vanillaforum.ru ?

phreak

Just wanted to let the team know:
http://vanillaforum.ru/

This doesn't seem to be a legal split off. Please check @todd, @tim, @Lincoln.

Btw. it would be great to get my signature back, this is an issue to VanillaSkins.com. It was taken away from me because of the last OS discussion.

Tim

Thanks for the heads up @phreak. Not sure what those guys are trying to do, but they're definitely violating our trademark.

vrijvlinder

Wow that is amazing , they have cloned everything

@Lincoln will be pleased his plugin is now russian ! Talk about openly violating open source ....

http://vanillaforum.ru/forums/addon/indexphotos-plugin

I think they are trying to replicate this forum but have done a poor job .....

phreak

Weird, but the seem to have a forum up and running as well as very small add-on repository. Doesn't seem like they are running a hosted version.

aery

Well you should also take a look at http://vanillaforums.cn

phreak

@aery: Yeah, but this is just an informational board (and we can be happy not to have all the chinese titels on this forum), vanillaforums.ru seems more to try a rip off or?

phreak

But here are the Docs in chinese: http://www.oseye.net/docs/vanilla/

vrijvlinder

Yes but all the links route to this forum. I think the chinese forum is to help people with installing vanilla , I don't think it is a ripoff like the Russian.

The Russian they cloned stuff like the add ons and tried to clone the looks. And it looks like a ripp for sure.

phreak

Still spooky, i just wandered around there again with Google Translation: http://vanillaforum.ru/

vrijvlinder

Yea well look at the source code and it gives it away

body id="vforg_home_index" class="VFOrg Home index "

ah! very interesting , could this be the banned ? or is there a Jailed , coz I already made a cool avatar overlay for Jailed !!

.PhotoWrap.Jailed:before

.Jailed .ProfilePhotoLarge

I think that version is V1.1 so it is not a hosted forum since they are on 2.2

chutzpah is the only word that comes to mind ....

x00

A domain itself is not a trademark. It is a pointer to a physical address.

However what you do with it may or may not be considered a violation of trademark.

Personally I suggest working with them, as litigation can be expensive and sometimes counter productive, and generally ineffective cross border. You could provide some incentive not take the piss.

Sorry if this goes against the grain somewhat, as really it is up to Vanilla what business strategy they use, and also it depend quite heavily what their plans are for the future.

I'm just saying it hasn't hurt companies like facebook, twitter, etc to be more relaxed about people using their logo, so long as the context is right.

x00

@phreak said:
But here are the Docs in chinese: http://www.oseye.net/docs/vanilla/

Whilst the Chinese has cloned the design in that part, in their favour they do point back to vannillaforums.org quite a bit.

The Russian site it has appeared to have removed the like the hosting/download link

although they are entitled to make fork, they make no reference the original authors:
http://vanillaforum.ru/docs/download/

which is required by GPL

There is little or no reference to where the vanilla software come from.

jeongwee

i know vanilla coz of vanillaforums.cn, the site is helping ppl to know vanilla.Most ppl on my country they are using discuz or phpwind. Vanilla is unfamiliar for us,we need a local site to help each others,coz most of us doesnt speak english or speak bad of english(like me).The plugin Noiseless and Floor here also developed by the admin.The site didnt copy anything,the link of fork me on github just a version of integrate chinese transifex,and it keeps the "powered by vanilla forum(vanillaforum.org)".

vrijvlinder

Yes we know jeongwee, we looked at the chinese site and know it is a help site.

The russian site is attempting to impersonate the hosted forum. Their links do not point here which they should, to the download and the add ons. The graphics also should point to here if it was to help russians use Vanilla. The russians are the ones breaking the rules. .

x00

Emerging sectors such as china are great, especially since they have a different background and have used different software, so they are 'ripe' so to speak.