Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
The key thing here, if PTFS actually means what they say, is that they should assign the trademark APPLICATION over to HLT. Otherwise, the posture is really just trying to convince you not to contest their receiving the trademark, after which they can do wtf with it. This is a big deal to anybody that contributes to an OSS project (as I did with Koha for several years, at LibLime and elsewhere). Imagine a company like Rackspace trying to trademark "Apache" for some webserver software they happen to run and sell services on. You know, a project that entirely predates their involvement, has hundreds of previous committers, and has actually already been called Apache all this time. Koha predates LibLime. Its availability and the technical experience of staff at Athens County PL with Koha are the reasons why LibLime could even exist. It wasn't called something else, it wasn't a whitelabel platform or an unnamed research project, it was Koha. LibLime contributed massively to the codebase under GPL... to Koha. I don't see this in the framing a lot of the stories are giving it, namely "Large Culturally Insensitive U.S. Corporation vs. Small Friendly NZ Library". I see this a fundamental OSS governance issue. If you can't keep this kind of appropriation from happening here, then we're all just one patent/copyright/trademark squatter/troll away from being hijacked. How is it we can't just cite prior art and be done with it? --Joe Atzberger
Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Jonathan Rochkind > But I think it's worth drawing the community's attention to this issue. > Whether it's important that the Trust have the right to legally stop > someone from calling something "Koha" that isn't Koha (the trademark > owner is ultimately going to be the one that has the legal power to > decide what is "really" Koha or not. Which is what, i'm confident, has > LibLime worried, since some parts of the Koha community have already > accused LibLime of calling something "Koha" that is not.) I don't think many care about the Trust having that power, but LibLime having that power is a very scary thought. If they get this trademark, could they try to assert that Koha is only LLEKoha or LLAKoha or whatever their fork is now called and try to obstruct the user community release process? Except, of course, that LibLime is only the inheritor of the first developer, while the Trust is the first user, so the Trust should win out of those two: the buyer of that bespoke software came first. It's a pretty sorry state of affairs that the music+movies control freakery has led to processes that allow this sort of attempted software control freakery. Surely the buyer should have more say over what they call their purchase than the seller? Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
So, HLT says: ". The Library Trust has never stopped any Koha user or developer or vendor from carrying out their business. Our track record over the last 12 years of releasing the Koha code and supporting the Koha community to go about its business unimpeded is exemplary and we have no intention of ever changing that approach." And I believe and agree with them on that. But that press release doesn't say whether the Trust wants to maintain the right to legally stop someone from calling something "Koha" that isn't Koha at all. If the Trust and the Community has no desire to do that and will put it in writing, then I'm sure that would satisfy LibLime. If the Trust/Community do want to maintain that right, then I bet LibLime is going to want something in writing saying that LibLime at least can call their software "Koha" forever. I'm not LibLime, I'm just guessing/reading between the lines of course. Hopefully something can be worked out. But I think it's worth drawing the community's attention to this issue. Whether it's important that the Trust have the right to legally stop someone from calling something "Koha" that isn't Koha (the trademark owner is ultimately going to be the one that has the legal power to decide what is "really" Koha or not. Which is what, i'm confident, has LibLime worried, since some parts of the Koha community have already accused LibLime of calling something "Koha" that is not.) On 11/28/2011 12:06 PM, Chris Cormack wrote: On 29 November 2011 05:05, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: "hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand." Well, the point of having a trademark at all is generally to enforce it against people who are calling something that is _not_ Koha "Koha." Since LibLime is accused by the community of doing exactly that, that is precisely what they are worried about, and want to make sure they can call whatever they want Koha, regardless of whether the Koha Foundation or Koha community thinks it is Koha. And just to make it not look quite so bald, they say that not only LibLime, but _everyone_ should be able to call whatever they want "Koha" regardless of whether the community or foundation believes it is Koha. It is not that surprising that this would not be acceptable to the Koha community. http://koha-community.org/update-2/ Chris
Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On 29 November 2011 05:05, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: > "hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, > organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New > Zealand." > > Well, the point of having a trademark at all is generally to enforce it > against people who are calling something that is _not_ Koha "Koha." > > Since LibLime is accused by the community of doing exactly that, that is > precisely what they are worried about, and want to make sure they can call > whatever they want Koha, regardless of whether the Koha Foundation or Koha > community thinks it is Koha. And just to make it not look quite so bald, > they say that not only LibLime, but _everyone_ should be able to call > whatever they want "Koha" regardless of whether the community or foundation > believes it is Koha. > > It is not that surprising that this would not be acceptable to the Koha > community. > http://koha-community.org/update-2/ Chris
Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
"hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand." Well, the point of having a trademark at all is generally to enforce it against people who are calling something that is _not_ Koha "Koha." Since LibLime is accused by the community of doing exactly that, that is precisely what they are worried about, and want to make sure they can call whatever they want Koha, regardless of whether the Koha Foundation or Koha community thinks it is Koha. And just to make it not look quite so bald, they say that not only LibLime, but _everyone_ should be able to call whatever they want "Koha" regardless of whether the community or foundation believes it is Koha. It is not that surprising that this would not be acceptable to the Koha community. On 11/23/2011 4:09 PM, Kåre Fiedler Christiansen wrote: So, a press release from LibLime states the following: "Another one of the assets acquired in the purchase of LibLime was an application for the trademark of the term Koha as it applies to ILS software in New Zealand. That application has now been accepted. PTFS/LibLime will hold that trademark in trust as well, and will not enforce it in order to insure that no individual, organization, or company will be prohibited from promoting their services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime is prepared to transfer the trademark to a non-profit Koha Foundation with the provision that the Foundation hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime encourages a direct dialog with Koha stakeholders to determine an equitable solution for the disposition of the trademark that serves the best interests of the libraries who use Koha." That sounds promising. Has LibLime seen reason, or am I misinterpreting things? Best, Kåre -- Kaare Fiedler Christiansen - Software developer THE STATE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, Universitetsparken 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Phone: +45 89462036 Fra: Code for Libraries [CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] På vegne af Joe Hourcle [onei...@grace.nascom.nasa.gov] Sendt: 23. november 2011 19:03 Til: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Emne: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community On Nov 23, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote: LibLime A Division of PTFS, Inc. Main Office 11501 Huff Court North Bethesda, Maryland 20895 tel: (301) 654-8088 Ext. 127 fax: (301) 654-5789 email: kohai...@liblime.com Twitter: @liblime How about we all contact them? ;) Our contacting them isn't as effective as their customers contacting them. You can get a list of known Koha installations from lib-web-cats: http://www.librarytechnology.org/map.pl?ILS=Koha Which lists over 1200 sites ... the Library Journal, when they covered the purchase of LibLime last year, only mentioned that they had about 1/2 of those (140 libraries thought PTFS, 500 from LibLime): http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6714841.html Although, I don't know if the lib-web-cats is libraries, or whole library systems. You could get specific names of LibLime customers by looking through their website for testimonials scattered on the site, or get their more recent clients through the press releases in their 'news' feed: http://www.liblime.com/news- -Joe
Re: [CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On 24 November 2011 10:09, Kåre Fiedler Christiansen wrote: > So, a press release from LibLime states the following: > > "Another one of the assets acquired in the purchase of LibLime was an > application for the trademark of the term Koha as it applies to ILS software > in New Zealand. That application has now been accepted. PTFS/LibLime will > hold that trademark in trust as well, and will not enforce it in order to > insure that no individual, organization, or company will be prohibited from > promoting their services around Koha in New Zealand. > > PTFS/LibLime is prepared to transfer the trademark to a non-profit Koha > Foundation with the provision that the Foundation hold the trademark in trust > and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who > chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime > encourages a direct dialog with Koha stakeholders to determine an equitable > solution for the disposition of the trademark that serves the best interests > of the libraries who use Koha." > > That sounds promising. Has LibLime seen reason, or am I misinterpreting > things? > This sounds even more promising http://diligentroom.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-exemplar-of-stupid-koha-vs-liblime-trademark/#comment-1761 >From Liblime: "Here’s PTFS/LibLime’s press release about the matter: http://www.liblime.com/ptfsliblime-granted-provisional-use-of-koha-trademark-in-new-zealand The TL;DR is: this was inherited—by surprise—from the previous owners. We don’t know their intentions then, but we know ours now. We’ll hand the NZ trademark off to a non-profit (including HLT) who agrees to continue our practice of protecting non-exclusive use of the name." So now they can sign the application over to HLT who I am sure can make that promise and we can have this thing resolved in a couple of days. (HLT has been elected by the community to hold community property in trust (after the koha.org mess), as the they are a not for profit Trust, and Biblibre had transferred the EU TM to them already, so it makes perfect sense to just transfer the application to them, problem solved.) Chris
[CODE4LIB] SV: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
So, a press release from LibLime states the following: "Another one of the assets acquired in the purchase of LibLime was an application for the trademark of the term Koha as it applies to ILS software in New Zealand. That application has now been accepted. PTFS/LibLime will hold that trademark in trust as well, and will not enforce it in order to insure that no individual, organization, or company will be prohibited from promoting their services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime is prepared to transfer the trademark to a non-profit Koha Foundation with the provision that the Foundation hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime encourages a direct dialog with Koha stakeholders to determine an equitable solution for the disposition of the trademark that serves the best interests of the libraries who use Koha." That sounds promising. Has LibLime seen reason, or am I misinterpreting things? Best, Kåre -- Kaare Fiedler Christiansen - Software developer THE STATE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, Universitetsparken 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Phone: +45 89462036 Fra: Code for Libraries [CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] På vegne af Joe Hourcle [onei...@grace.nascom.nasa.gov] Sendt: 23. november 2011 19:03 Til: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Emne: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community On Nov 23, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote: > LibLime > A Division of PTFS, Inc. > Main Office > > 11501 Huff Court > North Bethesda, Maryland 20895 > > tel: (301) 654-8088 Ext. 127 > fax: (301) 654-5789 > email: kohai...@liblime.com > > Twitter: @liblime > > How about we all contact them? ;) Our contacting them isn't as effective as their customers contacting them. You can get a list of known Koha installations from lib-web-cats: http://www.librarytechnology.org/map.pl?ILS=Koha Which lists over 1200 sites ... the Library Journal, when they covered the purchase of LibLime last year, only mentioned that they had about 1/2 of those (140 libraries thought PTFS, 500 from LibLime): http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6714841.html Although, I don't know if the lib-web-cats is libraries, or whole library systems. You could get specific names of LibLime customers by looking through their website for testimonials scattered on the site, or get their more recent clients through the press releases in their 'news' feed: http://www.liblime.com/news- -Joe
