[LAD] Impro-Visor created on sourceforge

[Raymond Martin]

On Saturday 08 August 2009 06:51:52 you wrote:
> Raymond Martin wrote:
> > On Friday 07 August 2009 20:53:05 Thomas Vecchione wrote:
> >> Once again forgot to hit Reply-All.
> >>
> >> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Ralf Mardorf
> >
> > <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net>wrote:
> >>> I'm not interested to take sides, I only want to learn about the GPL.
> >>>
> >>> Assumed that Miss B. forks a GPL'd project, as far as I understand the
> >>> GPL, Miss R. is allowed to fork a project with a similar name, similar
> >>> function, based on the open source code of Miss B. and if Miss B. had
> >>> no time to open the source code, because she was in the manicure salon,
> >>> but Miss B. accepted the GPL, e.g. a mailing list for manicure software
> >>> can witness this, than Miss R. is allowed to decompile the software of
> >>> Miss B.. Am I wrong?
> >>
> >> You are confusing Copyright and Trademark Law.  Copyright law says that
> >> yes they can fork the project.
> >>
> >> Trademark Law however says that Miss B. is allowed to follow up legally
> >> to prevent a trademark, which can be registered or unregistered, from
> >> being confused by another similar trademark that might be confused with
> >> it.  The fact that the trademark is similar, and the product is similar,
> >> is doubly damning in that case.
> >
> > Then you should talk to Bob Keller for violating the trademark of that
> > real company that has a possible trademark infringement case against him
> > first.
>
> That's right, I mentioned it before, that there is this company, but
> they don't have an interest in or don't know about Bob's "trademark".
> Anyway, there is that Firefox vs Icedove fact. The names and logos also
> can become a problem for FLOSS. Even if Bob is violating a trademark,
> you do it too.

Show me where I do it. Having the name of an SF project similar to his
applications name or that companies product, those are different things.
Trademarks can only be in violation when they are on similar things.
That would be between Bob's program and the commercial one. Thus,
I cannot be violating any trademark no matter how many detractors
keep harping on what they think is a point.

This is just like the fact that there is no fork at present. Everybody is
so ready to jump to conclusions, repeatedly.

Please do some fact checking before you start pointing fingers.

Raymond