The disclaimer he put up on the website is comical. "In coordination with [original author], I will be _evolving the brand_ to …"
47282847 36 minutes ago [-]
To me he sounds inexperienced/naive and a little scared (and thus “defensive”) but well-intentioned. His response makes me believe that he didn’t do it for fame, to deceive, or other selfish reasons.
AureliusMA 29 minutes ago [-]
I don't believe that he is naive. It looks like he wants to use the Notepad++ brand authority to capture the notepad++ macos market (which is big!) Thus he is infringing on a trademark for his own benefit.
cryptonym 7 minutes ago [-]
First step would be taking down the website, second step is an apology, third step is bringing back online with new branding and eventually a final word to thank them, share the link and say they remain open to criticism.
It's not rocket science. Pretty sure even his LLM would give that strategy and implement it without burning too many tokens.
More than inexperienced, either he really can't read a room or he knows very well what he is doing.
f3408fh 27 minutes ago [-]
A malicious actor would be happy to be publicly labeled inexperienced/naive.
doginasuit 3 minutes ago [-]
That reasoning holds but it is not based on any of the facts at hand. There's a reason why any community worth being apart of has a tendency to assume good faith. People make mistakes. I respect Don Ho's response and I don't see how the pitchfork brigade is bringing anything valuable to the situation.
pndy 7 minutes ago [-]
I don't wanna be rude but it looks like this guy just arrived on the Internet this year - around March-April and it doesn't seem like he has any prior activity. He just decided to roll this Notepad++ for macOS and that's it
Also, his medium avatar looks awfully generated.
LeCompteSftware 25 minutes ago [-]
The smarmy dishonesty about "expanding the Notepad++ brand" actually is selfish and ill-intentioned. Perhaps he is too young and naive to fully understand that he is being parasitic. But naivety is a well-travelled path towards malice.
Regardless, he absolutely deserves to be shamed on GitHub for this. I don't like the online culture of public shame and sandbagging - I think this GitHub thread should be closed now that it's viral - but sometimes people actually do things they should be ashamed of. This needs to be a tough lesson.
pjc50 22 minutes ago [-]
AI means never having to ask permission. Or forgiveness, it seems.
doginasuit 18 minutes ago [-]
That response doesn't seem brazen. It sounds like they had a deeply mistaken understanding of what an open source license grants and believed it would be fine to use the name and branding as well as the code. Unless I missed it, it sounds like they are changing how their site communicates its relationship to the original source.
What I find baffling about that conversation are the people having their LLMs weigh in on what the author should have done. Verbal takedown by LLM is a new level of cringe.
Semaphor 11 minutes ago [-]
It sounds brazen and incredibly entitled. The LLM response seems fitting for a vibe coded project with a vibe brain author.
LeCompteSftware 32 minutes ago [-]
"I will give you one week to change the name."
"No, I'm not going to do that."
"Okay fine, I'll report you to Cloudflare now."
"BROOOOOOOO you said you'd give me a week?!?!"
ssl-3 14 minutes ago [-]
It looks like it went more like this:
"Stop using my trademark." [1]
"OK, give me a couple of weeks. I was intending to expand your brand." [2]
"No. I've reported this to your CDN." [3]
---
[1]: This is the correct way to handle things.
[2]: This has the appearance of being evidence of -deliberate- fuckery.
[3]: This kind of action is the inevitable result of deliberate fuckery.
as1mov 10 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
bartread 20 minutes ago [-]
> I wanted is to bring Notepad++ to mac and allow people to find Mac version of Notepad++ quickly and use it.
Seems he’s ignorant of the ecosystem too (or possibly disingenuous, or maybe doesn’t realise he’s done something wrong or why). Notepad++ runs perfectly on macOS under Wine. I’ve been using it that way for two or three years now. Wasn’t a struggle to set up either: I simply ran the installer as if I was running Windows and then it #justworked.
Just needs to update the site to make it clear it's an independent port of the project. Then, modify the name to MacPad++ or something. Good to go.
LeCompteSftware 23 minutes ago [-]
To be clear in the GitHub thread Don Ho repeatedly encouraged him to do this, and said it was cool that he was trying to bring Notepad++ to Mac! Just don't make it look like Don Ho and the rest of the team is responsible for any quality issues. Don't use the logo!
"Objective-Notepad" was right there.
ErroneousBosh 16 minutes ago [-]
> "Objective-Notepad" was right there.
It still is. There's only a handful of hits on Google for that, too.
You should do it. I'd do it if I had a Mac and used Notepad++ ;-)
So, it's a French trademark. Not a lawyer, but from what I remember trademarks need to be registered in every region you want to enforce them in separately.
If the author of "Notepad++ for Mac" doesn't happen to be French as well, is there anything (legally) preventing them from using this trademark?
mr_toad 11 minutes ago [-]
You can enforce an unregistered trademark, but you need evidence that it’s actually yours. Registration makes that easier.
voidUpdate 19 minutes ago [-]
If a mac user is in France, does the software they use have to abide by French laws?
IshKebab 13 minutes ago [-]
That's not correct. You don't have to register a trademark in order for it to be protected, it's just recommended because if you do register it you don't have to separately prove that you have built up brand reputation. That should be pretty easy for a project as old and well-known as this though.
AureliusMA 28 minutes ago [-]
Yes
omblivion 49 minutes ago [-]
It is astonishing how blatant people can be. How do they imagine they won't be immediately called out?
Hopefully the domain and the app on the app store gets taken down soon.
FFS. I installed it after seeing it here on HN and on MacRumors. Terrible failure on my part but MacRumors should offer an apology for endorsing this fake release.
AureliusMA 27 minutes ago [-]
This is such a blow for MacRumors... I won't be taking them seriously anymore after this. They are complicit.
f3408fh 9 minutes ago [-]
Me neither. So far all I see is a puny "[Updated]" title on the article with no apology or indication of what was updated.
nguyenkien 35 minutes ago [-]
First thing I do is check official notepad++ website. I didn't see anything, that what's stop me.
f3408fh 32 minutes ago [-]
Smart. Good on you for noticing it wasn’t the real website.
gverrilla 5 minutes ago [-]
It's the Trump pattern: break all rules to benefit yourself until someone or something stops you. USA has not yet reached this clarity.
karel-3d 49 minutes ago [-]
The app seems to be entirely vibe-coded. ("multi-agent AI development workflows are what make a one-person project at this scale practical")
However the author says he will "move from the branding".
Rendered at 10:51:07 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It's not rocket science. Pretty sure even his LLM would give that strategy and implement it without burning too many tokens.
More than inexperienced, either he really can't read a room or he knows very well what he is doing.
Also, his medium avatar looks awfully generated.
Regardless, he absolutely deserves to be shamed on GitHub for this. I don't like the online culture of public shame and sandbagging - I think this GitHub thread should be closed now that it's viral - but sometimes people actually do things they should be ashamed of. This needs to be a tough lesson.
What I find baffling about that conversation are the people having their LLMs weigh in on what the author should have done. Verbal takedown by LLM is a new level of cringe.
"No, I'm not going to do that."
"Okay fine, I'll report you to Cloudflare now."
"BROOOOOOOO you said you'd give me a week?!?!"
"Stop using my trademark." [1]
"OK, give me a couple of weeks. I was intending to expand your brand." [2]
"No. I've reported this to your CDN." [3]
---
[1]: This is the correct way to handle things.
[2]: This has the appearance of being evidence of -deliberate- fuckery.
[3]: This kind of action is the inevitable result of deliberate fuckery.
Seems he’s ignorant of the ecosystem too (or possibly disingenuous, or maybe doesn’t realise he’s done something wrong or why). Notepad++ runs perfectly on macOS under Wine. I’ve been using it that way for two or three years now. Wasn’t a struggle to set up either: I simply ran the installer as if I was running Windows and then it #justworked.
"Notepad++ for Mac – Independent community port" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47916964 27-apr-2026 85 comments
"Notepad++ Code Editor Comes to Mac After 20-Year Wait" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47947740 29-apr-2026 36 comments
"Objective-Notepad" was right there.
It still is. There's only a handful of hits on Google for that, too.
You should do it. I'd do it if I had a Mac and used Notepad++ ;-)
If the author of "Notepad++ for Mac" doesn't happen to be French as well, is there anything (legally) preventing them from using this trademark?
Hopefully the domain and the app on the app store gets taken down soon.
https://notepadexe.com/
However the author says he will "move from the branding".