Bob, On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Bob Dionne <[email protected]>wrote: > > I disagree. I don't think, given the way events have unfolded, that anyone > has been disingenuous. The two blog posts from Cloudant and Couchbase, > clarifying their commitments to the CouchDB project in the aftermath of > Damien's departure, explain their positions nicely. >
Cloudan't committment to CouchDB is not being questioned in this thread, and it has been repeatedly clarified that Cloudant and IrisCouch use the word "Couch" in responsible ways that bolster our community and our product. I believe Randal was using the word disingenuous to refer to the "Couch" word being used in Couchbase's competing but incompatible CouchDB-like product. Our brand's good will is being used to help market this product, which would be fine if it was a complimentary product or service, and didn't damage our project in the process. I don't care to hear from Couchbase marketing. I do care to hear from marketing, because I think Clouchbase have a marketing problem, and I would love to initiate a dialog with them about the best way forward to better delineate our two products. > It's inappropriate to publicly state one's intentions to seek legal advice > on infringement matters Why? All we're doing is asking "hey, something's doesn't feel right here, should we seek advice on this?" The law is there to protect us, and it's perfectly reasonable to frame any discussions within that context. Would you consider it inappropriate to discuss a licence violation that someone had spotted in the wild? It is in no way inappropriate to state one's intentions to seek legal advice. It is a very regular occurrence within the open source world. Our organisation is transparent, and aside from security issues and administration tasks that need to be handled privately, everything is done in the open. The ASF legal-discuss mailing list is public. cf. http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/ > especially while in the same thread demanding that the other party respond I don't think that anyone has demanded anything. It is clear to me that there are a few people, both on this thread and off, that wish for some kind of response from Couchbase, or for us to instigate contact with them. > It's deliberately inflammatory, and foolish. This thread has been very civil. There's been no provocative (in the sense of inflammatory) remarks, and no stirring up of passions. Couchbase is posing a problem for our community. That's a simple fact, as is evidenced by a number of first hand reports. Nobody has said "Couchbase is intentionally harming our community" or "the people at Couchbase are intentionally harming our community." In fact, quite the opposite. We've been very clear all along that this isn't an attack on Couchbase. Nobody is out to "get" Couchbase. We just want to work with them to sort out this problem that I am sure they feel just as painfully as we do. I don't see any problem with that. > More importantly it will not further anyone's interests, including those > of this project. > You don't think that sorting out the brand confusion will further this project's interests?
