On Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:33 am, Random832 wrote: > On Wed, Mar 23, 2016, at 05:03, Steven D'Aprano wrote: >> https://medium.com/@azerbike/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules-9045c06be67c >> >> Of course, moving his allegedly infringing package "kik" to github isn't >> going to fix the problem. It's still allegedly infringing. > > I think the issue, and it is a reasonable one, is that this was not > determined in a court of law. It's not actually clear to me that it's > infringing or not (yes, they're both computer programs, but they do very > different things, so it's not clear if they are or that they ought to be > the "same area"), and it's arguably something that Kik Interactive Inc. > should have had to actually sue him for rather than demanding a third > party to arbitrarily mess with his stuff. > > And there's also the fact that corporations apparently have absolutely > no concept of how to properly communicate with someone to ask them to > change something or stop doing something.
I don't think this is the case at all. If the author of the package had tried to negotiate, and been rebuffed, he surely would have said so. "Look, I tried to be reasonable, but they wouldn't be reasonable, so I had no choice!". But that's not what his own account of the story shows. His account shows clearly: - He didn't bother to check to see whether the name was in use when he picked it. - The lawyers were polite but firm. - He apparently made no attempt to negotiate, just told them no. Twice. - His own account didn't dispute the possibility of confusion between two software packages with the same name. He could have argued "My software in a command-line tool for creating Javascript projects; yours is a chat client. There is no possibility of confusion between the two." But he gives no indication that he did this. It probably wouldn't do him much good if he made that argument, since the courts tend to use the "Moron in a hurry" test. If a stupid person who is not paying attention could be confused by the reuse of the name, then it shouldn't be allowed. They're both software, right? It's not like one was software and the other was a brand of chocolate biscuit. But, judging from his own story, it doesn't appear he even made that argument. Instead, it seems that his argument was simple: "No. Don't want to." So the lawyers did the right thing: instead of suing him, they approached the people hosting the software, and got them to take it down. There is a prima facie evidence of trademark infringement, and the alleged infringer has made no attempt to deny infringement, defend himself or rename the package, even when asked. So they took down *one* package. At which point, the author spat the dummy and took down 250 or so packages, including the one which brought Node.js to its knees. It's hard to feel sympathy for the guy when *his own account* of what took place makes him out to be a totally self-centred dick with poor impulse control. But now this is off-topic. There are difficult people in all programming language communities, and it could have been *any* package that was removed suddenly with no warning. What's more interesting is the difference between language communities which can easily weather such troubles or those that can't. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list