Re: XUL or not XUL

Charles Goodwin wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 03:09 -0500, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>>    I think you've hit the heart of why the "XUL Alliance" won't change 
>>their name: They don't think Mozilla has the stones to take them to 
>>court. Actually, Mozilla could theoretically succeed, either in court or 
>>via the threat thereof. Adobe trademarked "Illustrator". Microsoft 
>>succeeded in forcing Lindows to change its name to Linspire because of 
>>their "Windows" trademark. And the XUL Alliance is most likely unable to 
>>withstand long-term litigation.
> 
> Great examples of brand-name copyright, but you're completely missing
> the point by referring to this stuff.

    I doubt it. Here you have a term that the Mozilla staff created for 
their own specific technology, and which they claim a trademark on, that 
was co-opted as a generic term by specific individuals after the fact. 
In doing so, people such as Gerald have caused confusion over what XUL 
refers to in any given context and made it more difficult to search the 
web for information on Mozilla's XUL.

    To add insult to injury, Gerald calls his site the "Open XUL 
Alliance", thus incorporating the trademarked term in the title of his 
site rather than simply using it as a generic term. If a major company 
like Vivendi Universal had created the term XUL instead of 
Mozilla--well--look what happened to Freecraft.

    You don't create respect with confusion, contempt for the legal 
claims of others and refusal to compromise. There are any number of 
terms we could use:

    http://xul.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/NewXulName

    So, what's our rational basis for sticking with XUL? For instance, 
XUIL is nearly identical, isn't used for the name of a specific 
language, and Ian Hickson even invented the term.

> Please bring up an example, if you can, of litigation banning anybody
> from using a technology term as part of their product.  A facetious
> example being w3 banning Microsoft from associating IE with HTML because
> it does not properly render HTML that conforms the the w3 specs.  This
> is what we are talking about, that is the battlefield.

    Once upon a time, there was the "Microsoft Java VM". Then 
Microsoft's VM failed the Java compatibility tests created by Sun, 
thereby violating the agreement that gave Microsoft the right to use the 
Java trademark. So the word "Java" had to be removed. In spite of the 
fact that their VM is a derivative technology of Java, Microsoft now 
calls it the "Microsoft Virtual Machine".

    The only differences here are that XUL is an acronym (which are 
still trademarkable under US law) and the "XUL Alliance" never had an 
license for the trademark in the first place.

> Gerald is not mis-using the brand name (Mozilla), but is contentious of
> the technology name XUL being specific to Mozilla.

    "XUL" is not a technology, it's a word to which Mozilla claims a 
trademark. As the name for a type of computer language, "XUIL" or 
"UIXML" would do just as well, if not better. XUL is only seen as the 
most natural term for the field for two reasons: it's easy to pronounce 
("Zool") and being one of the first languages of its kind, it's well known.

    Besides, what's the value of trademarking a product name or 
technology if you're barred from using the best and most effective name 
for the product?

    As for whether it's a "brand", that has no relevance in law. 
Illustrator is not necessarily a brand, and Adobe has a trademark on 
that. So the whole "brand" argument is a red herring, although it's an 
unintentional one.


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