's not you have invested 2 seconds and risked nothing.

Contrast that with npm unless you specifically know the package by name
getting foo corps software by npm install foo is a total crap shoot that is
only somewhat likely to succeed will cost you as much as a minute or more of
your time and is installing software considered by most technical people to be
risky.

Nobody is likely to confuse foo package with foo Corp unless the description
of the package is unclear thus name and description should be considered
together to decide if confusion exists.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
But when you saw the headlines, "Internet broken due to Kik package dispute"
it is reasonable to expect confusion with the trademarked company and
software.

~~~
michaelmrose
Trademarks exist to prevent confusion in trade not in people who read
headlines and not articles.

It's more likely that most had heard of neither and now way more clear on who
both parties are.

------
cphoover
Don't think this really solves the problem... I think the real issue here is
security of what happens when a deep dependency in NPM's graph get's
removed... Right now it is possible for anyone to republish said dependency
with any (perhaps evil) package. What needs to happen is either unpublish
needs to be disabled, or when you remove a dependency that is heavily depended
on, an empty placeholder has to be automatically added by NPM so no one can
hijack the package name. The question becomes what constitutes a heavily
depended on package. (100 dependents? 1000?)

------
dang
All: it took at most a single click to figure out that "canibekiked" included
"kike" by obviously innocent accident. I understand the magic power of the
bikeshed to hold internet forums in thrall, but holy magoly you guys outdo
yourselves sometimes.

You all owe parro-it (<\-- notice the country code in the name? _big clue_ )
an apology. How about setting this right with some substantive feedback about
the project?

Edit: We'll mark this and the other "is that a racist slur on the bikeshed"
subthreads off-topic, so your forthcoming substantive feedbacks should all
rank higher in the thread.

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Kephael
Oy Gevalt, in all fairness the developer of this doesn't appear to be a Native
English speaker.

~~~
rcfox
I'm not the creator, but I am a native English speaker. I've never heard the
word "kike" before, had no idea what it meant...

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AnkhMorporkian
The author has decided that he will rename the package 'Kikked.'[1] The title
should be updated to that.

1: [https://github.com/parro-
it/canibekiked/issues/2#issuecommen...](https://github.com/parro-
it/canibekiked/issues/2#issuecomment-201908619)

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StavrosK
20 comments about the name here and none of you bothered to open an issue. For
shame!

~~~
Kristine1975
Someone just did: [https://github.com/parro-
it/canibekiked/issues/2](https://github.com/parro-it/canibekiked/issues/2) :-)

~~~
pavel_lishin
And like an idiot, I waded in.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, I can't say I don't regret my involvement either.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Seems like it's worked out for the best.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, luckily.

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thinkpad20
Am I parsing it incorrectly in my head, or does this project have a blatantly
antisemitic name?

~~~
jessaustin
You are reading correctly. The project name doesn't follow English inflection
rules. Just as e.g. "tap" becomes "tapped", "kik" should become "kikked".
"Kiked" is an inflection of "kike", just as "liked" is an inflection of "like"
and "taped" is an inflection of "tape". This mistake is easy to make, since
there aren't any English verbs spelled ending "ik"; words with this sound are
instead spelled ending "ick".

~~~
Tehnix
The "Kiked" should probably be read as "Kik'ed" and in any regards, "Kikked"
would be wrong. Kik is an entity and not a word in itself here. Try replacing
it with "IBM'ed", "Microsoft'ed", "Facebook'ed" etc. The last one is the
closest one, you wouldn't be saying "Facebookked".

As a side-note, I in no way think the author made any association with the
word kike. Even though I know the word, I didn't jump to that conclusion at
least, especially given the context.

~~~
gyardley
The entity has nothing to do with it. Back when I worked for the comparison
shopping NexTag, for example, people would certainly joke about being
'nextagged', not 'nextaged', which would've been read as something completely
different.

None of IBM, Microsoft, or Facebook end in exactly one 'short' vowel plus one
consonant, which is the rule, in English, that determines when the final
consonant is doubled. _That 's_ why your examples don't work.

------
woodruffw
A fairly unfortunate naming choice.

It looks like the author is Italian, so I would hazard that they're not a
native and that this is just an innocent mistake in transcribing what they
think "kik'd" ought to sound like.

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ianwalter
Does the inflection rule still work the same way with proper names?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Yes. If Twitter had been named after a guy named Bob, then the past tense of
the verb for posting on that service would be "Bobbed," not "Bobed."

~~~
ianwalter
Ok, thats fair. It seemed weird at first that there could also be someone
named Bobb, but I guess that would be Bobbbed.

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josai
Without wishing to otherwise get involved at all, I'd like to say that as an
Australian native english speaker, I have never heard of the word "kike" or
that it is apparently a slur against jews. Why would anyone else in the world
know that?

I have nothing against jews, but it pisses me off that some local slang is
elevated into a global "character sequence you can't use", so long as that
slang originates in NYC. Imagine if every other city had that privilege; we
wouldn't be able to name anything.

~~~
kedean
That rule usually only applies if the word doesn't have other valid uses. For
example, 'cracker' is a racial slur for white people, but it also means an
edible snack, so it's in the clear. To my knowledge, the word 'kike' does not
have a non-offensive meaning, at least in the english speaking world.

~~~
Dr_tldr
Again, only in the United States. The word "kikel" is the yiddish word for
"circle", and illiterate Jewish immigrants coming to the US didn't want to
write an X by their name because they inferred they were being asked to draw a
cross.

Once this was figured out as the problem, Jewish immigrants were instructed
(in yiddish) to write a circle instead, thus they were referred to as "kikes"
by immigration officials.

Since the origin of the term is specifically american, why should the rest of
the world have to deal with it? You're not really addressing the original
concern. Your theory of offensiveness as being "words with only one possible
meaning" is fallacious, since again, that meaning is derived from the very
specific mores of only one society. Very disappointing to see this kind of
thoughtless "america is the center of the universe" opinion in HN.

~~~
joshAg
The rest of the world doesn't have to deal with it if they don't want to. This
is easily solved by registering the trademark with someone other than the US,
establishing the brand and trademark and then coming to the US.

------
jepler
#unfortunatesubstring

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themgt
"Canibekik'd" please

~~~
coreyp_1
It's funny, but this is, in a way, a parallel of what happened to the original
"kik" project, in that there is a suggestion of name change because of the
perception of some people.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Was the same argument made for kik, or was there a different name originally?

