I agree we shouldn't move forward until we've come to an agreement on
the naming issue. I have no desire to start this project off with
this hanging over it. I have continued this thread on legal-discuss,
giving more context to hopefully get the best possible input there. I
will also start a discussion on the name once more amongst the initial
Howl developers, given that the concern seems to have shifted from
"you may need to fix this someday" to "you must fix this now".
Alan.
On Mar 8, 2011, at 6:30 PM, Alex Karasulu wrote:
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 3:51 AM, Ralph Goers <ralph.go...@dslextreme.com
>wrote:
On Mar 8, 2011, at 12:01 PM, Alex Karasulu wrote:
Hi Alan,
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Alan Gates <ga...@yahoo-inc.com>
wrote:
We are taking it seriously. We (Howl mentors and committers)
discussed
this and the consensus seemed to be we wanted to stay with the
name if
possible. The feedback on this list was mixed, with many for
changing
it
and some not worried about it. So we wanted to stick with it for
now
and
see how it went.
I'm not here to create a problem for y'all. Keep in mind I +1'd the
proposal
even though I had some reservations about all of you being
Yahoo'ers. You
can work on that in the incubator - no problem to diversify while
incubating.
I think the majority of those voting +1 for incubation wanted the
name
changed based on the concerns that were raised. I would be
concerned about
a release being done as howl while in the incubator and would
certainly vote
-1 to leaving it unless a) it is definitely determined that no
trademark
conflicts exist (this may require contacting the other parties and
getting
their permission) or b) the name is changed to something that
doesn't have
similar conflicts.
We might want to defer entry into the incubator until determining the
trademark issue if one exists. We're susceptible to the same negative
reactions from the current holders of the mark regardless of a
release. I
don't think many others outside the ASF can differentiate as well as
we do
the difference between an official ASF project and an incubating
project.
Also because others don't usually follow the same strenuous legal
diligence
that we do, I don't think releases are seen to be as important as
Apache
real estate hosting a project (even though incubating) with their
mark on
it. Both are going to be interpreted as equally insulting and quit
frankly a
clear case of infringement, not by the podling but by the ASF.
If we step back and think about it, it's just not cool to be hosting a
podling on ASF infrastructure especially when we know of another
open source
project's well established mark over 6 years previous to this project
proposal. As you probably already know, you don't have to file with
the
USPTO to own a mark. You just have to prove you were the first to
start
using it. If this was HOWL Furniture or HOWL Dog Food I can
understand, but
it's HOWL an open source software project. That puts us on more shaky
ethical ground.
The more I think about it, the more it's clear that we need to defer
entry
if the name does not change. We're not doing the ASF a service by
allowing
this project to incubate with such a trademark conflict in clear
sight. I
sorry but I am going to have to withdraw my +1 and replace it with a
-1
until this issue is resolved.
I hate to be the harbinger of such bad news but there's a simple fix
to this
problem. Let's at least hear back from legal-discuss@.
Best Regards,
Alex
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
