I'm not saying they weren't very nice...I agree it could have been handled
in a much less friendly manner...lawyers never cease to amuse me.
Of course, when we pick a new name, I'm going to have to figure out a
different name for The Shire to go with it...maybe I'll call it "Live Dog"
or "Undead Hamster" or "Flushed Fish"... :-D
-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:user-ce4a2c883f75@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 10:32 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: Re: [hobbit] Don't make the pie higher! (was: RE: [hobbit]
"Hobbit" name legal stuff; slight name change will happen)
In <user-d062d12d4337@xymon.invalid> "Hobbit
User in Richmond" <user-24d6f8323faa@xymon.invalid> writes:
On Mon, August 4, 2008 09:00, Galen Johnson wrote:
After reading the letters, it looked to me that as soon as they found
out
they couldn't pin anyone down to get a slice of the ephemeral pie, they
decided that the name should be changed.
Well, as a PHB who's also a Linux lead, the way I read the letters is that
as soon as they found out they couldn't pin anyone down to commit to not
selling slices of their client's pie and not giving any more of it away
than was already the case, they wanted a name change. I thought the
attitude was quite refreshing after seeing decades worth of threatening
cease-and-desist letters.
I agree. I think they have been treated me nicely; they could have just
sent me a "stop-doing-this-or-we'll-sue-you-now" letter. They didn't,
and in fact they have been generous to suggest a couple of possible
name changes that I could do which would keep them happy.
Add to this that they actually knew what I was talking about, when I
told them that Hobbit is an Open Source product, so there is no money
involved.
They have a trademark to defend, and one of the rules of that game is
that they MUST react when they become aware of possible violations of
their trademark; if they don't, then they can forfeit their ownership
of the trademark. So they have to do something, and I think they handled
this nicely.
Sure - having to rename everythin IS annoying, but I should have thought
about that when I first picked the name.
Regards,
Henrik