When a thief is charged...

Posted May 15, 2003 6:05 UTC (Thu) by roskegg (subscriber, #105)
In reply to: Another name for "apathetic" that tells the true story by jzb
Parent article: Christopher Blizzard of mozilla.org Speaks on the Firebird Naming Conflict (MozillaZine)

When a thief is charged with a crime, his sentence isn't based on how much money HE has, but rather on how much he STOLE. That "Mozilla" as a project doesn't make money matters not a whit. What matters is the havoc that their actions have caused a fellow Free Software project, without any provocation whatsoever.

Just because a thief gives his stolen goods to the local priest for widows and orphans fund doesn't absolve him of full responsibility for the theft.

Jonathan Walther
Debian Developer

No theft, it's `trademark dilution'

Posted May 16, 2003 12:33 UTC (Fri) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

Dear me, now we're calling it `theft' to reuse a common name?

Before you get even more worked up, think about how the MPAA and the RIAA are characterizing fair use of copyrighted material, look at what RMS has to say on`theft' wrt copyright, or on different laws for granting monopolies on ideas, then think carefully about your choice of words.

If we get too wound up in our furor, some concepts we hold very dear (including running Free Software, should Microsoft's Palladium ever take hold) may end up on the trash-heap of history.

Best wishes,
Max Hyre