> trademarks. In May, MySQL AB unilaterally decided the contract was no
longer
> valid, and started proceedings to take away our trademark rights. After
Actually, the rights would belong to MySQL AB unless the contract was
drawn up horribly.
> past June, to give us back the trademark rights we had purchased.
I would also assume that they did not "purchase" the TM rights, but were
given
some form of limited rights to use MySQL AB's rights (which MySQL AB
owns).
> don't have the rights to the trademarks, can't finance the mysql.org
> non-profit organization, and have broken their (GPL) software licensing
The first is probably a fun piece of contract lawyer arguing, but seems
silly enough. Financing mysql.org was considered a problem, AFAICS,
because it didn't clearly point out that it wasn't run by MySQL AB or
acknowledge the latter's ownership of the name.
> First, the contract specifically gives us the rights to the
trademarks
Does anyone know if this contract available for viewing online anywhere?
> 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.
So Gemini in its current distribution style would be a derivative work of
Progress' database software and MySQL ... it comes down to how its linked
and the GPL's enforcability.
> If, in some miscarriage of justice, we were to lose the case,
That's not a great way to get judges on your side ... ;-)
> 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.
Which begs the question of how valuable this lawsuit is to NuSphere then.
If all they'll gain is naming rights and an easier distribution of MySQL,
where
is the value?
--
Michael T. Babcock, IANAL
http://www.fibrespeed.net/~mbabcock/
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