Re: opie trademark

On Thursday 31 May 2007 09:09, Erik Hovland wrote:
> On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 08:18:42AM +1000, Lorn Potter wrote:

>
> 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.

handhelds.org is a site hosting projects. GF is the CEO of that hosting 
service, therefore, he hosts projects.

Here is the about from the time opie got started:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020124183953/http://www.handhelds.org/

"Our website provides a set of software repositories, allowing easy archiving 
and distribution of free software. These repositories are reliable, 
available, and enjoy very high bandwidth connectivity to the Internet 
backbone. Project teams are welcome to store their software in the 
repositories provided here, although links to remote repositories are also 
welcome."

More importantly is this page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021016073339/www.handhelds.org/projects/index.html

See what it says in big bold letters?

"Projects Hosted at cvs.handhelds.org"

handhelds.org is and always was a web site hosting projects, just like sf.net.



>
> > > 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.

by virtue of me being one of the longest standing developers of Opie still 
interested and care about it.


>
> 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.

thats only what was said on the public mailing list. I can tell you, more devs 
have expressed an 'ok' in private - including the person who actually has the 
right to own the Opie trademark.


>
> > 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.

hh.org did not even ask permission from anyone to do so. They have no right or 
claim to the name 'Opie'.

again, hh.org is just a hosting service.


>
> > > 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.

TT has done more for the open source community and fostering free software 
than hh.org has ever hoped to. and actually, yes, TT does foster and support 
the Opie community.

TT has nothing to do with this. Threatening TT is not cool, either.
It's now spelled "Trolltech", btw.


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