On Jan 11, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Alan D. Cabrera wrote:
On Jan 11, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Ralph Goers wrote:
Has anyone from Juniper contacted Apache about a problem? Based on
the research that has been done I don't see this as an obvious
infringement. If the project has been around for 4 years without
complaint I don't think it is worth the time and effort to worry
about things Juniper may or may not choose to do in the future. If
their claim is on J-Security one could argue that that is not the
same as JSecurity anyway.
Ok, so here's the analogy that I gave earlier. Let's say that 4
years ago a bunch of buddies and I in North Dakota started a project
called Google. It's pretty popular and people in South Dakota even
start using it. We have been out in the wild for 4 years. At no
time during this period has Google Inc. in Mountain View, CA, been
concerned about name collision enough to contact anyone on the
project. Does this suggest that they are unlikely to do so in the
future when developers in CA start using it? Not likely.
So my position is that just because no one has complained doesn't
mean that we're free and clear.
As for J-Security versus JSecurity do you think that Google would
mind if we had a project called G-oogle?
What if I had the strongly held opinion that it's not likely that
Google would care? Is that good enough for ASF to allow a java
project called G-oogle?
Again, IANAL and Larry or Sam might tell me I'm nuts, but here goes.
The problem with your analogy is that, at least from what I've read
here, Juniper doesn't have a software product called J-Security.
Should they create one now they would be infringing on Apache
JSecurity's use of the name for that purpose.
As for Google, I think they actually have a fairly serious problem.
"google" and "googling" have become synonymous with searching for
information (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google or http://www.reference.com/search?q=Googler)
. From what I've read this is exactly how a company can lose control
of their trademark. I'd venture that if you created a product named
"Super Googler" that they would sue you, but given that the term is
now in the public domain I'm wondering if they'd actually win. OTOH,
you'd be pretty stupid to name your product that unless you want to be
sued.
Ralph
