IIRC, the rule is that if you don't step up yourself to defend your trademark whenever someone else tries to use it, your trademark becomes void.
Could you kindly explain me then what's the point of registering a trademark? Is it something you can then wave with in front of jury? Do you really need $80k for that? Do you need $80k to print out your accepted trademark application, and prove that you're in the business for 17 years? Sorry this is just complete non-sense and failure of the system.
Well what they say is "if it costs less we will put the rest into our product"...
Ehm.. so.. GNOME wants our help now. But how did they behave when GNOME 3 was announced to not work without systemd? Or hey, anyone remember that discussion on a GNOME developers' mailing list, where they planned to take out theming support, because "it is going against the ubiquitous experience we envision GNOME 3 to be"? This smells fishy to me. (I said it more harshly, but realised that I went too far, sorry about…
Where exactly was it "announced" that GNOME 3 does "not work without systemd"? GNOME 3 works on FreeBSD[1][2], you just don't get the robust and secure virtual terminal switching that only systemd's logind running on Linux can provide. GTK+ 3 is now fully themeable with standard W3C CSS[3]. You may need to use Tweak Tool to change your theme, but is that really too much to ask for? But please, don't let these facts s…
If I recall correctly, it's not just virtual terminal switching that you lose but also the ability to shutdown, reboot, suspend and hibernate your PC from the GUI - all of which now require logind - and probably other things like device mounting too. Gnome's also moving those to use Linux-specific kdbus ioctls directly. Oh, and those links are from 6 months ago, I wouldn't be surprised if things have gotten worse since then - Gnome have done stunts like this that they've gone back on in the past, such as their announcement that logind would work on non-systemd systems.
Trademarks aren’t universal; they are divided into classifications e.g. market segments. Just because the name is the same, doesn't mean the PTO will think of them as being in the same space.
I always thought that was more theoretical than real. For instance, could I launch an OS called CocaCola? I don't think so...
My understanding is the outcome of the Apple Computer vs Apple Corps series of legal battles[0] was consistent with trademarks being siloed into market segments.
IIRC, the rule is that if you don't step up yourself to defend your trademark whenever someone else tries to use it, your trademark becomes void.
Could you kindly explain me then what's the point of registering a trademark? Is it something you can then wave with in front of jury? Do you really need $80k for that? Do you need $80k to print out your accepted trademark application, and prove that you're in the business for 17 years? Sorry this is just complete non-sense and failure of the system.
Yes, it is a disappointment. And yet, it is the reality. As a result, the GNOME team does still need to pay their lawyers.
IANAL, but legal protection for trademarks extends to any usage wherein it would create sufficient consumer confusion. Great example: Apple v. Apple. The computer company agreed to not enter the music industry. To the extent of which they got sued when they added a sound card and multimedia features to their computers. They settled for a boatload of money rather than let a judge decide that they couldn't add any soun…
> They settled for a boatload of money
I wonder if the GNOME foundation would "sell out" - who should decide, and how much is it worth...?
Where exactly was it "announced" that GNOME 3 does "not work without systemd"? GNOME 3 works on FreeBSD[1][2], you just don't get the robust and secure virtual terminal switching that only systemd's logind running on Linux can provide. GTK+ 3 is now fully themeable with standard W3C CSS[3]. You may need to use Tweak Tool to change your theme, but is that really too much to ask for? But please, don't let these facts s…
The only argument I tried to make, admittedly poorly, is that I notice a contrast between how good they say they are for open source, and actual behaviour from the developers. I did not say or intend to say "good for them, I hope GNOME loses their brand", well ok I did say that a little. So let me state it differently - that many of their own design decisions also were against open (libre) source philosophies.
I don't think your definition of open source philosophies is widely shared.
Trademarks aren’t universal; they are divided into classifications e.g. market segments. Just because the name is the same, doesn't mean the PTO will think of them as being in the same space.
Did you read the article? Here are some of the goods and services covered by GNOME's registered mark: - downloadable computer software for creating and managing a computer desktop - downloadable computer software for use as a graphical user interface - technical consulting services in the field of computer software whereas the Groupon product is "a tablet based point of sale operating system for merchants to run thei…
The groupon trademark application (linked elsewhere in the thread) specifically mentions "non-downloadable" before every mention of "software".
It does however mention "technical support services" relating to computer software.. is that sufficiently different than consulting services?
IIRC, the rule is that if you don't step up yourself to defend your trademark whenever someone else tries to use it, your trademark becomes void.
Could you kindly explain me then what's the point of registering a trademark? Is it something you can then wave with in front of jury? Do you really need $80k for that? Do you need $80k to print out your accepted trademark application, and prove that you're in the business for 17 years? Sorry this is just complete non-sense and failure of the system.
Could you kindly explain me then what's the point of registering a trademark?
Mostly so that you can get (triple) damages and lawyer fees from the infringer in case you win the lawsuit.
I don't get it either. If GNOME (the desktop environment and the foundation) have a trademark on GNOME, why do they need $80k to defend it? Shouldn't the trademark office then simply reject any further application for GNOME name related to computers, software and operating systems? Is this because of the idiotic defunc. justice system the US is imposing on themselves? Where you can sue mall owner for millions because…
It's because lawyers are that expensive.
Let's assume they cost $500 an hour, which is probably enough to pay three of them but I have no idea about the price so let's assume it's that. Then $80k / 500 = 160 hours. Does it take 160 hours, or 4 work weeks full-time, to write a letter or fill out some form saying that "hey, we registered this back in 2006, you should reject these applications"?
Couldn't someone like Google, Apple, or any of the other huge companies who have made billions with the help of *nix and OSS in general step in and help out with what, to them, is a trivial drop in the bucket of money? Also how is it even legal for someone to so openly and malicious intrude on a trademarked name? I thought that's the entire point of trademarks.. it protects you from this?
Apple isn't really a stranger to announcing products with already trademarked names..