Hi Ian, On Sun, Feb 16 2025, Ian Eure wrote:
> Your purported authorization is irrelevant, as the name is within the > Guix project, not g-golf; and even if Guix had renamed the project, > such changes are explicitly permitted by g-golf’d LGPLv3 license. > > Since you seem to be more devoted to maintaining the g-golf brand than > adhering to the spirit of the license, a closed-source approach may be > a better fit for your project -- though users are free to fork the > last Free Software version of g-golf and maintain it independently, as > allowed by its current LGPLv3 license. I respectfully disagree. I believe David asserted trademark rights that are potentially independent of the LGPLv3. Section 7 of the GPLv3, whose terms are incorporated into the LGPLv3 that covers G-Golf [1] reads in part: Notwithstanding any other provisions of this License, for material you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms: [..] e) Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some trade names, trademarks or service marks; [2] Therefore, David potentially has the right to prohibit Guix to use the name G-Golf or confusingly similar variations thereof like guile-g-golf. To be sure, I find the stance abusive because no consumer is being confused. Guix ships the essentially same product! At the same time, Guix owes its users to keep shipping G-Golf as long as the license so permits. (Otherwise, Guix damages its own trademark.) My solution would be to rename David's package to something that does not resemble or contain the name G-Golf. I have no legal training and know very little about the LGPL or the GPL. Please do not rely on this message. Kind regards Felix [1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/g-golf.git/tree/COPYING#n10 [2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
