> Paul wrote:
>Even if they have no right to the trademark, I don't have the time or the
resources to contest >their usage.
Mostly likely one of the items that they are counting on.
How many users are there of JDE? Each of us in protest to JD Edwards actions can do
our best where ever we work not to use any of their products. There is no better
protest than a $$ loss for them. I once got the shaft from a large sw company's policy
in supporting a serious default in their product. As my luck would have it I went to
work at another company and was put on an evaluation team to select a new software
product for the company of which the above mentioned company's product was one of the
leading contenders. I persuaded the company to use another alternate product that they
are still using today. Conservative estimates would be that it cost this company over
a million dollars in lost sales. The only bad part was they probably never accepted
the fact of why they lost out. I did tell the salesman though the reason they did not
get selected.
>I have decided to use the acronym, JDEE, for the time being at least because
it requires the >least amount of effort for me to change.
Hopefully, sun will not find something about this to complain about.
>The concern thought is that this kind of bullying can be used to stifle free
software. The only >recourse for freeware authors may be to file for trademarks as
self-defense. However, most >of us don't have the time or the money to go through the
trademark process.
Unfortunately, there are many more sleazy lawyers than there sw engineers let alone
the unselfish sw engineers such as you who put many hours of work into useful tools
for the rest of us. I know that it takes time and effort to fight this kind of
bullying which overtaxes those who are already donating time for free.
Another item to do is to put together a press release with the facts clearly stated
and send it to the all of the software publications (Computer World,etc.). Maybe it
will garner a headline like 'Software companies using legal tactics to bully free
software producers' or something similar.
J. Syre
