News from NuSphere -- #8This came from the NuSphere newsletter sent today.
I would like hear from MySQL AB on this issue again since nothing has been
said since the two company meet.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 1:48 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: News from NuSphere
<snip>
News from NuSphere
Tuesday, August, 14 2001
The monthly newsletter of www.nusphere.com
Topics this month:
a.. NuSphere Forced to Sue MySQL AB: A Note from NuSphere's
President, Lorne Cooper
</snip>
<snip>
NuSphere Forced to Sue MySQL AB: A Note from NuSphere's President,
Lorne Cooper
In June of 2000 we signed a contract with MySQL AB. In exchange for a
large sum of money, NuSphere acquired rights to various "mysql" related
trademarks. In May, MySQL AB unilaterally decided the contract was no longer
valid, and started proceedings to take away our trademark rights. After
considerable unproductive negotiations, we were forced to sue MySQL AB, this
past June, to give us back the trademark rights we had purchased. MySQL AB
has filed counterclaims against us and our parent company, alleging that we
don't have the rights to the trademarks, can't finance the mysql.org
non-profit organization, and have broken their (GPL) software licensing
rules. None of these are true.
We've been quiet up to now, believing that public arguing will only
make it harder to eventually resolve the problem. MySQL AB has been more
vocal, and some of our customers, having only heard their side of the story,
have asked us to elaborate.
First, the contract specifically gives us the rights to the
trademarks. The agreement does not give MySQL AB the right to unilaterally
terminate the agreement. Would you buy something the seller could get back
any time they wanted?
Second, we can, and have, provided support and funding for the
non-profit "mysql.org" initiative. Mysql.org is committed to improving the
mysql product without being hampered by commercial considerations, just like
Apache.org, Linux.org, Perl.org, PostgreSQL.org, etc. We want the best open
source products, and will continue to support the open source community.
Third, MySQL AB claims that Gemini is a "derivative work" of MySQL,
and thus cannot be sold by NuSphere. Most of Gemini was licensed from
Progress Software, where it has been in use for over ten years. Gemini
copyrights date back to 1985. That software developed from 1985-1994 can be
derivative of software first written in 1994 is ridiculous.
Some people have asked, "Sure you have a strong case, but you never
know. What if you lose?" Well, we will certainly win the lawsuit. We
wouldn't be suing if we weren't sure we were in the right. If, in some
miscarriage of justice, we were to lose the case, our customers and our
company are not at risk. Our risk is limited to our naming of our products,
our method of installing the MySQL portion of our software and some
relatively small amount of money. You, our customers, have no risk at all.
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