On 29 Jul 2005 03:42:09 -0700, Randal L. Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>>> "Joshua" == Joshua Schmidlkofer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Joshua> We don't have a problem. People complaining have the problem. Go > Joshua> away. Be healed. > > The problem is that you *usurped* the name of an established group. > This pollutes the namespace. Sure, it isn't *your* problem. You're > just the one being the polluter.
Let's say (hypothetically) that we have two groups, A and B. If B were to claim legal entitlement to A's name well after B was founded, what would you say to that? I suspect you'd say that was pretty unethical, sneaky and underhanded. Dave Mandel registered the name "PORTLAND LINUX/UNIX GROUP" with the state of Oregon in November of 1999. Had PDXLUG used that name after that time, Dave Mandel would have a legitimate beef. But we didn't. Dave Mandel *also* registered the name "PORTLAND LINUX USERS GROUP" with the state of Oregon, but did so in July 2003... well after PDXLUG was making use of it. It's fairly clear that the fact that we *were* using it inspired the registration. The point of name registration is to make it clear which names are in use by whom. There is some degree of passive entitlement to existing usage, but not much. If PLUG only claimed passive entitlement, that might be something... but PLUG really can't have it both ways here. Either you were entitled to that name when we started using it or you weren't. Dave's actions suggest that he knows you weren't. > If someone new started writing books with the name "Randal L. Schwartz", > you don't think I'd have a right to wonder the motivation? If someone were to trademark the name Randal L. Schwartz and attempt to prevent *you* from using it, you might have something to say about it. That's a closer analogy to what's going on here. But you have absolutely no expectation of preventing another person named Randal Schwartz from deciding to enter the technical writing field. Sorry to break it to you. FWIW, Dylan _______________________________________________ PDXLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdxlug IRC: irc.freenode.net #pdxlug
