Re: Upstream project renamed for trademark reasons: Rename project in Stretch too?

[Matthias Klumpp]

2017-03-15 20:07 GMT+01:00 Emilio Pozuelo Monfort :
> On 13/03/17 14:06, Matthias Klumpp wrote:
>> Hello!
>> I ran into an interesting problem with the Terminix package[1].
>>
>> Upstream was sent a trademark infringement letter from a lawyer of
>> Terminix, a pest control company, asking upstream to rename the
>> project, which they did now.
>> (See [2] for details)
>> Aside from the issue whether the trademark actually is valid for
>> software as well, I wonder whether we should rename the project in
>> Debian for the Stretch release like upstream did.
>>
>> If the claims are substantial, we might get a "don't use that name"
>> letter from the same company as well, since we'd be distributing
>> Terminix under it's old name, making this - kind of - an RC bug.
>> On the other hand, the software was released under the original name,
>> so maybe having it in Stretch under that name is fine?
>>
>> I never faced this issue before, has something like this happened
>> already in the past?
>> Any advice on whether and how this should be resolved would be highly
>> appreciated!
>>
>> If this trademark violation is equivalent to a RC bug, the only way it
>> could be solved would be switching to a new upstream release (patching
>> in a new name isn't really feasible, since the name is used pretty
>> much everywhere, from filenames to settings and strings in the code).
>
> That's odd, but if upstream got renamed, I have no objections in following 
> suit,
> assuming the diff is reasonable (i.e. reasonable changes other than the 
> rename).

That sounds good! Unfortunately though, Terminix hasn't been updated
in Stretch initially because the LDC package it depends on had a RC
bug[1], and now it is again affected by a more subtle bug in LDC[2].
This means that the diff between stretch and the updated package in
Unstable will be huge, unfortunately.
I uploaded the renamed package to unstable now though, since the
previous upstream version in there was already higher (thanks to[1]),
so having it there won't do harm.

I might file an unbock request for Tilix at a later point (after
having it tested in unstable for a while), but given the large diff
getting it actually unblocked is less likely, I think :-/

The whole situation sucks, I never thought that this stuff would cause
that much post-freeze trouble.
In any case, thanks for the feedback! :-)

Cheers,
Matthias

[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=850958
[2]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=857085

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Re: Upstream project renamed for trademark reasons: Rename project in Stretch too?

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

On 13/03/17 14:06, Matthias Klumpp wrote:
> Hello!
> I ran into an interesting problem with the Terminix package[1].
> 
> Upstream was sent a trademark infringement letter from a lawyer of
> Terminix, a pest control company, asking upstream to rename the
> project, which they did now.
> (See [2] for details)
> Aside from the issue whether the trademark actually is valid for
> software as well, I wonder whether we should rename the project in
> Debian for the Stretch release like upstream did.
> 
> If the claims are substantial, we might get a "don't use that name"
> letter from the same company as well, since we'd be distributing
> Terminix under it's old name, making this - kind of - an RC bug.
> On the other hand, the software was released under the original name,
> so maybe having it in Stretch under that name is fine?
> 
> I never faced this issue before, has something like this happened
> already in the past?
> Any advice on whether and how this should be resolved would be highly
> appreciated!
> 
> If this trademark violation is equivalent to a RC bug, the only way it
> could be solved would be switching to a new upstream release (patching
> in a new name isn't really feasible, since the name is used pretty
> much everywhere, from filenames to settings and strings in the code).

That's odd, but if upstream got renamed, I have no objections in following suit,
assuming the diff is reasonable (i.e. reasonable changes other than the rename).

Cheers,
Emilio

Upstream project renamed for trademark reasons: Rename project in Stretch too?

[Matthias Klumpp]

Hello!
I ran into an interesting problem with the Terminix package[1].

Upstream was sent a trademark infringement letter from a lawyer of
Terminix, a pest control company, asking upstream to rename the
project, which they did now.
(See [2] for details)
Aside from the issue whether the trademark actually is valid for
software as well, I wonder whether we should rename the project in
Debian for the Stretch release like upstream did.

If the claims are substantial, we might get a "don't use that name"
letter from the same company as well, since we'd be distributing
Terminix under it's old name, making this - kind of - an RC bug.
On the other hand, the software was released under the original name,
so maybe having it in Stretch under that name is fine?

I never faced this issue before, has something like this happened
already in the past?
Any advice on whether and how this should be resolved would be highly
appreciated!

If this trademark violation is equivalent to a RC bug, the only way it
could be solved would be switching to a new upstream release (patching
in a new name isn't really feasible, since the name is used pretty
much everywhere, from filenames to settings and strings in the code).

Cheers,
Matthias

[1]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/terminix
[2]: https://github.com/gnunn1/tilix/issues/815

-- 
I welcome VSRE emails. See http://vsre.info/