On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 8:46 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 8 February 2013 11:55, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote: >> On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 3:48 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> On 8 February 2013 08:45, RA Stehmann <anw...@rechtsanwalt-stehmann.de> >>> wrote: > >>>> It's not only Fedora, but also other GNU/Linux distributions using such >>>> transitional packages. It's a common way supporting users to update >>>> their system. > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use > >> That's not nominative use. Nominative use would be to use the >> trademark in talking about the trademarked product. Using the >> trademark to describe some other product is not nominative use. This >> argument is even stronger when we have, as we do, documented cases of >> users being confused, thinking they are getting OpenOffice, but >> instead getting LibreOffice. > > > A transitional package is something a distribution uses for upgrades > of the whole distribution. Transitional packages are not things > intended for installation by the end user. They are used when a > package has changed names, or when one package has been removed and > replaced with another. >
No one is arguing the facts of what our trademark is being used for. Obviously it has been used to replace OpenOffice.org with LibreOffice. These facts are not in dispute. The question is whether this is a legitimate use of the trademark, whether permission was granted, and whether this is confusing to consumers. Whether the consumer is an "end user" or a "power user" or an "admin" is irrelevant. We have documented reports of confusion caused by this. Regards, -Rob > In the latter case, the old software is referred to by its name, as > the thing intended to be removed; that's a functional requirement. > > In a thread about trying to get distributions to take on AOO, you're > talking about sending legal claims to distributions to try to stop > them using the standard mechanisms they used to leave openoffice.org. > It is possible this may not give anything like the desired result. (I > could be wrong, of course, and you could succeed hugely.) > > > - d.
