:: Re: [DNG] Devuan, Firefox and Apuls…
Etusivu
Poista viesti
Vastaa
Lähettäjä: Rick Moen
Päiväys:  
Vastaanottaja: dng
Aihe: Re: [DNG] Devuan, Firefox and Apulse
Quoting Miroslav Rovis (miro.rovis@???):

> > Quoting zap (calmstorm@???):
> > >
> > > On 09/23/2017 10:35 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> ...
> > If interested in this area of law, see: 'Trademark Law' on
> > http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Licensing_and_Law/
> >
> > (I was one of the editors of _Linux Gazette_ magazine when SSC, Inc.,
> > then publishers of _Linux Journal_, attempted to push us around using
> > trademark-based threats. We called their bluff. We won.)
>
> Rick, I briefly looked up:
> http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Licensing_and_Law/
> but there's no mention of that specific case of trademark-based threats. None
> of the words to be found in all the links at iusmentis.com, justinsomnia.org
> nor audioholics.com that you gave under those paragraph on that page which
> contain the string "threat". No "journ" "Gaze" strings to be found in them.


It's covered in 'Trademark Law' on
http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Licensing_and_Law/ . (I hope you understand
that the cited link is part of a hierarchical information index, my site
knowledgebase.) Direct link to the indexed page is:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/trademark-law.html

I notice that domains iusmentis.com, justinsomnia.org, and audioholics.com
crop up in _other_ articles on that index.

Phil Hughes, CEO of SSC, Inc. and original publisher of _Linux Journal_,
never went so far as to file trademark litigation. Perhaps he knew he
was bluffing and did not actually own the monopoly rights he professed.
He blustered and suggested impending litigation quite a bit, and wrote
an e-mail to our domain registrar that claimed our domain
linuxgazette.net infringed SSC's (alleged) trademark rights. He also
spent US $330 on a US Federal trademark (service mark) registration
retroactively on our magazine's name, which filing got dismissed because
he screwed it up.

We were preparing an opposition in the US Patent and Trademark Office
matter, challenging Phil's claim to have used the mark in commerce as
being knowingly false, when we heard that USPTO had denied his
application (but kept his $330). Even if Phil had secured his
trademark, and it survived our USPTO opposition filing, our magazine
inherently would still not be in violation, for two separately
compelling reasons:

(1) _Linux Gazette_ was not a commercial magazine.
(2) Also, upon commencement of threats from SSC, Inc., I immediately
appended to all issues of our magazine a disclaimer footer saying 'Linux
Gazette is not produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC,
Inc.'

Both of these facts ensured that the magazine could not possibly
infringe a (hypothetical) SSC trademark, because they addressed the
essence of trademark infringement, which is the legal claim that a
commercial competitor is wrongfully using your distinctive marks in
commerce, in connection with competing goods or services, in a way
likely to mislead your customers into thinking you produced or endorsed
the competitor's goods or services. The point is that any third-party
use that for any reason does _not_ create that potential confusion via
competing commercial offerings is inherently non-infringing by
definition.

Last, I really utterly sunk the basis of Phil's claim of a commercial
right when I had the idea of writing to _Linux Gazette_ founder Dr. John
Fisk and asking him if he'd conveyed any commercial rights to SSC, Inc.
when accepting SSC's offer of Web hosting many years before. He said
absolutely not -- that his and SSC's clear understanding was that it was
to remain a purely non-commercial magazine.

I dropped that correspondence like a bombshell into the then-ongoing
controversy over the _Linux Gazette_ matter at LWN.net, where a bunch of
legally ignorant computerists were fervently advising us editors to
capitualate immediately befored the big, horrible corporation crushed us
for imagining that we had any right to publish a magazine. It shut most
of them right up, even the ones claiming the other editors and I were
foolish for thinking that an (alleged) trademark owner enjoyed less than
absolute monopoly over a name.




> And I got:
>
> > > > General Protection Fault--404 Error!


> Nice joke!


Why, thank you.

I'll have to look up my httpd configuration as to why https
isn't handled for knowledgebase index pages. I haven't given out https
URLs for the knowledgebase's pages, in part because IMO it's pointless
on completely public content lacking need for attestation.