Re: [Zope] Re: Zope Foundation Update
I would like to inform that ZEA is in the process to transfer the trademark to Zope Corporation. A number of actions will be taken including the preparation of the list of expenses to secure the trademark, and meetings with our trademark expert to work on the administrative details. We would like to emphasize that no action taken by Zope Europe Association are illegal from a European perspective. As said earlier, our action was aimed at securing the mark stopping third party registrations. Best regards,Xavier HeymansCEO, Zope Europe AssociationOn 21-juil.-05, at 14:35, Hadar Pedhazur wrote:"George Donnelly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:dbmpjp$kl8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]... ZC says: the marks were stolenZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively. I am amazed at how people pick and choose what to read andrepeat, and what to ignore. I will mix in a few quotes froma few posts responding to my note yesterday to highlightthis problem.After this post, unless someone makes a profound newstatement, I will remain silent, as many of you haverequested, and complete the trademark challenge processthrough the official channels that have already begun.George, others have already replied to this, but Rob haswritten about this as well before, so I'm surprised thatthis is still a question. A defensive registration of _our_trademark should have been _explicitly_ called to ourattention. In fact, any reasonable company would havealerted us to any specific danger, and asked us if _we_intended to register our trademarks in the appropriatejurisdiction.Beyond that point, _we_ are the first registrants of theZOPE trademark in WIPO. ZEA registered our LOGO, not theword ZOPE, which we registered _before_ they registered theLOGO. So, everyone, please pay attention. We did _not_ignore our trademark rights in Europe. We registered ourbase trademark, the word ZOPE, in a number of countries inEurope. ZEA then registered our LOGO (taken from ourwebsite), including the name ZOPE in it (which we hadalready registered).I am truly unsure as to how to make this point any clearer. My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem goingon here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what theZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry? There isn't really a communication problem here (though itwould wonderful if there was). There is a backtracking and arewriting of history going on, because ZEA got caught withtheir hands in our cookie jar. They could have settled thisincredibly quietly and quickly. Instead, they chose a paththat has led us here.We could have fought it silently too, so it's 100% true thatwe are the ones that brought this fight into the public. Onthe other hand, I can't imagine what would have happened ifthis private battle dragged on until January, and then wegot beaten up for missing the launch date on the Foundation,and only then alerted the community as to what was going on.So, we did what we thought was the most prudent thing, andalerted the community 2 days after we initiated thechallenge to their registration. I don't know how we couldhave been more transparent about it. ZC saying the marks were stolen seems a little over the top. What if ZEAregistered them defensively? if that's possible then ZEA should be giventhen benefit of the doubt and not be called a thief. If there was aneed to register them to protect "zope", then why didn't ZC do it? Read the above response again (and again if necessary). Moreimportantly, ask yourself why ZEA admitted to us during aphone call that they believe that there were deals that theycould not have won if they didn't control the mark? Nowextend that thought one more inch and ask yourself how theZope-based companies that they competed against in Europewould feel if they knew that this was a commercial leveragepoint for ZEA in winning against their bid?!?!?And again, read the above to see that our registration of themark "ZOPE" predates theirs. Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stopbroadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (forexample). Its making us all look childish. Indeed, we do look childish, and I'm perhaps _more_ to blamefor that escalation than others. That's why I will try tokeep this as my last communication (at least for a while) onthis topic. That said, a number of people responded sayingthat they were not only glad to be made aware of thisproblem, but were surprised that they didn't know about itsooner.The rhetoric (mine as well!) is louder than it should be,but I believe the issue(s) definitely needed to be aired, asit's utterly obvious that even the more basic of the "facts"are still misunderstood by a number of posters. As anexample, the repeated questioning of why we didn't registerour own marks in Europe, which we did. Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but alsoinappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around thesoftware we all love
[Zope] Zope trademark - ZEA point of view
This email is an answer to the questions raised by Rob Page in his email titled “Zope Foundation update”. It was posted on zope.org mailing list, Tuesday July 19, 2005. This document also tries to answer questions raised on the mailing list.Later in the document:Zope Corporation = ZCZope Europe Association = ZEAAbout ZEAZEA goals are to promote and develop the Zope technology. The association currently regroups 16 businesses from 9 countries, which are actively involved in the creation or promotion of the technology. As a non-profit, we are developing contact with users, private and public entities. Part of our focus is to provide an increased visibility of the Zope ecosystem.ZEA management is independent of the business interest. Paul and Xavier roles are to focus on commons issues. Due to a conflict of interest, Paul has not been involved in ZEA decision to register the trademark.A – Zope trademark : situation and facts1/ Europython, June 29, 2005I took the initiative to set-up a face-to-face meeting with Rob. During a 2 hours conversation, I presented ZEA goals, activities and their positive impact on Zope internationally. I explained that working on the Plone trademark, I found out that Zope trademark wasn’t protected and explained the reasons of the decision to register the mark. In his email on zope.org, Rob forgot to mention that ZEA openly provided these informations to ZC.2/ Reasons for registering the Zope trademark - 2003Q4At the end of 2003, there was unrest within the Community related to the trademark. ZC made clear statement that the trademark was protected, while it was not. Unknown entities had taken actions to register it in some countries. The decision of a defensive registration was taken among ZEA partners. The goal was to freeze the situation, with an agreement that ZEA wasn’t the right entity to hold the trademark in the long-term. The registration process started on January 5, 2004. Both our trademark expert and legal adviser agree that these registrations are not illegal as suggested by ZC.3/ Trademark registrationA trademark has to be registered and its status carefully followed. The underlying issues and risk can hardly be summarized in a few lines. ZEA has been advised by a trademark expert in the steps to follow. To reduce the risk of opposition by third parties, her advice was to register a “figurative trademark” = the mark and its logo, and not to advertise the process. For transparency, I accept to show evidences of the process to the Zope Community and if necessary organize a meeting with Dominique, the trademark expert (file about 100 pages). On July 12, during a mediation attempt, I made the same offer to ZC. My proposition was rejected.4/ Why Plone is currently under the name of ZEA?The Plone registration started before the Plone Foundation (PF) creation. The work was done on behalf of representatives of the Plone Community. The final transfer should be done by Q3Q42005, we are currently expecting documentation from the registration office. The PF is aware of the process.Having informed Rob about my involvement in the process (point1), I was surprised that he came up with this point on a Zope mailing list rather than contacting directly the PF. In the case of the PF, this situation didn’t delay the creation of the Foundation.5/ ZC contradictory statementsSome examples :-The statement that the trademark was protected in 2003, while it was not outside the US.-The ownership of the trademark seems to be a primary concern of ZC, at the same time ZEA and other registrations went unnoticed.The reasons of these contradictions aren’t clear today: lack of resources, misunderstanding of international laws, problem of expertise of their trademark expert?The fact is that leaving the trademark unregistered outside the US has put the Zope ecosystem at risk: other brands could have opposed the registration. It also weakens Rob point (July20) that « ZC is more likely to defend the trademark than a volunteer-led Foundation ».B - Concerns about Zope futureFor over 3 years I have been following the discussions about Zope, met a number of developers, businesses and users. Legal concerns including the trademark are ongoing topics brought up by a large number of persons (in and out ZEA). This situation is damaging the Zope Community and related activities. I believe it is time to tackle the roots of the problem or drop the topic. The Zope Community should own this decision.Since Europython (point1), I had a number of direct contacts with ZC. What struck me most is that:-the same word “Zope” (brand) is being used for different goals and objectives,-the unwillingness of ZC to talk about core issues.The 2 points of views :(a)- Zope community, businesses and usersWorldwide, Zope refers to “Zope the open source application server”. It is the brand of the technology originally presented to the public. Thousands of people are promoting it. The future of Zope relies on the ability to grow its ecosys
