The thread started with the example of Ethereum being copied to Æthereum except with Bitcoin's distribution. If such a thing were to happen, would Æthereum be a "spin-off" of Bitcoin or a "spin-off" of Ethereum? It was clear to me that it would be a spin-off of Bitcoin, not Ethereum. However, I think YarkoL may have meant "the original" to refer to Ethereum in this example.
We haven't established the nomenclature yet, so
your interpretation is as good as mine.
However, the point remains that the original vision is to render
the production of genuinely innovative alternative blockchains
economically unsound because they can be spun off easily.
Now if that vision were to become reality, developers would
have incentive to base the initial distribution of their coin
on Bitcoin right from the start. But in that world, would we call them spin-offs
any longer? Wouldn't they just be "new coins" or something?...
I agree that the nomenclature isn't fixed yet. Incidentally, I got involved in this thread because I am developing a Bitcoin spin-off (Qeditas), and I certainly intend to call it a spin-off. People on this thread convinced me that I needed to include p2sh addresses for it to qualify as a spin-off. This was somewhat painful since it required me to implement the Bitcoin script language, but I did it.
There's a separate pre-announcement thread about Qeditas with more details. It hasn't launched yet.