Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:33:30 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Investors are getting concerned Message-ID: <17364.937017210@localhost> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:00:08 MDT." <4.2.0.58.19990910185453.04482720@localhost>
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> We need to talk. The investors are leaning very strongly in favor of using
> OpenBSD rather than FreeBSD for the project ever since they found out that
> the trademark "FreeBSD" is registered to Walnut Creek CDROM! They fear that
They should have figured that out a lot earlier than now - it's been a
matter of public record since the beginning, as Terry Lambert has just
demonstrated in his own posting, and ignorance of the US Tradmark and
Patent office website (or telephone inquiries number) is no excuse,
especially if you're supposedly dealing with real businessmen.
And while it hasn't exactly been trumpeted from the treetops, it
hasn't been a secret either (how can it, trademark registrations are
public record!) and quite a few others have discovered this for
themselves over the years and asked me in private email just what the
deal was. I've told them all the same thing: Walnut Creek CDROM's
ex-VP registered it on our behalf quite some time back, back when we
couldn't even afford the filing fees ourselves, and transferring it to
FreeBSD, Inc. control has been a matter of laxity in filing the
paperwork (and paying Walnut Creek CDROM back their registration fees,
to keep it honest and straight-forward all around), not some
Machiavellian plot to hijack the FreeBSD project name and sell our
technology to Libya. If I haven't exactly been shouting about the
trademark ownership issue either, it's because if I did and people
started really itching over it, I'd have to go through the whole
paperwork thing Right That Minute(tm) and I've been kinda too busy
lately to go and deliberately invent a new and immediate crisis to
deal with. I agree that it needs to be done, and I talked to Walnut
Creek CDROM about this just a couple of weeks ago ("We should do that
soon." "Yeah. Soon."), we've just been too busy stomping out larger
and more important fires recently to sit down with the lawyer.
I'm also not particularly worried (and never have been) over the issue
since even if Walnut Creek CDROM did suddenly turn to the dark side
and attempt a trademark coup d'etat before I got around to signing the
forms and the check, we in core would simply stick our tongues out at
them and change the project's name to something cool, like
"ServerForce", also making several legions of current and future
marketing people deleriously happy at the same time (I'm just kidding
about "ServerForce" though). We hold all the cards here, and if they
want to shoot their golden goose through the head then they can get
fussy over the trademark. We know it, they know it, and Bob has said
several times that he doesn't even *want* to own the trademark since
it leaves the company open to accusations of potential piracy on the
high seas just like this. Bob and I are both just paperwork shy and
that's never been a crime, even when you've got Brett Glass having
kittens over the issue.
Which brings us to the second point, which is what the owners of the
trademark would do, be it Walnut Creek CDROM OR FreeBSD, Inc., if you
came out with the Evil Brett Distribution and called it FreeBSD.
Maybe if you called it FreeEBD, that would be a different enough
(though still damn confusing) that we wouldn't whine, but we'd
certainly send you a cease-and-desist notice for using the FreeBSD
name for Evil purposes and that's going to remain true no matter
who owns the mark.
You've also already had numerous examples of FreeBSD derived products
cited in this mailing list, none of which anyone has gone after for
being evil, and if you can't derive a reasonable distinction between
good and evil from that then there's not much more information I or
anyone else could give you which would be of much help. I've already
said it once during this increasingly pointless thread and I'll say it
just once more: We, the FreeBSD project members and the custodians of
the trademark, have no beef with anyone who does good things and
doesn't sully our good name.
You'd have to sink pretty low before that would happen, but I can't
say it's inconceivable and you'll just have to accept that as an
operating condition. Nobody is going to give you carte blanche to do
whatever the heck you feel like doing under the FreeBSD banner. If
you want to do Evil, call it something else. Call it GlassOS. :)
Finally, as far as who the FreeBSD project decides to acknowledge on
its web pages and in its documentation is concerned, being listed
there is a privilege rather than a right (BSD copyright or not) and
the project has always reserved the right to be nice to its friends.
Gosh, welcome to reality! I'm sorry it's such a shock to your
system. :-) Walnut Creek CDROM has given the project a tremendous
amount in terms of resources (and I'm not just talking about the
release engineer's salary, that's probably the smallest part) and
anyone who's spent any time around the project knows that. It's only
right that we give them the acknowledgement they deserve and also to
maybe try and see that their CD prodect makes money since a portion of
that money always flows through to supporting us. It's no more than
enlightened self-interest to do so. The other *BSDs support
themselves through CD sales and this is no different except that we
have a buffer layer to take care of the messy logistics of actually
having to promote and sell CDs into channels. We sometimes write code
for money too, if you want to know an even more shameful secret. :)
And yeah, it's still a level playing field in that if some other group
decides to play sugar daddy to the project at a level which meets or
exceeds the committment that Walnut Creek CDROM has shown (and that's
admittedly a lot) then I'm sure the project would give their CD
product or whatever it was equal billing in their documentation and
word-of-mouth advertising. It's a direct investment-to-benefit ratio
at work here and to even have to explain the obvious like this to you
seems like an activity which is beneath both of us. If your mystery
investors actually DO all these wonderful things for the project then
they'll get the project's gratitude in all the appropriate ways. If
they try to do it harm, they'll feel its teeth. These rules apply to
everyone and have always applied, right up to and including Walnut
Creek CDROM.
What you seem to be asking for here, and I'm sure you'll correct me if
I'm wrong, is some sort of special credit towards doing good works
before any of those good works are actually done, and frankly it's
both this attitude and the involvement of a principal who has always
seemed far more hostile to the project than kind which makes me very
disinclined to grant any such credit. If anything, we're starting
from a position of deep demerit and it makes me wonder if your
investors wouldn't be better off in finding someone else to spearhead
the relationship with their BSD-in-waiting, whichever of the two
options they might pick.
- Jordan
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