Django 2.0

An entry published by James Bennett on January 18, 2009, Part of the categories Django and Misc. 33 comments posted.

So apparently some folks doing business as “Vyper Logix Corp” are peddling a thing they call “Django 2.0”. I’m not going to link it here since they don’t deserve the Google bump, but if you’re interested you can follow the link in Jannis’ tweet where he mentioned it. In fact, with any luck my Google juice will pop this article up above them.

Django 2.0” is, apparently, built on the Django 0.96.2 codebase, which is rather interesting since that means it could be missing:

If you’re happy living without all of those things, of course, it may be that “Django 2.0” is for you. And it’s advertised as a “Premier Python Product”, which of course must mean it’s just great (one wonders why it’s not a “Premier Enterprise Product” since then it’d be “Enterprise”, of course, and they could rip off “PEP” to go with the long list of other Python terms/names they’ve appropriated).

But it’s hard to tell exactly what “Django 2.0” does and how well it does it, since as far as I can see there’s no place to actually look at the code or try it out. Meanwhile, if you’d like the real Django, the one that’s free of charge, free to use, freely licensed and developed in the open, the one that has all the features and improvements listed above (and more), the one that’s used by Fortune 500 companies, the one that has an impeccable dev team, a strong community and a huge ecosystem of ready-made applications, well, you can get it over here, just like always.

In fairness, though, I should point out that I am eagerly awaiting non-Django products from Vyper Logix Corp.

On January 18, 2009, Dougal Matthews said:

When I seen this earlier, via the tweet, I was amused to notice when I went to /admin/ that they had failed to even get the admin media working properly.

They clearly don’t have a clue.

On January 18, 2009, bigo said:

i might point out that you’re probably inadvertently lending pagerank by linking to an article that links to the bad guys. you’re better off linking directly yourself with a rel=”nofollow” link…i think.

On January 18, 2009, Adrian Holovaty said:

Hmm, we ought to do something about this.

On January 18, 2009, AE said:

I can’t wait for Django 3.0… due to be released in May.

On January 18, 2009, Maciek said:

This one is a definitely good reading: http://www.pypi.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=444:python-django-20-11-27-2008-11&catid=70:django-projects

On January 18, 2009, Jesse said:

Yup. I blogs on his site (which took the name of the cheeseshop) under the name “Guido Python” and posts bizarre entries on the real cheese shop. I mean, the entire http://www.pypi.info/ site is one giant piece of linkbait for any search engine. Ugh. And now Django 2.0!1111

On January 18, 2009, God said:

I accidently the entire Django 2.0

On January 18, 2009, matt said:

brb, forking off for django 3000

On January 18, 2009, erikmack said:

Was there a license violation? This sort of story seems common (Paint.NET, etc.), and it’s often forgotten that forking a project can be a legit thing to do. I don’t know if Django’s license forbids this group from using the Django name, but really that’s the sort of consideration that licenses are for, so maybe it should.

At least, thanks for being classy about it - the Paint.NET developers stoked a witch-hunt, then threatened to rip out all the installer code from the source distribution ( = punishing the community).

On January 18, 2009, Anon said:

The guy is a douchebag who ripped off other projects in the past. Read about him here: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7qoue/django_20/

On January 18, 2009, Will said:

Not just a licence issue, “Django” is a registered trademark, isn’t it?

On January 18, 2009, vili said:

While it is completely legal to commercialize projects under the BSD license, calling it “Django” is a different story. I hope they get the crap sued out of them.

On January 18, 2009, Mike Cantelon said:

He’s violating trademark. Maybe there’s a friendly lawyer that would be happy to lend services to nail his crazy ass to the proverbial wall?

On January 18, 2009, Anon said:

django XP comin’ right up

On January 18, 2009, Julian said:

Wow! Just found a Django Vista download. It just sucks! But there will be Django 7 soon, yeah!

On January 19, 2009, huwshimi said:

Nice google juice. This article is indeed in first spot for “Django 2.0”.

On January 19, 2009, Giacomo said:

You really should sue this guy for trademark infringement, or you risk losing your trademark.

He might not be breaking the BSD license (and cases like these demonstrate why django should really move to GPL, but I digress), but he breaks trademark law in a very obvious manner, and I believe trademark holders have an obligation to defend the mark or risk losing any right.

On January 19, 2009, Trevor Hunsaker said:

You forgot to include the pony to the list of things this 2.0 is missing.

On January 19, 2009, Yup said:

That’s why the Apache licenses is a good thing.

On January 19, 2009, Shadowhand said:

I highly recommend contacting the Software Freedom Law Center. They have been able to help me resolve legal issues in the past when working on KohanaPHP.

On January 19, 2009, Jeff Croft said:

Trademark violation. Period. Go get ‘em.

On January 19, 2009, dkaz said:

How about the way they publish all the articles on http://www.pypi.info/ as “Guido Python”?

These guys are scum.

On January 19, 2009, Robert Paulson said:

Maybe Django ate your baby?

On January 19, 2009, Eduardo Padoan said:

I wonder what Jannis was searching when he discovered this pearl.

On January 19, 2009, Buck said:

http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/LICENSE

I think they forgot to read (3)

On January 19, 2009, snirp said:

They just may produce written permission from the late and illiterate mr. Reinhardt to use his name…

On January 19, 2009, Ryan said:

Wow. Their site design, style, and even its copy, is nearly a direct rip-off of Phusion’s. How terrible.

On January 20, 2009, Brian said:

On http://www.pypi.info/ there is a PayPal link. Perhaps you can ask that PayPal freeze his account if they have clauses in their agreements against this sort of behavior?

On January 21, 2009, Robert Lofthouse said:

Talked to Jacob about this when it happened and it will get sorted. Might have been better if it had been kept quiet during that process though - fail.

patiently waits for them to bring out Java 5000.0.0.1.2

On January 30, 2009, wtrevino said:

Uses Django 0.96.2 as the code base for Django 2.0” Non-sense. I hope it’s a bad joke and they give it a recursive acronym a la GNU, only they should the “is not” part to “IS” Otherwise, I hope they get sued.

On February 2, 2009, jack said:

ya these “developers” or “repackers” or whatever taking advantage of great software and ruining it.

On February 12, 2009, Roger Lancefield said:

This is very weird. I’m an ex-ColdFusion user, and a few years back a character named Ray Horn was repackaging free and open source CF apps (principally, BlogCFC), adding a waffer (sic) thin layer of additional functionality and then selling on the very questionable results.

He immediately ran into trouble with the community, not because he had the temerity to sell the results (which, if memory serves, the licensing terms of the app in question allowed him to do), but because he failed to provide due acknowledgement, made disparaging remarks about the software on which he had based his “product” (like, duh!), and was generally antagonistic and aggressive when questioned.

Things came to a head after he reacted with quite bizarre hostility after such points were made to him. He started threatening members of the CF community with legal action and his reactions were so dysfunctional that he ended up effectively ex-communicated from that community. He disappeared from view, taking his highly dubious qualifications, his Ajax “framework”, his 30 years of experience, and truly atrocious, retina-warping web site with him.

I had a look at the Vyper Logix site and immediately recognized the hyperbole. It’s hilarious, he hasn’t changed at all. He’s still ripping off other people’s work, he’s still claiming 30 years experience (a simple date function should be able to keep that claim current, Ray?), he’s still using “we” when it’s pretty obvious that he’s the only employees of Vapid Logic, he’s still making daft trademark claims, and he’s still pursuing a course of action that can only bring him into conflict with the maintainers of the software he depends upon. It’s clearly pathological with this man. Give him a wide berth.

US citizens should be prepared for (I suspect hollow) threats of legal action if you dare to publicly question him. A century ago he would have been riding a horse from town to town with a bag-full of bottles of “miracle cure”. His hyperbole is so ludicrous that I find it hard to believe that the average Python programmer could ever be suckered in, but I humbly suggest that forewarned is forearmed. This guy is a preposterous fake and he will entice the naive and unsuspecting into his sticky web. IMO he should be exposed for the fraud that he is.

On February 15, 2009, Christian Toivola said:

Wow, thats low. I think any self respecting programmer will avoid this hogwash anyways… Let these guys enjoy their 15 minutes of fame and then sue them into oblivion. Go Django!

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