In response to your previous question, I was trying to say that by creating a legal entity, you may be giving a focus point for litigation. That was more of a devil's advocate point of view and not necessarily my own. I think that overall, a foundation would be good.. as it has been for Blender ( www.blender.org .
I think that your example below is not a very good one for this case. BMW is a globally known name such as Pepsi or IBM that could be successfully litigated under trademark dilution. Based on googling "lazarus", I would conclude that no one company or product could bring any type of dilution proceedings against us. If there is not a dilution case, it falls back to the original intent of trademarks, consumer protection.. are we trying to deceive users into believing that they are receiving another, trademarked product? If not, the whole compensation portion goes away. You are still left with the possibility of a cease and desist type situation, but by having the foundation named in a more generic fashion ( Open and Portable Software Development Foundation ), you could cross that bridge (change the name of lazarus) if it ever became a real problem. Matt On 8/8/07, David Lyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Marc Weustink wrote: > > As one of the early Lazarus developers, I feel the time to react. > Hi Marc, > > Well I will be as polite as I possibly can :-) > > I'm going to try to answer your questions... but the answers are a bit > dark... > > sorry for that in advance > > > > > IMO, a foundation is for supporting lazarus and not for marketing. > > IMO, the foundations should not be called Lazarus but something > > related to lazarus. > That's fine. > > > > again IMO, I don't see the need for trademarking the name lazarus. > > We're not selling a product. We're creating it. > The problem is that somebody else somewhere else already has paid the > government for the rights in the market to use the name. > > Creating is ok. Giving it away to the public though might be illegal. > > I will try to explain with a simple explanation.. > > Say a fellow, let's call him Hans, has a clever moment one day and adds > a motor to a push-bike... brilliant... > > Nothing wrong so far.... > > He spends months working on that bike and one night at 1.45am he paints > on the side of the bike.... bmw..... > > still no problem.... absolutely no problem at all... looks nicer than a > bought one he thinks.. > > all the friends like it and he makes one for all his friends... still no > problem > > then, somebody he doesn't know, asks for one and one thing leads to > another and he starts giving them away... for free - mind you - at the > local market.... > > now there is a problem.... a big problem > > The real company, the trademark owner finds out. Suddenly a superior > bike is appearing needing less spare parts. > > What Hans has been doing is making something and giving it away to the > public using somebody elses trademark. > > The Trademark owner spends 70 euros and gets an order from the local > court to shut Hans down. > > But it gets worse. They do some dodgy numbers and try to run it by the > judge. > > They demand compensation based on the retail price of the top of the > line bike for every model Hans made and gave away. > > They then look at growth rates across the country. They find Hans's city > isn't at the top. So they add the difference between the top city and > Hans city onto the compensation bill for Hans to pay. Why not blame Hans > for that ? > > It comes to a very large number. > > Hans is now in very big trouble. Hans goes to court but can't beat the > expensive lawyers. > > Hans tries to fight for his right to give away motorbikes but ends up > losing his home, car, wife and kids, and friends. > > Being in another country is no longer an excuse. Even if I am in > Australia, I can't put those magic three letters on any form of bike and > sell or even give them away. > > So whoever owns the trademark, owns the word exclusively for that type > of product. That is the way it is... > > > What if someone else trademarks a lazarus ide ? Would all my code be > > void or owned by someone else ? No. Its still ours. > Open source is different than motor bikes. > > But in the theoretical Hans case, he might be forced by the court to > stop working on motor bikes for a period of ten years, in return for not > going to jail for 5 years. > > Not sure what the maximum penalty for trademark infringement is, but I > would be surprised if a jail term wasn't possible. > > > Would it stop me, no. > :-) > > how much is a trademark in europe again ? split amonst how many people ? > seems rather cheap to me... price of a bus ticket isn't it ? > > Anyway, we're just discussing things, and these are just theoritical > situations. > > The real problem here, if you missed the point, is that (your) software > is getting too good to give away freely. It has to have a unique makers > stamp... don't spoil it with a name that was found in the street... > > Regards > > David > > _________________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > "unsubscribe" as the Subject > archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives >
