Re: open source trademark
On Fri, Feb 26, 1999 at 09:29:38PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org> writes:
>
> Brian Ristuccia writes:
> > http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,1014005,00.html
>
> > If SPI still owns this mark, someone needs to send Sun Microsystems a
> > cease-and-desist before we lose it.
>
> I see no evidence of infringement of the Open Source mark at that URL.
>
> Brian is probably referring to this quote from Sun VP Jim Mitchell:
>
> "Those companies were playing the Community Source game already,"
> Mitchell said. "When you license Jini and return changes, you're
> not giving them to Sun, you're giving them to the Jini
> community. Sun has no special rights to them that I'm aware of. The
> real value of open source is that innovation springs up all
> around. Programmers have a very natural tendency to make things
> better for the whole community, and we want to tap into that."
>
> However, I see that as a comparison to open source, not a claim that
> their Community Source license is an open source license.
>
This to me sounds like someone going on and on about the features and
benefits of their alternate tone-based telephone dialing system looking for
adoptees and investors, and then throwing in a quote like "...the real value
of the TouchTone dialing system is that it has revolutionized the way
Americans use the telephone."
I think sort of thing would prompt at least a "this trademark is ours"
angry-gram from the owner of the TouchTone mark. IANAL, but I don't see how
the Open Source mark and it's use by folks at Sun Microsystems would be any
different in this sort of instance.
--
Brian Ristuccia
brianr@osiris.978.org
bristucc@baynetworks.com
bristucc@cs.uml.edu
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