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Wasmer and Trademarks

wasmer.io

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Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#51

Post by HWR_14 »

slimsag wrote: post #44
donut-yogurt wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it all started when Wasmer's founder allegedly sexually harassed a member of the Bytecode Alliance. From the outside it seems any collaboration was doomed from the start, and the trademark applications and internal conflicts didn't help Wasmer one bit.

I don't like Wasmer one bit, seems like an aggressive startup with a shady business model that is ultimately bad for the WASM ecosystem. It's possible what you say is true, but, how could anyone judge the validity of such an allegation from a throwaway account without more info?

It's entirely possible that it's true. That the throwaway account was to provide information the main account owner couldn't provide because it was confidential. Alternatively, it could be totally made up.

It's impossible to know. I do know someone elsewhere on HN[1] claimed to (a) work at wasmer and (b) that the decision was based on personal reasons. On a very low rated post. But that's also unverified, and could just mean that they think the founder is an ass.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24900186

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#52

Post by astlouis44 »

mythz wrote: post #42

The fact Wasmer even attempted to do this, the PR spin to try cover their motivations and the deceitful astro turfing in this thread by Wasmer employees is enough for me to distrust & discount the entire company and its products entirely.

100% this.

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#53

Post by syrusakbary »

donut-yogurt wrote: post #49
slimsag wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like Wasmer one bit, seems like an aggressive startup with a shady business model that is ultimately bad for the WASM ecosystem. It's possible what you say is true, but, how could anyone judge the validity of such an allegation from a throwaway account without more info?

I realize it's not ideal, but whether inappropriate behavior took place or not is irrelevant to Wasmer's relationship to the Alliance. For all we know, it could be a misunderstanding due to different cultures (which is what the founder claimed). What is relevant, though, is that a member of the Alliance made public claims of inappropriate behavior by Wasmer's founder and, nearly a year later, boosted them to justify…

Let me put a hard stop here.

Sexual harassment issues are a serious matter. They are not discussed online as a throwaway weapon. They are denounced to the relevant authorities so they can be punished by law. I will always defend anyone doing that even if the claim goes against my person or anyone I love.

If you have chatted with anyone that has really suffered from it, you would know how important is to treat this things properly and not as a weapon to attack a company we don't like.

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#54

Post by initplus »

syrusakbary wrote: post #41
initplus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see how comparing your company to Oracle is not the most flattering? Oracle owns the Javascript trademark because it was originally owned by Sun, who trademarked it under an agreement with Netscape who are the original authors of Javascript. Oracle at least has legal claim to the trademark. There obviously is not a way to get trademarks on WASM or Webassembly. If you admit the trademarks were applied for in er…

Just trying to prove a point! I kind of enjoy discussing this things openly.

Look I really don't want to be a hater, but please look at the way your words are perceived publicly. This doesn't read as open comments about trademark law, it reads as defensive and oppositional.

This wasn't a huge PR challenge, all the statement needed to say was "Sorry, some lawyers we contracted applied for the trademarks in error, we have not progressed the applications and aren't claiming any ownership of the terms WASM or Webassembly".

Wasmer only has controversy because basic PR like this statement has been mishandled over and over again. You need to come off as good-faith actors participating in the WASM ecosystem. Defensiveness when you have obviously done the wrong thing, arguing with commenters under what is supposed to be an apology, employees posting supportive comments of their employer on said apology without disclosure... surely it is obvious how these actions are bad PR?

I know this reads really negatively but please understand that it's intended as sincere feedback. It's really important that Wasmer can reform it's image problem. There isn't any reason you guys should be perceived so negatively, if you can stop screwing up PR at every opportunity.

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#55

Post by zarzavat »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #32
burnte wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security through obscurity is not security. The source WAS open, any bugs in it then are still discoverable. Opening source can actually make things more secure, the whole "many eyes" thing.

Heartbleed proved that the “many eyes” theory doesn’t always work in practice. It was in the codebase for years and no one noticed.

There was also the Apple “goto fail” bug in their open source TLS code[0], which was so shockingly obvious that it would have been found by compiler warnings, yet it was not.

I myself have on occasion found high priority bugs (not security issues) in open source projects with many eyeballs, simply by turning on additional compiler warnings. The fruit out there hangs very low.

Openness counts for nothing if nobody is reading the code. Open is better than being closed source but the difference is marginal. The real difference is made by having the code reviewed by security professionals, and by how the project is maintained/lead, and those are orthogonal to open/closed source.

[0] https://www.imperialviolet.org/2014/02/22/applebug.html

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#56

Post by shkkmo »

syrusakbary wrote: post #50
shkkmo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it interesting how much the PR post (calling it an 'article' is a misnomer) downplays Wasmer's efforts to trademark "wasm"? It's almost like the effort to trademark "wasm" belies the bad faith intentions of Wasmer amd they want to avoid drawing attention to it. The whole "it's not our fault, blame our lawyers" combined with "we decided to wait on issuing a non-apology until we thought the conversation would be…

We didn't pretend to put fault on anyone, just portray the situation as it happened. I think is worth to make one thing clear: as CEO the fault is and ultimately will be always mine. Not the lawyers, not anyone else.

The closest you come to accepting personal resposibility in that post is:

> I wrongly assumed the foundation and trademark process had halted.

Even this looks like trying to shift the blame elsewhere.

You don't appoligize for starting the trademarking process or even try to justify why you thought that "wasm" was an appropriate thing to try to trademark.

Instead you downplay it while making misleading statements like

> The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was requesting more information to pursue the WebAssembly trademark.

The USPTO was not "requesting more information", they denied your application while giving you room to appeal with additional information. What you are doing is like trying to claim that a judge who informs you of your right to appeal is "requesting you provide more information".

In addition, the USPTO record shows that your attorneys withdrew from the trademark case several weeks prior to the DM screenshot you posted where you claim ignorance. As part of that withdrawal, your lawyer attested, under penalty of law, that you had been notified about the current state of those filings.

When your verifiable statements have such a loose relationship with truth, it really casts doubts on your unverifiable statements about your intentions. When you have your employees jump in to try to praise you "transparency", it is easy to jump to the assumption that this goes beyong self-serving distortion into willful deceit.

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#57

Post by donut-yogurt »

syrusakbary wrote: post #53
donut-yogurt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it's not ideal, but whether inappropriate behavior took place or not is irrelevant to Wasmer's relationship to the Alliance. For all we know, it could be a misunderstanding due to different cultures (which is what the founder claimed). What is relevant, though, is that a member of the Alliance made public claims of inappropriate behavior by Wasmer's founder and, nearly a year later, boosted them to justify…

Let me put a hard stop here. Sexual harassment issues are a serious matter. They are not discussed online as a throwaway weapon. They are denounced to the relevant authorities so they can be punished by law. I will always defend anyone doing that even if the claim goes against my person or anyone I love. If you have chatted with anyone that has really suffered from it, you would know how important is to treat this th…

I didn't state either way, I just reported claims that anyone can verify online.

Are you implying this didn't affect Wasmer's rejection from the Alliance?

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#58

Post by mike_d »

initplus wrote: post #13

It's hard to escape the feeling that Wasmer is trying to hijack Webassembly for their own commercial advantage. Bytecode alliance is a non profit organisation whose members involve some of the tech giants involved in promoting WASM development. Bytecode alliance have developed their own open runtime. It's not obvious why we need a seperate WASM runtime developed by Wasmer, or why they would be good stewards for a "We…

> why they would be good stewards for a "Webassembly foundation"

But they registered a domain name on an obscure TLD before anyone else thought of it! /s

Re: Wasmer and Trademarks

#59

Post by syrusakbary »

initplus wrote: post #54
syrusakbary wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just trying to prove a point! I kind of enjoy discussing this things openly.

Look I really don't want to be a hater, but please look at the way your words are perceived publicly. This doesn't read as open comments about trademark law, it reads as defensive and oppositional. This wasn't a huge PR challenge, all the statement needed to say was "Sorry, some lawyers we contracted applied for the trademarks in error, we have not progressed the applications and aren't claiming any ownership of the…

I appreciate your comment, I really do.

I can understand how my comments could feel defensive. It's a personality trait that I like to discuss things to satiety, and that probably doesn't help! But it's always done with the willingness to learn and grow.

I hope my appetite for discussion doesn't make our apology to the community any less valid.

We made a mistake and we own it no matter what.

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