Re: Enforcing coreboot as lowercase

AFAIK the project name has been all lowercase from the start, and I don't
see a compelling reason here to change it. To my eyes, it looks
strange/wrong when started with a capital C.

Phoronix et all can continue being wrong =D

On Thu, Jul 4, 2024, 12:53 PM Arthur Heymans <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> Are you proposing to give up trying to defend the spelling of the
>> project's name because too many people write it wrong and educating
>> them is too much effort? If so, I think this is a self-defeating
>> attitude and I completely disagree with it.
>
>
> Language is not a set in stone thing. There are default grammatical rules
> on how to write things and sometimes it is worth it to override the rules
> as I explained.
> It's basically a trade-off.
> There is no right and wrong here, except maybe from a trademark
> perspective, which most people are unaware of.
> Later I make the case that even from a trademark perspective I don't think
> it matters.
> I'm making the case that enforcing to write "coreboot" lowercase has more
> downsides than upsides, which is why I propose to allow "Coreboot" at the
> start of a sentence.
> Personally I think educating people about a trademark thing is superfluous
> work.
> Also in my personal communication it's a conundrum.
> For instance if I write a blog post I don't want to look like I'm making
> silly grammatical mistakes to those that haven't looked into the trademark
> registry (which almost no one does).
> At the same time I don't want to explain the trademark either as I think
> it blunts communicative efficiency.
>
> Or is it that the trademark only covers the all-lowercase "coreboot"
>> spelling, so one can use a name like "CoReboot" (e.g. for something
>> unrelated) without infringing the "coreboot" trademark? In that case,
>> making the trademark case-insensitive makes sense.
>>
>
> So currently the only reason lowercase coreboot is enforced is because
> that's how the trademark was obtained.
> I'm using the argument that trademark interpretation is typically broad
> and allows for using an uppercase letter at the start of a sentence since
> that's what grammatical rules want.
> So I think "Coreboot" is very much covered by the "coreboot" trademark.
>
> Arthur Heymans
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:19 PM Angel Pons <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 3:48 PM Arthur Heymans <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi
>> >
>> > The coreboot trademark is registered as lowercase.
>> > We enforce this in for instance commits, even when normal grammar would
>> dictate uppercase at the start of a sentence.
>> >
>> > This makes sense for very well known brands, companies and products
>> like "eBay", "iPhone", "AMD". They are all very well known trademarks and
>> they have some uppercase letter in them in atypical places. For these words
>> grammar exceptions seems reasonable.
>> >
>> > Coreboot is a reasonably well known as a project, but little people
>> know about the specificity of the trademark. This often causes confusion on
>> people either reading "coreboot" at the start of a sense, where it looks
>> grammatically wrong, making it even look unprofessional in the eyes of
>> some. This is because there is no other uppercase letter inside coreboot
>> that would make it a typical exception to regular grammar rules.
>> >
>> > People getting into the project making the mistake at the start of a
>> sentence, might get the wrong impression of too many idiosyncrasies. On top
>> of that it takes a non zero amount of effort on people in the project to
>> educate others on this trademark thing.
>> >
>> > Also trademark are typically a bit more broad than exactly how they are
>> registered. I cannot start a company called iNTel or aMD that makes chips.
>> I cannot put a product on the market called "IPHoNE". I think the same
>> applies to "coreboot".
>> >
>> > So my question is: can we relax the trademark in lowercase enforcement?
>> I would suggest to simply allow both ways.
>>
>> I am not sure if I understood you correctly.
>>
>> Are you proposing to give up trying to defend the spelling of the
>> project's name because too many people write it wrong and educating
>> them is too much effort? If so, I think this is a self-defeating
>> attitude and I completely disagree with it.
>>
>> Or is it that the trademark only covers the all-lowercase "coreboot"
>> spelling, so one can use a name like "CoReboot" (e.g. for something
>> unrelated) without infringing the "coreboot" trademark? In that case,
>> making the trademark case-insensitive makes sense.
>>
>> Or is it something else? Then... *confused noises*
>>
>> > Arthur Heymans
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > coreboot mailing list -- [email protected]
>> > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Angel
>>
> _______________________________________________
> coreboot mailing list -- [email protected]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
>

_______________________________________________
coreboot mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]