Hi Jim & Thomas,
Thanks for your input. I also believe that neither FreeDOS nor Dr. Mind
is at risk. I simply tried to follow Robert's line of thoughts to see
where it could lead. These legal things are rarely black and white, so
it's always interesting to try different point of views.
Specifically about the game, a quick research points out to at least two
cases when the Mastermind trademark holders took some actions:
INVICTA PLASTICS vs. MEGO CORP, 1981
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/523/619/2297822/
PRESSMAN to DEGRAEVE.COM, 2011
https://www.degraeve.com/mastermind/
My understanding is that in both the above cases, it's the
misappropriation of the name "Mastermind" that triggered the action, not
the content itself. Apparently the trademark holders are in a difficult
position, because even if they don't care about a particular name misuse
(which, I imagine, could be the case in the second link I provided
above), they have to act, just to avoid the risk of loosing their "mark".
Mateusz
On 05/09/2019 06:14, Jim Hall wrote:
Not to go too far off topic, but:
No, FreeDOS is not at risk just because FreeDOS is another DOS. We have
been very careful to avoid any issues here. FreeDOS is developed based
on open/known standards (RBIL, manuals, books, …) and not from "insider"
or "proprietary" knowledge.
That's why we were so very careful that anyone who had viewed the
Computer Museum source code release of MS-DOS *not* contribute to the
parts of FreeDOS that are similar to MS-DOS (the more recent release of
MS-DOS source code under the MIT license erases those concerns, since
MIT is compatible with GPL according to the Free Software Foundation).
The GNU folks were similarly careful when developing their Unix-like
equivalents for GNU. Stallman has written several historical essays on this.
Back to the original topic…
I am not a lawyer, but I don't believe there's an issue with Dr Mind.
It's a different name, so naming is fine. And Wikipedia says Mastermind
is itself based on a paper & pen game called Bulls & Cows that dates
back some hundred or more years. So it's an old game - that seems to
answer the game rules issue.
So I think Dr Mind is okay. :-)
On Wed, Sep 4, 2019, 8:33 PM Thomas Mueller <mueller6...@twc.com
<mailto:mueller6...@twc.com>> wrote:
> That being said (and I am not a trademark expert at all - I
barely know what a
> trademark is), isn't FreeDOS at risk itself, for reusing the same
OS idea as
> MS-DOS, same set of commands, same syntax, same INT 21h API...?
That's a
> honest question, I'm clueless.
> Mateusz
There have been several DOSes besides MS-DOS: PC-DOS, DR-DOS,
Datalight ROM-DOS, Phystechsoft PTS-DOS, and even a mainframe DOS
not really related to the DOSes that ran on PCs.
Copying an interface would not necessarily violate a trademark.
Remember Borland Quattro Pro, accused of copyright infringement for
copying much of the functionality of Lotus 1-2-3? Borland was
originally held liable, but that was overturned on appeal.
Tom
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