Jean-Marc Liotier wrote > Is a cease & desist letter all it takes for the OSMF to cave in to silly > demands from random parties ? Can't we at least make a symbolic stand > and let the aggressor escalate before we capitulate ? From a purely > material point of view, that would be cheap publicity for the project. > > I thought that a free software project such as Openstreetmap (yes - > geographic data is software too) would have, out of its principles, > shown a stronger backbone under such disgusting pressure. I am > disappointed.
Do you really want the OSMF to gamble all of OSM's server infrastructure and other resources on a random legal battle about a possibly invalid trademark? Particularly without first a thorough due diligence of getting qualified legal advice from their counsel? These trademark issues seem have the potential to quickly escalate to $100.000s of dollars in cost. Either for legal fees or for damage fees if one looses. That is more or at least on the order of the entire assets of the OSMF. Is it really worth that risk to "show a stronger backbone"? Particularly as it isn't impossible to first comply and then if after thorough consideration or due to negotiations with the originator the matter is resolved reinstate those changes. So far I have seen no changes that actually negatively impact the project in any real way other than for ideological reasons. So complying in the short term doesn't seem to be an immediate problem. That said, I do hope the board will work intensely together with legal counsel and the rest of the community to find a way to dismiss these seemingly ridiculous claims (although I don't yet understand what exactly the issue is or what the C&D actually covers). Given the genericness of the term geocode, I would assume that a number of larger companies might equally be effected who have much more resources than OSMF to defend against these claims. Or a another question is what is different about the use in OSM that they specifically targeted the OSMF? Kai -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Recent-edits-in-the-wiki-Trademark-issue-tp5747591p5747777.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
