On Feb 13, 2008 7:29 PM, John Sonnenschein <johnsonnenschein at gmail.com> wrote: > > On Feb 13, 2008 5:17 PM, Shawn Walker <swalker at opensolaris.org> wrote: > > > > On Feb 13, 2008 6:23 PM, John Sonnenschein <johnsonnenschein at gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > > On Feb 13, 2008 3:59 PM, Shawn Walker <swalker at opensolaris.org> wrote: > > > > > > > > On Feb 13, 2008 5:24 PM, Ignacio Marambio Cat?n <darkjoker at > > > > gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > I found it a very disheartening response from Sun and a total > > > > > > > failure to listen & work with the community. > > > > > > > > > > > > Ditto, though personally I find the lack of response to that > > > > > > response > > > > > > more disheartening. The community does not exist as a community. > > > > > > > > > > > That's exactly what i think, i also wonder what took them so long if > > > > > they were going to give an answer like this > > > > > sun basically said that they owned the trademark and could do whatever > > > > > they wanted with it. It's legally accurate I think but it was a huge > > > > > blow to the open part of opensolaris and to the community. > > > > > > > > I think people aren't being fair here. Sun has made it very clear from > > > > day one that there were many restrictions surrounding the use the > > > > trademark. People had no problem with that. > > > > > > > > The trademark is one of the most valuable things Sun owns, and quite > > > > frankly, their *right* and ability to use it is small recompense for > > > > the millions they've spent supporting this community. > > > > > > > > Attempting to deny Sun their rightful use of that trademark is morally > > > > wrong to me. It reeks of, "the world owes me something." > > > > > > > > To me, it it is morally reprehensible to attempt to simultaneously > > > > complain about Sun's commercial usage of their own property and at the > > > > same time hold out a hand begging for a handout; which is essentially > > > > what some are doing. > > > > > > Shawn. > > > > > > Nobody's arguing that there oughtn't be restrictions on the use of the > > > trademark. That was never the problem. The problem is that Sun gave > > > the impression from the inception of the project that the OpenSolaris > > > trademark stood for one thing (ie: O/N et al ) , that it wouldn't be > > > favourably granted to one distro at the expense of others, and that > > > they'd work with the community to find fair guidelines if the policy > > > weren't working for whatever reason. > > > > I guess I had a different impression than you do. > > > > Regardless of impressions; I would never expect Sun to let such a > > valuable trademark lay dormant or produce no return on investment for > > them. > > > > To think otherwise is silly at best. > > > > Sun is a public company and I expect them to make every rightful use > > of their trademark in a manner beneficial to their shareholders that > > they can. (I am not a shareholder -- yet). > > > > > As it turns out, this is evidently not the case, and it's got some > > > community members (myself included) furious not at the fact that SMI > > > is exercising her legal right, but of the deception thus far. If Sun > > > had stated from the beginning something to the effect of "OpenSolaris > > > is our trademark, you have no say in what we do with it, and we'll > > > arbitrarily change the definition as it suits our marketing" there > > > would be less of an uproar ( and less users, presumably ). > > > > Deception? What deception? > > > > If you can show me where Sun ever stated that they would never have a > > distribution, would never use such a trademark, and gave the community > > control over it, I will recant everything I've ever said about them > > having certain rights. > > > > I think what has happened is that some folks got a certain idea about > > *how they* wanted things to work and just assumed that's how it would > > happen. > > > > For those of us that were involved at launch day, restrictions on the > > trademark usage and Sun's right to use it were made very clear. > > > > I think it's very unfair that everyone feels so gosh darn happy when > > Sun hands out free shirts and CDs with the trademark, but <insert > > deity here> forbid they actually try to get something out of it. > > > > So why even pretend to give a damn what the community thinks? Why not
Because, obviously, they do. Why else would it take so long to find the proper wording for a statement? Why would they even bother responding? Why would they spend so much effort trying to involve other community members in the trademark usage discussions? The list of whys should be proof enough. > issue a public statement that OpenSolaris really means Sun doing it's > thing quite aside from the community's wishes. If your analysis is to You mean aside from *some* individual's wishes. I have seen many people post about how happy they were to see a distribution called OpenSolaris and thought it was the right thing. > be taken as correct and what SMI is doing is to be considered the > moral thing to do ( again, we aren't speaking legalities here. We're > all aware by this point of what sun is /legally/ allowed to do ) then > OpenSolaris is really a misnomer, since there's nothing really "open" > about it. I don't see how having the moral right to commercially use your own property equates to "not being open". The *Open* in Solaris applies to the source code to me; not to the trademarks or other commercial properties. *Open* to me means that the community can participate; it doesn't mean they can dictate. > And don't pretend that you know what happened on day one better than > anyone else, most of the people involved in this discussion were also > there on launch day or /very/ shortly thereafter. To state otherwise > is simply revisionist history in the worst sense of the word. I'm not going to pretend and it isn't certainly being revisionist. It is my view of how things happened. If we don't agree, then so be it. To me all this energy over a name that is rightfully Sun's to begin with is silly and is a waste of energy better spent on code. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
