8 Aug
2009
8 Aug
'09
6:32 a.m.
Thomas Vecchione wrote:
On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Ralf Mardorf
<ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net <mailto:ralf.mardorf@alice-dsl.net>> wrote:
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.
Okay, I guess you're right, because I have two web browsers, one
is called Firefox and the other is called Iceweasel, for me, as a
user they only differ by the name and logo and there seems to be a
reason for this ;).
In fact that is exactly the reason IIRC. The license on the Mozilla
trademarks(Logos and Name) were deemed incompatible with Debian's
policies so they couldn't be included. Trademark law is even more fun
because if you don't protect your trademark, you can lose all rights
to it at the same time, so you pretty much HAVE to protect your trademark.
I should clarify I am speaking from the US legal point of view.
Icevamp or Hotvamp instead of Improvisor might be an alternative.
Yes they absolutely could. Pretty much anything that clearly
differentiates it as a product so that it cannot be confused with
Impro-Visor would be an alternative.
This is much greyer area to tell the truth, and one I won't touch.
I agree, that's why laws are construable, have some margin. It's
impossible to factor in every devisable situation.
Everybody seems to understand the GPL and the law after that long
discussion for this basic issues. Here is a basic issue, with an
unusual exception. I guess even two judges could pronounce two
different sentences, in the same town, at the same court.
And this is why I said multiple judges;) Because the ruling of the
first one would likely be appealed anyways;)
Seablade
Hi Seablade :)
normally "unusual exception" is a linguistic tautology, because normally
"exceptions" are "unusual", but I guess for juridically stuff there
are
exceptions that occur frequently. This one really seems to be an
exceptionally exception.
E.g. Miss B. promised to accept the GPL, that might give Miss R. the
right to decompile the application, but Miss R. suspected Miss B. to be
a liar and if Miss B. would be a liar and not accept the GPL, Miss R.
might not have the right to decompile it, OTOH the list believes Miss
B., therefore whatever Miss R. is thinking, she might have the right to
decompile it, OTOH accepting the GPL without coming along with the GPL
... this could become a never ending story.
I wonder that at this point nobody is very badly annoyed about this
dispute, because it has become a useless back and forth.
I guess I'll shut up now, as long as there will be not another issue
about the GPL.
Best,
Ralf