In <36304.192.168.0.1.1217859745.squirrel at epperson.homelinux.net> "Hobbit User in Richmond" <hobbit at epperson.homelinux.net> writes:
On Mon, August 4, 2008 09:00, Galen Johnson wrote:
After reading the letters, it looked to me that as soon as they found out they couldn't pin anyone down to get a slice of the ephemeral pie, they decided that the name should be changed.
Well, as a PHB who's also a Linux lead, the way I read the letters is that as soon as they found out they couldn't pin anyone down to commit to not selling slices of their client's pie and not giving any more of it away than was already the case, they wanted a name change. I thought the attitude was quite refreshing after seeing decades worth of threatening cease-and-desist letters.
I agree. I think they have been treated me nicely; they could have just sent me a "stop-doing-this-or-we'll-sue-you-now" letter. They didn't, and in fact they have been generous to suggest a couple of possible name changes that I could do which would keep them happy.
Add to this that they actually knew what I was talking about, when I told them that Hobbit is an Open Source product, so there is no money involved.
They have a trademark to defend, and one of the rules of that game is that they MUST react when they become aware of possible violations of their trademark; if they don't, then they can forfeit their ownership of the trademark. So they have to do something, and I think they handled this nicely.
Sure - having to rename everythin IS annoying, but I should have thought about that when I first picked the name.
Regards, Henrik