Yoda may have originated from the Sanskrit word “Yoddha” which means warrior or the Hebrew name “Yodea” meaning “One who knows.” It’s also only one letter replaced from yoga.
Actually this is the first suggestion that anyone has made which I genuinely like and perhaps like better than my own ideas. I think actually that name did come up in past private discussions, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the time.
I went ahead and registered a few domains because they’re not expensive: yoddha.net, yoda.cc, yoda.cash and yoda.im. I see that the .us and .me are offered for sale for $1988 and $1380 respectively, with an option to pay 12 monthly installments. The .net isn’t in use and the .com and .org aren’t in serious use.
One obvious issue is the risk of being sued (c.f. also) by Lucas Licensing (Lucas Films).
Your Only Decentralised Altcoin (YODA)
So any use of any of their memes would definitely be illegal. So if our name choice was based on “may the force be with you” and/or if users thought that, then that would be a violation of the trademark because it would create confusion in the marketplace over who owns that. I believe in meritocracy and not theft, so I also wouldn’t want to steal their intellectual property.
Is “the truth will set you free” sufficiently associated with “may the force be with you” so as to be confusing as to whether they are the same trademarked meme?
We can be sure that if its a popular site, then Lucas Licensing is going to attempt to sue. So the question is do we want that lawsuit? That lawsuit might end up being free publicity.
Most likely Lucas Licensing might be able to get an injunction to shut down the domains and removed from appstores at least in jurisdictions that would recognize an injunction pending trial. Perhaps a .to domain might resist such an injunction pending outcome of a trial.
I presume they will sue whomever registered the domain and uploaded the apps, even though it’s a decentralized blockchain.
Whether they would win the case is not certain.
But this is really asking for trouble. The only reason I can think to do this is for potential for free publicity from a contentious lawsuit.
But who will be on our side? I think this might end up associating our project with an intent to promote intellectual property theft. That might do more damage to our brand than any free publicity generated.
I see what you’re saying. Would NEO have had similar issues? With regard to the Matrix? The obvious positives of Yoda are that people would investigate it purely because of the name. I looked at Jesuscoin when I saw it. If it had impressed me I would have bought it. Your project will no doubt impress whoever sees it because you can clearly explain the tech. I would never have dug deeper into Antshares. Says a lot about me and my tech knowledge but only a few people actually know the tech properly anyway. Is it worth grabbing that attention first then being pressured into a name change? Not sure...