Simon Willison: Tracking OpenClaw's Six Name Changes Through Git History — A Case Study in Project Identity and Open Source Dynamics

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Simon Willison published a May 16 post exploring how OpenClaw underwent six distinct naming changes since November 2025 (from Warelay through Clawdbot and Moltbot to OpenClaw), traced through Git commit history. The Clawdbot-to-Moltbot rename was triggered by Anthropic trademark concerns over phonetic similarity to 'Claude.' Relevant as a case study in how AI companies' IP protection shapes the open source ecosystem around their products.