In fairness, trademarks don't have to be registered to be trademarks (edit: as cassidyjames said, but I skimmed over). Also:
> but I absolutely do not want to go the legal threat route and that's not what this issue was; this issue is me requesting you respect the elementary name and don't use it for something that is not produced by elementary. Because as we've seen repeatedly in the past, it causes real user confusion about the source and endorsement of software.
Agreed, the request was very polite and seems totally reasonable. While I don’t think you can call digging up public fillings dox-ing, I don’t see any reason for the developer not to respect the request.
> No. In the United States, parties are not required to register their marks to obtain protectable rights. You can establish "common law" rights in a mark based solely on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration.
I have read that the US is also "first use" and not "first to file", eliminating a race to registration.
Yup, I also made a comment saying that we are absolutely not threatening legal action, nobody here is a lawyer, and it's only a request. So he deleted it
This has certainly soured my view of the Elementary OS project. Someone has created a project to help himself and other users and chose an obvious name for it, then a representative from the company behind it wants the name changed and threatens legal action if they don't?
Regardless of the actual trademark status at hand, they decided that they would rather burn a bridge with a dedicated user who spent their free time to improve their product and in a way to provoke fear of legal costs. Why wouldn't he look for supporting data to offset that legal threat?
They're literally abusing the power imbalance in this situation to try to get things done their way, and I don't understand how anyone in here is siding with them?
There was never any legal threat, in fact I try to clarify that repeatedly. The user kept steering it to a poor understanding of trademark law and then publicly uploaded documents with a physical address in response.
This user has been repeatedly disruptive in the subreddit and Slack before this incident, and then they go and publicly doxx someone? There is zero tolerance for that behavior.
The response from the repo owner is so bizarre. I believe Cassidy presented his viewpoint (on behalf of the org) pretty straightforward and "nicely", and it feels like the repo maintainer is just trying to play the technicality/gotcha game, and not respond to the original request.
From a discussion standpoint, krisives is indirectly saying they don't believe there's a valid trademark in here, and so they're indirectly saying they don't want to change the name. OK. If you have no intentions of complying with the polite request, just say so. It's sort of a jerk move (in my opinion), but OK I guess. Then elementary can bring about legal stuff if they wanna go that route. Why cause all this drama?
Also, this sort of thing happens quite often in the community, for open source projects and not. Being polite to other OSS maintainers goes a long way.
The user (who appears to have posted this link, btw, based on recent post history) has been disruptive in the subreddit and Slack in the past, and then literally started publicly doxxing _and_ going around to social media to draw public attention to the post. I messaged them on Slack and they ignored it, continued to post in the thread, and continued posting on social media to draw attention to it. There's zero tolerance for doxxing in the elementary community, so they've been banned in accordance to the elementary Code of Conduct.
I think it would solve the problem (basically impossible to believe it is official), and would be legal, at least where I live in the US (falls under "nominative use").
> We already have enough issues with people thinking the old “elementary Tweaks” was something official or made by elementary—which is why it was rebranded by its developer to “Pantheon Tweaks.” Creating a new project under the elementary name that is not made by elementary is inviting similar issues and could contribute to dilution of the elementary brand and trademarks.
The thread is a great example of what not to do in the open source community. I don't have much context but the conversation was disappointing to read.
[+] [-] wizzwizz4|4 years ago|reply
> but I absolutely do not want to go the legal threat route and that's not what this issue was; this issue is me requesting you respect the elementary name and don't use it for something that is not produced by elementary. Because as we've seen repeatedly in the past, it causes real user confusion about the source and endorsement of software.
[+] [-] aDfbrtVt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spinax|4 years ago|reply
Page 11
> Is federal registration of my mark required?
> No. In the United States, parties are not required to register their marks to obtain protectable rights. You can establish "common law" rights in a mark based solely on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration.
I have read that the US is also "first use" and not "first to file", eliminating a race to registration.
[+] [-] jaywalk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanRabbit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ISV_Damocles|4 years ago|reply
Regardless of the actual trademark status at hand, they decided that they would rather burn a bridge with a dedicated user who spent their free time to improve their product and in a way to provoke fear of legal costs. Why wouldn't he look for supporting data to offset that legal threat?
They're literally abusing the power imbalance in this situation to try to get things done their way, and I don't understand how anyone in here is siding with them?
[+] [-] cassidyjames|4 years ago|reply
This user has been repeatedly disruptive in the subreddit and Slack before this incident, and then they go and publicly doxx someone? There is zero tolerance for that behavior.
[+] [-] nicholashead|4 years ago|reply
From a discussion standpoint, krisives is indirectly saying they don't believe there's a valid trademark in here, and so they're indirectly saying they don't want to change the name. OK. If you have no intentions of complying with the polite request, just say so. It's sort of a jerk move (in my opinion), but OK I guess. Then elementary can bring about legal stuff if they wanna go that route. Why cause all this drama?
Also, this sort of thing happens quite often in the community, for open source projects and not. Being polite to other OSS maintainers goes a long way.
[+] [-] ddtaylor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staysafeanon|4 years ago|reply
Banned krisives from their Slack instance (where they told him to DM them) and also banned him from the elementaryos subreddit.
Now this story has been [flagged] here.
Orwellian. I will never touch anything elementaryos.
[+] [-] cassidyjames|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmeacham98|4 years ago|reply
I think it would solve the problem (basically impossible to believe it is official), and would be legal, at least where I live in the US (falls under "nominative use").
[+] [-] rzzzt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddtaylor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cassidyjames|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phendrenad2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lp0_on_fire|4 years ago|reply
> https://elementary.io/brand
> Please rename this project to something that does not include the elementary name to avoid similar issues.
I don't see how that's hostile.
[+] [-] slenk|4 years ago|reply
(bad puns, seeing myself out)
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] huibf|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] notyourwork|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Razengan|4 years ago|reply