On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 7:18 PM, James Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 6:11 PM, dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 6:48 PM, James Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: >> >>> It's not an ideal situation for these old drivers, but we need to be >>> careful here. And I'll admit that I'm not sufficiently motivated to >>> comb through all the driver zip files (I assume zip) and read all the >>> Readme & License files, just to see if we can redistribute them. I'll >>> leave that to someone with more free time. :-) >> >> Be careful of what? >> >> Generally speaking, people only really care when they think there is >> money involved. What money *could* be involved here? > > Careful, as in there seems to be a company out there that purchased > the IP from AST Research. I don't want to get a C&D letter from them, > or engage in anything that involves a legal defense. We just don't > have the resources to do anything against it.
I repeat, be careful of *what*? If you get as C&D letter from them, you take it down and apologize. You needn't hire a lawyer or engage in a resource-requiring defense. Such letters are warning shots. *They* would as soon not *take* you to court. That takes time and costs money. They would only do so if they saw a pot of gold at the end of a litigation rainbow. > Yes, companies don't tend to care unless there's money involved. But > in the case of trademark law, if you fail to defend attempted mis-use > of a trademark that you own, you automatically lose it. So companies > tend to police trademarks pretty aggressively. I'm aware of trademark law. It's why Xerox spent a ton of money over the years reminding people that Xerox was a company name and registered trademark, to try to prevent "xerox" from slipping into the public domain as a verb meaning "photocopy". But offering AST drivers from a website isn't a trademark infringement. You don't call the site AST anything, and you make clear that AST is a registered trademark (as far as you can tell) of Data Access in France, and no infringement is intended. Trademark infringement cases also have money involved. A trademark holder is attempting to either prevent someone else from doing business under (and getting the benefit of) their trademark, or to prevent confusion in the market. (I understand wrestler "Hulk" Hogan had to pay a license fee to Marvel comics to use the name Hulk.) > I'd rather err on the conservative side here, and not mix the AST > Research driver archives with the FreeDOS Project archives. I wasn't suggesting *you* do so: merely that it could be done without real risk. >> I'd put the drivers up on a website and let folks know they existed. >> The website would make it clear the drivers were archived there as a >> service for folks who happened to have the hardware, and were offered >> free of charge to those who could use them. I'd state that I was >> doing so because the manufacturers were out of business and the >> drivers could not be found elsewhere, and offer to take them down if >> someone who could demonstrate they were the rights holder objected. I >> would be rather surprised if any such rights holder came forward and >> complained. > > It's a good idea. But I'll let someone else take that project. :-) Your call. But I think it's doable without the sky falling on anyone's head. > -jh ______ Dennis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
