Re: opie trademark

On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 08:18:42AM +1000, Lorn Potter wrote:
> > > > No, he doesn't speak for the community. Neither do you.
> > >
> > > Sure I do. I have been around in the opie project longer than most. That
> > > gives me a right to speak on behalf of the opie community.
> >
> > By your requirements then George France has the same right to speak on
> > behalf of hh.org. He has been around hh.org longer then most. If the
> > Opie community is part of the hh.org community, he can speak for it.
> 
> No, he can't. He is not a developer in the Opie project. He (handhelds.org) 
> only hosts the Opie project.

If He is George France, I don't see how he hosts anything. Handhelds.org
provides the resources to the Opie project. It is flatly false to say
that George France is handhelds.org.

> Same thing about sf.net, they cannot speak on my behalf for the projects I 
> have there, as they are not a part of the community.

handhelds.org and sf.net are not the same thing. Please stop trying to
make a comparison between them.

> > And you were given permission publicly by one person:
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.opie.devel/3885
> >
> > While you received an objection from at least two people:
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.opie.devel/3897
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.opie.devel/3898
> >
> > Is that permission?
> 
> If decisions are made on the construct that everyone has to agree to 
> something, then no decisions would ever get made. As the longest standing 
> developer in Opie, I took it upon myself to be the leader and make an 
> executive decision.

I note that you have rationalized making an executive decision
yourself. Yet you have not allowed others to do the same. Explain to me
how your executive decision does not violate your own rules on who can
and cannot make decisions.

> I believe I made the right decision for Opie and the next generation of Opie.

I don't doubt and have never doubted that the right place for your
project is not hh.org. Your reasoning is sound in attempting to use some
other community or hosting site for your project.

> > > > > But, it is not George France and handhelds.org's property either, and
> > > > > they also cannot do with as they please - such as trying to trademark
> > > > > our project name out from underneath us and without asking or even
> > > > > consulting with the dev teams!
> > > >
> > > > You keep saying us. handhelds.org is a community. It is trying to
> > > > protect the trademark of one of its sub communities. What is the Opie
> > > > community and do they actually think this is a good idea or not? I for
> > > > one want a clearer boundary between the Opie community and anyone else.
> > > > Which means, if Opie is part of the handhelds.org community and there
> > > > are people in another community who are actively hostile to people in
> > > > the handhelds.org community, Opie should not be associated with that
> > > > community. But on top of that we as the Opie community are required to
> > > > do our own enforcement if we assert the tradename as ours.
> 
> hmm. ok. so that I am in both communities I gave the other community 
> permission to use the name Opie, only if there was a distinction made.. 
> hence "opieII".

OK, another vote of permission. I still don't call that a consensus. By
my count you have 3 votes for permission to use the name "Opie". I
consider that a fair start.

> My whole contention is that no one has the right to try and trademark a name 
> they do not own the rights to.

You're right. No one can simply take a trademark. I don't think hh.org
is simply taking anything. A solid argument can be made that
hh.org is registering the trademark to protect the Opie community at
hh.org from having that trademark diluted and mis-used. This sort of
protection is typical w/in the free software community. There is
evidence that other communities at hh.org are having trouble with this
very problem with the way that the GPE situation is going.

> > George is the CEO and the official admin. But he is not handhelds.org.
> > There is a community there.
> 
> By this line of thinking Haavard Nord is a part of the Opie community as 
> well...

No, that line of thinking does not imply that. Since TrollTech does not
foster any community or resource for Opie, while hh.org does. TrollTech
is run for profit and Qt as well as Qtopia are products for sale. hh.org
is non-profit who's existence is to foster the development and use of
free software. I encourage you to not bring TrollTech into this any
further. It will likely not end well. 

E

-- 
Erik Hovland
mail: [email protected]
web: http://hovland.org/
PGP/GPG public key available on request

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