Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

[Posted February 2, 2018 by jake]

Longtime embedded Linux development company Free Electrons has just changed its name to Bootlin due to a trademark dispute (with "FREE SAS, a French telecom operator, known as the owner of the free.fr website"). It is possible that Free Electrons may lose access to its "free-electrons.com" domain name as part of the dispute, so links to the many resources that Free Electrons hosts (including documentation and conference videos) should be updated to use "bootlin.com". "The services we offer are different, we target a different audience (professionals instead of individuals), and most of our communication efforts are in English, to reach an international audience. Therefore Michael Opdenacker and Free Electrons’ management believe that there is no risk of confusion between Free Electrons and FREE SAS. However, FREE SAS has filed in excess of 100 oppositions and District Court actions against trademarks or name containing “free”. In view of the resources needed to fight this case, Free Electrons has decided to change name without waiting for the decision of the District Court. This will allow us to stay focused on our projects rather than exhausting ourselves fighting a long legal battle."

What's with trademarks lawsuits these days?

Posted Feb 2, 2018 18:25 UTC (Fri) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] (1 responses)

First SLC sued SFLC, now this ... some organizations seem to be very litigious.

Perhaps the free.fr people might want to sue FreeBSD next?

What's with trademarks lawsuits these days?

Posted Feb 2, 2018 22:05 UTC (Fri) by bradfitz (subscriber, #4378) [Link]

Or the Free Software Foundation for extra comedy!

Please accept the apologies of a Frenchman

Posted Feb 2, 2018 18:29 UTC (Fri) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link] (2 responses)

Some french people still remember, here, that Free was created on the fortune of a certain Xavier Niel, which comes from the earliest paying sex chat in the world, before internet indeed, at the time where France was experimenting 'minitel' terminals : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Niel
With this kind of personal history one cannot be surprised by his company's general behavior...

Please accept the apologies of a Frenchman

Posted Feb 2, 2018 18:58 UTC (Fri) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

Not to detract from your point, but it's funny that you link to Wikipedia when Jimmy Wales was at least involved with a porn website called Bomis before joining Wikipedia.

Please accept the apologies of a Frenchman

Posted Feb 3, 2018 1:22 UTC (Sat) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I don't really see anything wrong with sex chat as a service. It shows a certain willingness to do things others might disapprove of, but that could go in several directions.

The later indictment for misuse of company assets seems significantly more telling, to me.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 2, 2018 20:22 UTC (Fri) by opalmirror (subscriber, #23465) [Link] (5 responses)

Legal ownership of Free seems somehow both ludicrous and dismaying. Especially in this day of corporate sponsored stadiums and the like.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 5, 2018 4:41 UTC (Mon) by immibis (subscriber, #105511) [Link] (4 responses)

IANAL but I highly doubt FREE would win this case if it came before a court.

But regardless of what courts would think, they've already won, Free Electrons hasn't even bothered to defend themselves, they've just voluntarily given away their lunch money to the first person who asked.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 9, 2018 16:30 UTC (Fri) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link] (3 responses)

Even if Free Electrons won, lunch money won't cover the cost of a lawsuit (both in money & time).

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 10, 2018 1:35 UTC (Sat) by immibis (subscriber, #105511) [Link] (2 responses)

If the system is that broken, why don't we see more BS lawsuits? Why didn't Microsoft sue Sun Microsystems for using "micro" and producing software?

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 10, 2018 8:34 UTC (Sat) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link] (1 responses)

Only works against someone who can't or doesn't want to spend all that money & time on lawsuits.

E.g. Microsoft sued (or threatened to sue) companies & projects for using the word "Windows" in their name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwindows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WxWidgets

And of course they also did the same with MikeRoweSoft (which was actually owned by a Canadian high school student named Mike Rowe), etc.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Jun 17, 2019 20:35 UTC (Mon) by samiam95124 (guest, #120873) [Link]

And worth recalling, the suit by Microsoft was thrown out because "Window" is a common item in households. There is plenty of case law history against trademarking common words: SFE:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/02/can-you-trade...

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 3, 2018 1:41 UTC (Sat) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

When Chicago still had stockyards, we had an event here called the "Back-of-the-yards Free Fair." In case any of you folks want to look for prior art..... ;)

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 3, 2018 2:56 UTC (Sat) by hadess (subscriber, #24252) [Link]

They're also running a Kickstarter to add support for video decoding and encoding on various Allwinner VPUs, including the ones included in the NES/SNES Mini Classic and the NextThingCo. CHIP. I own one of each, though the first one probably won't see an upstream kernel ever ;)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bootlin/allwinner-vp...

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 3, 2018 11:46 UTC (Sat) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (19 responses)

«Michael Opdenacker and Free Electrons’ management consider that these claims are unfounded as both companies were coexisting peacefully since 2005.»

Maybe literally true but a bit misleading, free.fr has existed since 2000 at least. I know because I used their "free" internet service then -- a modem-based thing that was not free in terms of phone bills! And though I haven't lived in France since 2002, I still have a free.fr personal webpage that apparently they are willing to host in perpetuity.

Disappointing to see this litigation from them. "Free" is a widely used and understood word in France, probably more so than "libre" in the US. To claim a trademark on any possible use of that word is absurd.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 3, 2018 18:41 UTC (Sat) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (18 responses)

This is pretty sad because Free is one of the most advanced technology company in France that could be expected to know better and Michael is a great guy which do not deserve this.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 5, 2018 11:46 UTC (Mon) by Landswellsong (guest, #122391) [Link] (17 responses)

5¢ from somebody who just moved to France. I have a free.fr router at the moment [though changing to SFR this week]. Their "admin page" is a CGI-generated text file. The main site is equally terrible and while it provides better insight, it's still 2000-ies called in terms of web development. Also the router came with a default setting of WEP with 1234567890 password.

I reaaaaally doubt I can call free.fr an advanced tech company from what I've seen.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 5, 2018 11:51 UTC (Mon) by comio (subscriber, #115526) [Link]

it's just the cheapest provider.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 5, 2018 18:05 UTC (Mon) by wazoox (subscriber, #69624) [Link] (3 responses)

But free.fr provides you with a free, static IPv4 address :) They are (or were) actively hacker friendly (from the management interface you can easily allow yourself hosting an MX from your DSL line, etc). The other providers are actively hacker-hostile.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 9:46 UTC (Tue) by jem (subscriber, #24231) [Link] (2 responses)

But free.fr provides you with a free, static IPv4 address :)

My ISP provides me with 4.7·10²¹ static IP addresses.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 9, 2018 14:47 UTC (Fri) by Nico57 (subscriber, #63763) [Link] (1 responses)

Static? I'd strongly advise you to use autoconfiguration instead!

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 9, 2018 17:50 UTC (Fri) by jem (subscriber, #24231) [Link]

Heh. Ok, but the /56 prefix is static.

IPv6 is quite usable for a home server for private use; a static, public IPv4 is not so important for that anymore.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 9:08 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (10 responses)

I guess they lost their edge now but they had what was probably the first mass market, triple play setup box https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&...
Linux and VLC based. Most channels streamable to any PC.

They were in 2007 one of the very first "consumer" telcos world-wide to deploy IPv6 on a massive scale. DVR at no extra cost with remote programming. One of the first telco to offer cheap international phone calls (call cards aside). Standard SIP-based VoIP. Wifi hotspots. File server. Print server. DECT. Femto cell. PLC Remote administration. Etc., etc.

So yes: maybe not any more but they've been the most innovative ISP for a decade or two and they have been copied by everyone else. Another "innovation" was never charging any extra for these features - the exact opposite of all other telcos worldwide, for which the company founder developed hatred while he was working for them; his own words.

Now an interesting licensing trick: the box is rented and not sold; so they don't have to release GPL modifications.

Later they also cut the price of mobile in half and forced the competition to align. Their most expensive offer with all bells and whistles is 16 euros/month. I think about it every time I pay my "cheap" T-mobile bill which is 3 times more.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 16:43 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (6 responses)

>«Their most expensive offer with all bells and whistles is 16 euros/month. I think about it every time I pay my "cheap" T-mobile bill which is 3 times more.»

Implying that others are more expensive? Impressive. Here in India I pay INR 199 (a bit over 2 euros) a month for 1GB/day data, and unlimited calls and SMS within India. Last year I paid about 40 euros for a 10 day roaming package in Europe that included 5GB data, 100 mins free outgoing calls (India+local), and unlimited incoming calls and SMS. Way more than I actually used. Given my usage patterns this suggests that, when in other countries no matter for how long, I should not purchase local SIMs and should just use roaming plans?

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 16:56 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (5 responses)

> Here in India I pay

I compared countries with comparable wages and cost of living, you're not.

> I should not purchase local SIMs and should just use roaming plans?

Roaming has become less and less of a rip-off in the recent years, either because of (European, other?) regulations of just competition. Free.fr offers 30 days roaming per year for free.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 18, 2018 10:49 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (4 responses)

Also india simply has a more advanced mobile infra than Europe and healthy competition which is why unlimited data for a few euro's/month is normal in India and unheard off here.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 18, 2018 16:36 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (3 responses)

Competition is OK in Europe.

How is the mobile infrastructure more advanced?

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 22, 2018 9:38 UTC (Thu) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link] (2 responses)

Probably it's just newer. Like in the 90's some post-communist countries in Europe had the "most advanced" airline fleets just because they ditched the old and clunky Soviet airplanes and replaced all of them with new ones.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 22, 2018 15:21 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

"Probably" = no one here has a clue?

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 27, 2018 14:43 UTC (Tue) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

Probably = I haven't studied the subject :)

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 20:17 UTC (Tue) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link] (1 responses)

> Now an interesting licensing trick: the box is rented and not sold; so they don't have to release GPL modifications.

This "trick" seems dubious. How is renting out something not distribution in the sense of copyright law?

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 8, 2018 10:50 UTC (Thu) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link]

It is often considered that as long as you retain the copies of the software on devices that you own and control, even if they are located in locations which you do not own and control, this is not 'distribution'. It's a tricky area, to be sure, but if putting copyleft-licensed software on a machine in a datacenter you don't own would obligate you to provide copies of the complete-and-corresponding-source-code to the datacenter operator, many datacenters would lose a lot of customers.

This argument can be extended to cloud virtual machines as well, although it gets harder to support in that situation since claiming that you 'own and control' an ephemeral virtual machine running on a computer owned and operated by RackSpace/Amazon/Google/Microsoft/etc. is really a stretch. Of course it's quite unlikely that any of those cloud providers, or the datacenter operators, would ever demand a copy of the source code, because doing so would materially affect their future business in a very negative way.

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 10, 2018 13:13 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Later they also cut the price of mobile in half and forced the competition to align. Their most expensive offer with all bells and whistles is 16 euros/month. I think about it every time I pay my "cheap" T-mobile bill which is 3 times more.

I love the BT Broadband adverts for SIM-only mobile ... "Save hundreds of pounds if you take our most expensive offer" ...

If you buy 5 sim-only contracts for your family, they cost you £10/sim/month. I pay less than £10 for two sims together, which provide way more texts/calls/data than my wife and I ever use ...

Define "cheap". It's not cheap if you're paying extra for stuff you never use, no matter how you phrase it. We'd probably be better off on pay-as-you-go, but the contract is cheap and convenient, so we pay that little bit extra to know that the phone will always be there whenever we want it.

Cheers,
Wol

Free Electrons becomes Bootlin

Posted Feb 6, 2018 16:15 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

You just moved to France, so you have little idea how backward the average tech companies are there.
(and yes free.fr provides IPv6)