LWN: Comments on "Trademarks and their limits"

Trademarks and their limits

JanC_ — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:10:18 +0000

And there is Ubuntu Cola, of course.

Trademarks and their limits

dudedude — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:47:12 +0000

On my linux system, I have an application DB.

When I install anything via it, it pulls an package from public access encrypted repository - package which is either checked and opensource or blindly trusted, but from original publisher;

PROBLEM SOLVED

The article talks about windows problems. Delete windows from your daughter laptop, install Linux. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Trademarks and their limits

mpr22 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:37:15 +0000

Jurisdictions that pay more than lip service to the moral-rights clauses tend to treat such waivers as inherently invalid.

Trademarks and their limits

endecotp — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:32:46 +0000

> couldn't that be construed as libel or slander?

It could perhaps be construed as a violation of your "moral rights" under the Berne Convention:

http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.ht...

"the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation."

(Suggestion: don't waive your moral rights in your free software license if you don't want this to happen!)

Trademarks and their limits

Mook — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 06:11:50 +0000

To echo the costs of enforcing names through search engines: Apparently jb of VLC spends three hours a week taking care of that for VLC. I assume it's probably more for him due to the high profile of the project, but still...

Trademarks and their limits

Wol — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:10:38 +0000

Linux washing powder ...

Cheers,
Wol

Trademarks and their limits

micka — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 14:48:49 +0000

Precisely. And you confuse the words "domination" and "success".

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 23:56:46 +0000

Why do we accept the judgement over success (or not) from some unspecified "people"?

Because we are humans. Look, you can assign arbitrary meanings to random words all you want but the more you do that the less understandable you become. If there are some widespread meaning assigned to words then it's much better to stop trying to explain that you are right and the whole world is wrong. Even if initially words had other meaning. Think hacker (which now means less of "a person who enjoys exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness" and more of "someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network"). Or addict - who's no longer "a debtor awarded as a slave to his creditor". And we no longer use girl in relation to males (yes, initially it meant a young person of either sex - dictionaries said so just a hundred years ago).

So the right question is not "why do we use terms as perceived by others" but "why would we use terms in some other way" - and I see no reason to do so.

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 23:42:47 +0000

that's what the Open Build Service is for (openbuildservice.org or in action (for free, yes, and supporting 7 architectures and 15+ distro's) on build.opensuse.org)

This is cool, but it does not solve the underlying problem: you still need to build bazillion packages to support tiny portion of [potential] users.

It's not about gatekeeping, it is about money.

Aren't they the same things? Most developers out there are commercial developers. They want to create and sell things. A lot of applications are created for a single buyer - and while it's not clear how well Linux does for these I don't think it's a big deal. But for desktop shrinkwrapped software matters, too. And this is where gatekeepers matter: they may raise investment needed to reach the audience (Linux distributions case) or they can reject your creation out of hand (Apple). When you hit this stage we are talking ROI - and ROI for Linux software is incredibly poor. Both because it's hard to distribute Linux software and because there are so few potential users.

But even when we do (on Ubuntu, for example) it doesn't happen to a great extend.

Why do you say so? Because there are no 500'000 applications? That's wrong measure to take.

Let's not talk about "big boys" (Windows, Android, etc). Let's take a look on small players. You know, webOS (less then 5 million users, 5000 applications), Chrome web store (30 millions users, about 6000 applications), Samsung's Bada (around 4 million users, around 2400 applications).

Ubuntu boasts 12 million users which means that we should expect about 3-5 thousand applications. And there are about 4000 of them, which sounds more-of-less fine. But these are Ubuntu apps, not Linux apps (all the links for RC Mini Racers will send you to the Ubuntu Software Center). Are we Ok with creation of Apple-style directory? If yes, then everything is fine: looks like Canonical knows what it does. If not, then well, we need to think about Linux's desktop future.

Trademarks and their limits

Jandar — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:44:08 +0000

Why do we accept the judgement over success (or not) from some unspecified "people"? I'm using Linux as sole desktop (1) since 0.9* (exact version is long forgotten) and judge Linux as a long-running success. I'm tired of reading about the question if the year of Linux-desktop comes, the first decade of Linux-desktop is already history. World domination may not come the next years, but this doesn't devaluate the successfull running Linux-desktop.

(1) several years ago I had booted for non-desktop use a specialized game-loader (aka Windows ;-))

Trademarks and their limits

jospoortvliet — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:32:46 +0000

User yes, developer no. It's extremely hard to create binary package for Linux (the most you can usually hope for is few different packages for a few popular distributions... and even then there are no guarantee that said packages will be forward-compatible because libraries come and go in Linux distributions willy-nilly.

that's what the Open Build Service is for (openbuildservice.org or in action (for free, yes, and supporting 7 architectures and 15+ distro's) on build.opensuse.org)

Otherwise, I disagree with you argument on other counts as well. It's not about gatekeeping, it is about money. The target group is too small on the Linux Desktop and yeah, we don't make it particularly easy to make $$$. But even when we do (on Ubuntu, for example) it doesn't happen to a great extend.

Trademarks and their limits

dlang — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:49:27 +0000

if you take this as me ranting about how closed source is unethical you are hopeless to talk to, goodby

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:22:24 +0000

plus the user/developer has the option of bypassing the distro

show me a quote _anywhere_ where I "rave about moral wrongness of closed-source software" That is not something I do, because it reflects a stance I do not believe in.

In the very next sentence, basically. Actions speak louder than words.

distro systems have their set of requirements (which boil down to "it must be freely redistributable as source, not too hard to build, and someone must volunteer to do the work")

Right. And since it's the only way to make your software easily available for the distribution user it basically means it's an ultimatum "create FOSS-software only, or else we'll punish you".

iOS has their set of requirements (which boil down to "it must not be deemed offensive in any way, and must not compete with Apple in any way"), and the user/developer has no option for bypassing Apple (except on the developers device)

Sure. It's a problem. But
1. The carrot is much, much bigger (there are hundreds of millions of iOS users compared to may be few millions for Linux).
2. Stick is also much smaller (you can be punished if you create some Apple-competing product, but most developers don't do that).

There are no pure black nor pure white in our world, it's all shades of gray and iOS is much, much, MUCH more developer-friendly shade.

It's hard to see how Apple's stance is better than the others.

Really? It's very easy to measure: how many developers find Apple's stance unacceptable vs how many developers find Linux distributions stance unacceptable. Sure, Apple are not saints, but they:
1. Provide stable platform for application development
and
2. Reject relatively few applications.
while Linux distributions:
1. Start with a demand which 90% of developers find totally unacceptable.
or
2. Offer "as-is platform" where "great deal of the day" can be summarized as "you can do whatever you want but we offer no promises and it's your responsibility to chase changes in our ABI".

Note that I'm not saying that Linux distributions must support commercial developers. They are mostly volunteer organizations and they can do whatever they want. But they can't simultaneously talk about "desktop for Joe Average" and ignore needs of developers who create software for said "Joe Average".

Trademarks and their limits

dlang — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:50:40 +0000

show me a quote _anywhere_ where I "rave about moral wrongness of closed-source software" That is not something I do, because it reflects a stance I do not believe in.

distro systems have their set of requirements (which boil down to "it must be freely redistributable as source, not too hard to build, and someone must volunteer to do the work"), plus the user/developer has the option of bypassing the distro

iOS has their set of requirements (which boil down to "it must not be deemed offensive in any way, and must not compete with Apple in any way"), and the user/developer has no option for bypassing Apple (except on the developers device)

Google has their set of requirements (which boil down to "it must not be fraudulent"), plus the user/developer has the option of bypassing Google (see the Amazon android app store for an example)

It's hard to see how Apple's stance is better than the others.

Case example: Audacity

viiru — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:54:28 +0000

> So while I understand Debian's stance, I think there are some very good
> reasons to have and use trademarks for FLOSS projects.

I can't tell if the original commenter knows this or not, but from the comment it's easy to misunderstand so I'll mention that Debian as an organization is not anti-trademark, as can be seen from the fact that Debian also owns trademarks and has a policy for them (which isn't "do anything you want"): http://www.debian.org/trademark.en.html

Debian is also currently working on a policy for incoming trademarks to make it easier to decide what is acceptable (this is a fairly practical consideration, like "can we patch this to provide security support for the duration of a stable release" and such) and what should trigger a rename to remove the trademark.

Trademarks and their limits

mpr22 — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:45:56 +0000

It's not wise to think that all victims are stupid.

Everyone's stupid some of the time. More usefully: "It's not wise to think that all victims were being stupid."

Trademarks and their limits

giraffedata — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:44:27 +0000

It's not wise to think that all victims are stupid.
Some are just different: children, elders or simply vulnerable due to external reasons.

Those are all just kinds of stupid.

A better point to make would be 1) you can fix a problem caused by stupidity; or 2) a person doesn't deserve to be a victim because he is stupid.

Trademarks and their limits

giraffedata — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:18:49 +0000

The fact that it's an organization being defamed instead of an individual is not a problem. While the protection against statements that hurt your personal relationships wouldn't apply (the classic example is accusing a woman of being promiscuous), the usual case (the only one possible in many jurisdictions) is a statement that hurts your business relationship. That would apply to something like OpenOffice.

But I'm pretty sure slander and libel laws have never been used for things other than direct statements about the subject. Preventing someone from tarnishing your reputation by selling inferior products is exactly what trademark law is for.

links that do not boost page rank

DonDiego — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:44:17 +0000

Alternatively, add 'rel="nofollow"' to the anchor tag and Google will note that you merely link to and do not condone the site.

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:17:52 +0000

Linux was desktop OS from the day one (it was Linus's desktop). Yet somehow people don't perceive it as "success" thus I think yes, your (and mine, BTW: I'm writing this on Linux system) example does not count.

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:15:23 +0000

Perfection is impossible, but there are large difference between these two approaches. In Windows world and even in iOS world the right to present your creation to user is, well... developer's right. Sure, it's not unconditional right (in Windows world you need to convince people to download and install your creation and in iOS world there are a gatekeeper which is sometimes exceedingly picky), but it's still a right.

In Linux world it's treated as a privilege which can be conditionally given to you if you are lucky. And to earn this privilege you need to start with something absolutely unacceptable to most developers: you must publish source for your application (you can sometimes earn this privilege without publishing source - see nVidia drivers, for example, but these are rare exceptions, not rule).

You may rave about moral wrongness of closed-source software all you want (and you will even be correct), but fact of life remains: most desktop software is closed-source, Joe Average accepts it and as consequence demands it (Joe Average does not care about source availability at all but s/he does care about latest fashionable software creation which invariably happens to be closed-source - see Windows Phone RT woes: Windows Phone is much less picky then Linux distributions yet it still hurts from lack of fashionable software) thus without support from closed-source software developers you can not win battle for desktop.

Trademarks and their limits

micka — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:12:38 +0000

It runs on _my_ desktop and mostly does what I want. So yes, it's a success.

Does it need to be a mass success to be a success ?

Trademarks and their limits

dlang — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 06:09:51 +0000

Instead you have Apple delaying apps for unpredictable periods and rejecting apps out of hand.

So the repository maintainers are paid by Apple instead of being volunteers or paid by a Linux company, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems sometimes.

Trademarks and their limits

mathstuf — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:00:35 +0000

Avis had "We try harder [because we're not first]" for a while. I think they might have changed it by now because it seems that people figured "and it's still not enough to make you first".

Trademarks and their limits

louie — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:46:51 +0000

Right, though tackling the search engines is still time-consuming to start and keep up with. Resources, unfortunately, are needed - though not as much as a lawsuit.

Trademarks and their limits

rcweir — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:42:27 +0000

The trick, I think, is not to focus exclusively on the trademark use in the download, since as Jon points out, they could just be distributing the exact same version of the product, but with the malware in the form of "installer" in front.

Instead, look at the trademark use that is involved in their paid ad placement on Google, or Bing, or spam in Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Without this, they have no easy way to lure users to their site. That trademark use is less innocent.

These entry points are easier to deal with, since, for example, Google will remove certain kinds of ads based on complaints from trademark owners. Bing has similar options. I suspect Twitter, Facebook, etc., do as well.

So having ownership of a trademark has value even if you never are in court, since ownership permits you to make these kinds of complaints. Malware sitting off on the web someplace is far less of a concern if it is not the first hit when you search for a popular open source package.

Trademarks and their limits

hpa — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:43:07 +0000

It was very much intended (this is pretty well documented by now.) Not only that, but it was apparently quite successful in getting people to remember the otherwise fairly heavyweight brand name.

Trademarks and their limits

khim — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:38:36 +0000

"Linux will never succeed on the desktop until..."

You mean Linux have succeeded on desktop? News to me.

So where are these people now who espouse that the "right" way to do software distribution is to have users find an "easy to download and install package" on the project website?

It's still an important facet of the OS. But the question is less about the "random site" but more about "random developer". iOS succeeds despite the fact that officially you can install apps only from one repository, but the important fact is that apps in said repository are placed by the developers themselves, not by some packagers who may delay delivery for years (and will reject closed-source apps out of hand).

Trademarks and their limits

robert_s — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:58:32 +0000

So where are these people now who espouse that the "right" way to do software distribution is to have users find an "easy to download and install package" on the project website?

"It's what users want"

"Linux will never succeed on the desktop until..."

Trademarks and their limits

sorpigal — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:56:38 +0000

> But nethertheless, I intend to benefit too from an occasional automated security survey because I am sure I can find an attacker smarter than me.
For the people who proactively install, run and heed the reports from such tools there is no problem. It's the people who won't install it, won't run it or won't read the reports that you can't do anything about. For them prevention is out the window, recovery afterwards is all you can strive for.

Trademarks and their limits

ortalo — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:48:45 +0000

It's not wise to think that all victims are stupid.

Some are just different: children, elders or simply vulnerable due to external reasons. Theey deserve better protection and certainly a different set of information than us hackers.

But nethertheless, I intend to benefit too from an occasional automated security survey because I am sure I can find an attacker smarter than me. Don't you?

Trademarks and their limits

branden — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:54:54 +0000

...particularly when said self-deprecating sardonicism is tucked behind one fork of a double entendre.

Trademarks and their limits

micka — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:52:38 +0000

Maybe, but now, if someone were to rename iceweasel executable to firefox, or the desktop files, I would probably be lost for some time.

Trademarks and their limits

mpr22 — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:48:13 +0000

Sarcastic self-deprecation in advertising is not, in fact, unheard of.

Trademarks and their limits

Cato — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:39:29 +0000

Well, Full Metal Jacket was a film about US soldiers set in Vietnam, so it's not so surprising it used American slang in the poster. Doesn't really prove it either way.

I really don't think Electrolux would have paid for a poster campaign designed to say it was crap...

Trademarks and their limits

branden — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:27:16 +0000

I counter your pedantry.

As early as 1987, the Stanley Kubrick film _Full Metal Jacket_ was promoted with a poster which featured in prominent type:

IN VIETNAM
THE WIND DOESN'T BLOW
IT SUCKS

Kubrick had been a resident of the U.K. for over 15 years at that point and was infamously involved in every aspect of his films' production, marketing/promotion, and distribution.

If an old fuddy-duddy like Kubrick could be persuaded of the utility of this slang by 1987, it surely must have had currency in the U.K. by the 1990s.

You sure that Electrolux ad campaign wasn't a bit of sardonicism?

Trademarks and their limits

Cato — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 08:19:08 +0000

The use of "sucks" in that Electrolux ad campaign was only in the UK during the early 1990s (source: http://adland.tv/content/nothing-sucks-ad-myth) - at least at that time, "sucks" was not widely used with a pejorative meaning, and it wasn't run in the US.

These days, UKians are somewhat Internet-savvy and have absorbed many US meanings such as this one. Although it seems the Oxford English Dictionary has much earlier UK usages, but they were not so common: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583268

This has been a PedantryForFun announcement...

Trademarks and their limits

louie — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:28:47 +0000

Yes, exactly. The problem here isn't trademark law - it gives you the tools needed to do this, albeit imperfectly. The problem is having the resources to do use trademark law to do enforcement, which (at the moment) Mozilla does and OOo/LO do not.

Trademarks and their limits

roman — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:15:12 +0000

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/otherunix.html

And... I have somewhere a photocopy of a label from "Unix Porto" (port wine).

Trademarks and their limits

gerv — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:11:55 +0000

Mozilla has had some success chasing this sort of shady behaviour. See these articles on my blog:

http://blog.gerv.net/?s=Protecting+Germans&submit=Search

Gerv