If you read the roadmap you'll see one item was a new name. While Mark and Jason have been very supportive they are still unsure what they are doing with mercuryboard. So if we're to do a "proper" release we need to call it something else because we are not in a position to release mercuryboard 1.1.5. Why? Because Jason or Mark may still do that and it's really up to them what they would like to do with the code here. Everything is still under GPL, we'll still say "powered by mercuryboard" but that's as much as we can do.

So this raises two questions. The obvious one is: What name do we pick?
I've been playing with a few in my head such as:
Quicksilver BB
Planetoid
Merc2

The second question, not so obvious, how much of the code do we want to rename? The main class is called mercuryboard and referenced all over the place. Should this change? Would it be wiser to leave most mercuryboard references except skins and the default forum name?

Your comments please.

I think you should name the board Planetoid.

My reason's for choosing that over the other two is that, with Quicksilver BB, too often do I see a forum with "BB" in the name, and as for Merc2, that would just seem like you tried to take MercuryBoard's name without consent.

As for the programming, I think that you should just change certain names of class's and variables.  For example, as you said in the above post:

instead of having mercuryboard as the name of the class, replace it with the final name of the forum that is decided, such as Planetoid.

Well as I had suggested privately to Geoff before, I am partial to the name Quicksilver Forums. As I'm sure many people know, Quicksilver is another name for the metal Mercury. The addition of the word Forums is just to help clarify that's what it's referring to, much like 'Board' being tacked on to MercuryBoard was probably chosen.

No offense, but I think calling it "Planetoid" would be lame. That has no real ring to it.

Merc2 might encroach a bit on the original name, and might also encroach on a MUD codebase of the same name. .........................
PDNS-Admin | Sandbox | Arthmoor MUD Hosting Services | The Truth About Medievia: A Saga of Code Theft.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." -- George Orwell, 1984

See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mercury&db=* .........................
`Nothing stops random n00b questions. Nothing. We are doomed, do you hear me? DOOMED!`
'You need 90 more levels before you can eat this egg....'

It's a pity Hermes just doesn't have the same ring

how about quicksilvermod ? .........................
`Nothing stops random n00b questions. Nothing. We are doomed, do you hear me? DOOMED!`
'You need 90 more levels before you can eat this egg....'

nah. problem with quicksilver is there's a lot of products out there with the name so it needs to be clearly identified as a forum/messageboard/bulletinboard

I suggest these:
Waterboard (Mercury in China, Korea and other oriental countries refer this planet as the Water Star)
Apolloboard (Greeks also named the planet Mercury Apollo in the morning)
Hermesboard (although it may seem that Hermes from Futurama is getting his name in a name of a forum software, Hermes was the Greek name for the planet Mercury at night)

If you want to change the orgininal meaning of Mercuryboard, you can call it: hydrargyrumboard (from greek :P)

xboxrulz .........................

Planet QSF - The Official Quicksilver Forums Resource Centre.
Registered Linux User: 362616
Jabber: webmaster@kwokinator.com

Thanks for choosing Quicksilver Forums!
Merci pour choisi le Quicksilver Forums!
多謝你選擇 Quicksilver Forums!

Waterboard might imply some association with HydroBB so I don't think that would be wise.

Hermes and Apollo really don't have the same grab, and imply associating with the gods more than the element.

I've already done some informal polling among friends and had them read this thread, and most of them agree that Quicksilver Forums is probably the best choice. They all thought it sounded cool .........................
PDNS-Admin | Sandbox | Arthmoor MUD Hosting Services | The Truth About Medievia: A Saga of Code Theft.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." -- George Orwell, 1984

yeah Quicksilver does have a good ring to it i must admit .........................
When all is said and done, more was said than done!!, (You may know me as 'veryanoyed' from mercuryboard.com)

well, remember that the original Mercury for Mercuryboard is the planet, not an element. Just look @ the mercuryboard logo

xboxrulz .........................

Planet QSF - The Official Quicksilver Forums Resource Centre.
Registered Linux User: 362616
Jabber: webmaster@kwokinator.com

Thanks for choosing Quicksilver Forums!
Merci pour choisi le Quicksilver Forums!
多謝你選擇 Quicksilver Forums!

That may be true, but if you look at their slogan: "Let the discussion flow" this also implies that they were using it as a reference to the element as well. Which is why for them the name they picked works so well. .........................
PDNS-Admin | Sandbox | Arthmoor MUD Hosting Services | The Truth About Medievia: A Saga of Code Theft.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." -- George Orwell, 1984

lemurboard ? (not really related to planets or elements, we either change the name or the way we number the board releases) .........................
`Nothing stops random n00b questions. Nothing. We are doomed, do you hear me? DOOMED!`
'You need 90 more levels before you can eat this egg....'

leprosy-board. Because we ****ed with mercuryboard code

Okay. Seriously. Looks like quicksilver forums is winning. So let's shortcut things and declare it the winner. QSF is a nice abreviation too.

Copyright

This, of course, is a related issue to name. Of course the board will still clearly state it's based off mercuryboard. And it's still released under GPL. But...

All the copyright statements currently state:
  Copyright (c) 2001-2004 The Mercury Development Team

That's all well and good but we're not the mercury development team.

So....

a) Should we leave the copyright statements as if since we practically have mercuryboard's blessing to go ahead with development.

b) Should we claim copyright on the product but leave clear statements to say it's based off mercuryboard

c) Should we claim shared copywrite between both development teams