The Notepad++ for macOS creator is pretty adamant that they did nothing wrong and only wanted to help the macOS community with the port.
Recently, there was news floating around that the popular, lightweight Windows text editor Notepad++ was finally making its way to macOS, 22 years after its initial release. Now, its creator, Don Ho, has come out to distance himself and the official project from this new port.
The (vibecoded) macOS port was created by an independent developer named Andrey Letov, with the project hosted on notepad-plus-plus-mac(dot)org. It was quite unique in that it was a true, native macOS application built as a Universal Binary, working natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs without needing compatibility layers like Wine, CrossOver, or Parallels.
Image via Andrey Letov (GitHub)
Notepad++ is open-source under the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), and Ho even encourages developers to fork the code base and bring it to other platforms. But what you are not allowed to do is use the project's legally protected trademark and logo to confuse users, which Notepad++ for Mac did.
Notepad++ for Mac used the official name and a chameleon icon, giving the impression that it was an official release maintained or endorsed by the Notepad++ team. Letov even went as far as adding Don Ho to the "Authors of Notepad++ for Mac" page on the project's website.
After users raised alarm on GitHub about the unofficial port riding on the Notepad++ name, Don Ho stepped in, saying he had written to Letov requesting that he change the name and logo to avoid trademark issues and user confusion. Letov responded claiming he only wanted to bring the editor to Mac users, removed Don's name from the authors page, and hopes Don will endorse the project so they can expand the brand together.
Don Ho stood his ground, refusing to endorse the project and demanding that Letov remove the trademark and domain immediately. Letov basically went "nuh-uh", saying he would need a "couple of weeks" to "rebrand", while still nudging Ho for an endorsement. This is where Ho lost his patience and reported the site to Cloudflare as a phishing/impersonation site for misleading users.
With backlash from the Notepad++ community picking up, Letov dropped this notice on the Notepad++ for Mac homepage:
Announcement
In coordination with Don Ho, the creator of the original Notepad++, I'll be evolving the branding of the macOS version so it stands on its own while respecting its lineage. These updates, such as a new logo, a refined name, and likely a new domain will ship with version 1.0.6 in the coming days. Continuity for existing users is a priority, and I'll make the transition as seamless as I can. Thank you for your patience.
He also cleaned up the Author's page and removed Don Ho's name as the author. But Neowin found that on the plugins page, he falsely listed Don Ho as the author of a (vibecoded) plugin called NppAIAssistant that integrates a dockable AI chat side panel into the editor, allowing users to talk to models from OpenAI, Google, and others.
One of the main reasons why we have not had an "official" port of the beloved Notepad++ software is that it relies exclusively on pure Win32 API calls for virtually everything, including menus, dialogs, file systems, and windowing. And because there is no Win32 API on macOS, you cannot simply compile the code for a Mac.
To make an official port, Don Ho would have to completely rewrite the entire UI layer. And let us not forget the fact that Notepad++'s community-built plugins are coded as Windows .dll files and rely heavily on the Windows architecture, so even if Don Ho managed to create an official macOS version, 99% of the plugins would not work on it.
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