It's not so much "my position", but rather my understanding of how it is, according to the ASF. The name/trademark issue is between you and the ASF, not me.
Regarding your theories of how binding or enforceable this is in front of the law, I'm not sure. But regardless of what signing the SGA means legally, we (you, Attila, and me) did know what intent we express with it, which is that the new owner of the software, and of the Freemarker name will be the ASF, and not one of us. You have understood that, back in 2015, right? It's just that later you have changed your mind, because you can, like, "ha ha, they can't enforce it anyway"? All along, you could just fork that Freemarker 3 branch back from 2010 (which was abandoned by all of us, mind you), and call it Congo Templates. But, it seems, you choose to use the Freemarker name instead, knowing very well that it violates the name usage expectations on ASF's side, and I suspect that's actually one big reason for you to do it. Like out of some sort of defiance. That combined with this burying your work, and showing off with your work theme. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer, nor a psychologist, so I won't go into that either. On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 3:38 PM Jonathan Revusky <revu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 9:28 AM Daniel Dekany <daniel.dek...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > As far as Apache is concerned, there will be no other template engine with > > "FreeMarker" in its name, only Apache FreeMarker. > > > Well, yeah, I anticipated that this would be your position. Basically, the > idea is that you'll just pretend, month after month, year after year... > that the more advanced version of the tool does not exist. And maybe, due > to the visibility advantage of the Apache name, most people won't realize > that the more advanced version exists. (That remains to be seen.) > > Regardless, the whole thing is really quite ignoble and downright pathetic. > Frankly, it boils down to the idea that people should be saddled with > something completely obsolete and inferior so that people like you can feel > like you're somebody... though that seems to be what ASF is about mostly. > But surely you can understand that I don't feel like encouraging that kind > of thing or supporting it. > > > > > Even if an Apache project > > is retired, its name goes into the grave with it (usually). There are no > > plans to retire Apache FreeMarker. > > > > This is simply because the "FreeMarker" name was given to the Apache > > Software Foundation (in 2015). Jonathan signed the Software Grant Agreement > > back then. > > > That is true. I did sign that. At that time, I did not anticipate doing > anything further with FreeMarker. > > So, I stated my intent at that point in time and have now changed my mind. > I am quite satisfied that there is no breach of contract. There can't be a > binding contract without any quid pro quo whatsoever. I hand over something > in exchange for what exactly? Nothing. You don't need to have gone to law > school to know that that is not a binding contract -- one party promising > something in exchange for nothing... > > So I said (though it was not really legally binding) that I did not intend > to use the FreeMarker name any more. And I did not intend to, but I have > since changed my mind. > > So, as things stand now, you can expect that there will be some new > FreeMarker releases forthcoming, based on the much more advanced codebase > developed outside ASF. > > Jonathan Revusky > -- > Check out the new features in FreeMarker 3: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki > CongoCC Parser Generator: https://github.com/congo-cc/congo-parser-generator > > > > > > > The project can be freely forked, but the result should be > > released under a different name. That's that simple. > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 5:40 AM <le...@flowlogix.com> wrote: > > > > > I am still confused about “Apache FreeMarker 3” vs “FreeMarker 3” > > > Are these two separate projects? Is the direction to remove FreeMarker > > > from Apache eventually? > > > I don’t think I am the only one that’s confused. > > > Would that something that would require Apache Board attention? > > > > > > > On Feb 14, 2024, at 12:20 PM, Daniel Dekany <ddek...@apache.org> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > It's here: > > > > > > > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FREEMARKER/Board+report+draft+-+February+2024 > > > > > > > > Anything to add, especially for PMC members? Though not sure there will > > > be > > > > time for updates before they close it... but still. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Best regards, > > Daniel Dekany > > -- Best regards, Daniel Dekany
