On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Eric G. Miller wrote: > On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 03:43:56PM -0500, Balbir Thomas wrote: > > I would believe the ethical way to deal with an opensource developer, > > who doesn't profit from his products is to contact him first, rather > > than throw a bunch of law dogs at him. After all what kind of a person > > or company would want to levy a financial burden on a man who has > > contributed his time and resources, for a community benifit . Would > > you wan't to do that to Abe L. ? Adobe did no such thing . > > Ain't no benefit to Adobe if KIllustrator actually becomes competive. I > understand your point that maybe Adobe should've contacted the developer > in a less threatening manner first... I don't imagine Adobe will persue > this matter unless the KIllustrator authors don't change the name. If > they continued to pursue civil damages after a name change, then I can > see getting a bit irate.
Actually, from what I read, the law firm is seeking financial damages around $2K even though the developer has already said he'd change the name - and the law firm won't confirm or deny that Adobe directly asked for them to take this action. This may be a case of a firm being on retainer by Adobe and going after a little extra cash without the tacit approval of Adobe themselves - or Adobe may just be vindictive. Either way, the guy wasn't given an opportunity to change the name - which he shouldn't have to do anyway, since "illustrator" is a commonly used word in the English language and no one should be able to trademark a commonly used word by itself. "Adobe Illustrator" is clearly the property of Adobe alone, but naming a product "Killustrator" should be protected. I really wish a week could go by without hearing about some conflict in the computing industry. It's really depressing to see multi-million or multi-billion dollar companies or high-profile developers who are totally unable to comport themselves with the same ethics and dignity that we expect from six-year-olds. I mean, really - what's the difference between Adobe trying to attack an Open Source project that's not doing them any harm and a small child running to Mommy because her brother made a face? Geez, grow up. Take care, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.DissociatedPress.net/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
