Hi Curt, At the risk of being a case of "if the hat fits...."
On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Curtis Olson wrote: > I hate to wade into mud wrestling matches. But for every one who is on > their high horse about being pristine in our non-use of any possible > trademarked items ... have you browsed through our aircraft? We have > liveries from just about every airline imaginable, past and present. Yes, and as I said in the other post (which crossed in the ether with yours), I personally think that's a mistake and a legal risk (albeit a small one). > What I don't like to hear is arguments along the line of: person "A" can't > submit anything that could ever possibly be a trademark infraction by > anyone's estimation, but person "B" we will let get away with it. Oh and by > the way, we really should go through our repository and clean out any > possible trademark infringements ... maybe some day. > First of all this smacks of targeting or interpreting our policy differently > for different people... and that usually is done on the basis of some other > agenda. Maybe the person in question has invited some of this, maybe they > haven't, but applying our policies in different measures to different people > can quickly get petty and immature. I don't think I am holding Jack's work to a higher standard than anyone else here, though other committers may have different standards to me. As mentioned on the other post, I'm applying the same standards I've applied to my own work based on discussions on this list: http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg13303.html (Oh, that brings back memories - we were all so young, a new aircraft was a big deal, CVS) Melchior's comment is an interesting one, but I've no idea if it has any legal basis. > Second, saying that "oh I wish we'd retroactively fix our repository to > honor this policy perfectly", and then doing nothing about it also is really > weak. It sounds good on the face of it, but at the end of the day what > matters is action, not words. It might also lead to a commit war, which would be bad. I'd much prefer a clear policy at a project level and then consistency with that policy. At present I don't think we have a policy - though it's possible that my experience with the Pitts is an exception and we are quite happy to use trademarks in the data package. It sounds like your view is that including trademarks in the data repository is perfectly OK. Correct? If that's the case and the majority of devs agree then I'll bite my tongue, though like Melchior I won't commit it myself. > I think it's pretty accepted that flight simulators can reproduce company > liveries in the process of realistically modeling the world. I know that > has been widely debated (AA, et. al) but the reality is that people are > creating liveries of all kinds of companies all the time. > Where do we draw the lines? Is it ok to reproduce an airline livery, but > not some other company livery? As far as I can tell the people arguing that > we can't have a red bull logo are on really shaky ground from a > "consistency" perspective. See my post which crossed with yours. I think where there is precedent we're (relatively) OK. the danger lies in trademarks that have not been used regularly within simulators and which have litigious owners. > Do you want to argue this from a legal standpoint? Do we only include > anything that we have written permission from the original company to use? > In that case probably we'll have to rip out half of our simulator. How far > do we want to take it? Do you think aircraft manufacturers have given us > explicit permission to replicate their designs? Aircraft systems and > cockpit displays? Tire manufacturers? ACME rivet company? I've got > nothing on file from them. Building shapes and names and logos? If we have > to get written permssion to replicate anything, then we might as well pack > it all up and go home, as should every other simulator developer. There is a legal difference between objects/copyright and trademarks which is important. We could fairly easily have aircraft liveries and buildings that do not infringe trademarks. > I only wade in because this whole thing smacks of a pissing match and I get > strong indication that our policies are being selectively interpreted by > some to gain an advantage in this stupid pissing match and not for the > benefit and quality and safety of the FlightGear project itself. I don't think there's much of a pissing match going on here - I encouraged Jack to release his AH-1 under the GPL and committed the original version to git, so to suggest I have an axe to grind is mistaken. I admit I'm being paranoid here, and that there is a gray area. However, I think it is a good idea to air these issues on the list. -Stuart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The ultimate all-in-one performance toolkit: Intel(R) Parallel Studio XE: Pinpoint memory and threading errors before they happen. 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