From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,18b00985106487ae X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-03-31 04:27:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ash.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <406AB931.60402@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Licensing issues (Was: [Announce] Mneson : persistent untyped graphs) References: <83I9c.25796$w54.167855@attbi_s01> <40681380.4080901@noplace.com> <40696000.9030109@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 12:27:41 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.2.5 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1080736061 209.165.2.5 (Wed, 31 Mar 2004 04:27:41 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 04:27:41 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6693 Date: 2004-03-31T12:27:41+00:00 List-Id: O.K. Fair enough. But I didn't really want to talk about the technicalities of the law - rather the intent. If a term is commonly used in a given context, the law isn't going to let you trademark it except under possibly some very limited circumstances. The reason is that nobody wants to start prohibiting people from using common terminology or it starts abridging free speech, becomes impossible to police, etc. Consider when Al Franken got sued by Fox TV over use of "Fair and Balanced" - Fox got laughed out of court. You can't go around prohibiting somebody from using certain words because you don't like the way they use them. As for "Open Source"? What if I put up a website with my definition of "Open Source"? Does that make it somehow "official" and allow me to insist that anyone using the term do so only if it meets my definition? What's the difference between me and OSI? Is it that they are more guys? Is it that they have more money? Is it that their web site was up first? I don't think any of that would carry much weight in court seeing as how people were calling things "Open Source" long before OSI showed up. I don't have a problem with people wanting to be clear about what they mean when describing their software or anything else. I just don't think its right to tell someone they can't use some terminology to describe their software because it doesn't satisfy someone else who put up a web site. Where would we be if we tried to police the same thing with respect to calling some body of software "Object Oriented"? Who gets to decide the meaning of that term and decide if someone's software meets the proper conditions? MDC David Starner wrote: > On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 11:54:52 +0000, Marin David Condic wrote: > > >>Yeah, except under law (and for good reason) nobody can claim ownership >>of "Open Source" until they pay to have the "(tm)" put next to it. > > > No; the (tm) is free; it's the (R) that you have to pay for. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat. Its the FAT that makes you look fat." -- Al Bundy ======================================================================