Pre-amble: I post this as a principal in a decently-sized Zope-focused business in the UK. Our company is also partnering with ZEA for some work. I will try to correct some of Rob's factual errors, and set the record straight for some of the issues discussed here. I am not an official spokesperson of ZEA, though - so bear in mind that what I'm saying here reflects what *I* (and my company) think about the situation, and not what ZEA thinks. I know a bit about why the decision to register the trademarks in Europe was made, why the managing partners of ZEA authorised it, and what's going on on the other side of the fence. I am reasonably neutral, though - and care more about what happens to Zope the *community* than anything else. - Matt Hamilton, Netsight On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 01:07:25 +0200, Rob Page <rob.page@zope.com> wrote:
We are sorely disappointed that ZEA is unwilling to transfer the marks quickly and quietly so that we can proceed swiftly toward the formation of the Zope Foundation.
This is wrong. ZEA offered you to transfer the trademarks if you covered the expenses involved in the registration (including the salary of the trademark professionals involved in the registration process), no strings attached - but Zope Corporation declined, and was more interested in sending threatening letters about trademark abuse, even though ZEA is the rightful owner of these marks in Europe at the moment. They were more interested in having the matter resolved *their* way than to cover the actual costs involved in registering the trademarks from ZEA's side.
We have offered to reimburse the registration fees paid by the ZEA to the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) in order to facilitate the transfer. We have further offered to preserve their license to use the Zope mark in the conduct of their business as an association of Zope companies.
Aidan McGuire of Blue Fountain (another UK zope company), Xavier Heymans (of ZEA) and myself had a conference call with Lois Snitkoff from ZC on the 12th of July in which we offered to transfer the trademark if ZC contribute to the fees of the registration and, in the unwillingness to transfer the trademark to the ZF, at least agree to some form of 'social contract' that states the uses and rights of the mark. After consulting with others within ZC Lois' reply stated: "Just to let you know quickly, we will not be paying any of the costs incurred when you registered our trademark. I have checked with management and they reiterate what our position has been consistently." Which directly contradicts what is said above.
In the three weeks since learning of ZEA's illegitimate registration of our marks we have tried diligently (but unsuccessfully) to get ZEA to unconditionally transfer the rights of the registration.
The registrations were not illegitimate, the Zope trademark was not registered anywhere but in the US at this point, so it was done as a defensive move to make sure the trademark was in friendly hands. In Europe you have companies/trademarks like ZOPEN that could have been problematic for the registration and approval, so a decision was made early on to secure the trademark for the Zope *community*. The companies that constitute ZEA make up a large part of the professional Zope companies in Europe, and they have a lot to lose by the brand being insecure in Europe. And in what way does not accepting ZEA's offer, to transfer the trademark to you by covering the costs involved in the registration, constitute "try diligently"?
ZEA's registration represents an abuse of registration and management of international trademarks and the misappropriation of a mark that is clearly the property of Zope Corporation.
So why is Zope Foundation being used as a pawn in the corporate strategies of Zope Corporation? I find this unclear intent pretty disconcerting.
We know that the establishment of a fair trademark license for the entire Zope community is an _essential_ component of the Zope Foundation. It is possible that we will come to a conclusion with the ZEA prior to the conclusion of a trademark dispute process.
So why are you unwilling to put the Zope trademark under the ownership of Zope *Foundation*? Again, Zope Foundation is being used as a pawn in the company strategies of Zope Corporation.
As an aside, the ZEA has also registered the Plone logo as a trademark. It is not our business, but came as a surprise to us, that the Plone Foundation is not the owner of the Plone trademark.
Not true. ZEA's trademark experts helped Plone Foundation register the Plone trademark initially, and promptly transferred the ownership of the trademarks to the Plone Foundation, just as they are willing to do the same for Zope Foundation. Personally, I find it interesting that Zope Corporation insists on ownership of the trademark instead of putting it in the Foundation. The moment Zope Corporation goes bankrupt, any company can buy the remnants and name their interesting Java/.NET technology "Zope", and use the brand recognition to their advantage. Additionally, Zope Corporation is free to grant a company *exclusive* usage of the trademark "Zope" in any country. Say, for example that they decided to partner with a UK company to provide Zope services in the UK - that company could be granted exclusive rights to use the trademark Zope in that country, which I'm sure a lot of companies would have an issue with. After all, they have spent all this time building the brand of a competitor. This is very unfair to the companies that have spent time and effort building the Zope brand - which should be collectively owned by the community - hence Zope Foundation. If your trademark protection is supposed to make any sense, Zope *Foundation* should have ownership of the trademark - not Zope Corporation. ZEA at this moment represents more of the Zope community than Zope Corporation does. I find it a sad state of affairs when Zope Corporation has to resort to these tactics instead of seeking an amiable resolution to the matters when a solution is available. -Matt -- Matt Hamilton matth@netsight.co.uk Netsight Internet Solutions, Ltd. Business Vision on the Internet http://www.netsight.co.uk +44 (0)117 9090901 Web Design | Zope/Plone Development & Consulting | Co-location | Hosting
--On 20. Juli 2005 12:43:22 +0100 Matt Hamilton <matth@netsight.co.uk> wrote:
ZEA's registration represents an abuse of registration and management of international trademarks and the misappropriation of a mark that is clearly the property of Zope Corporation.
So why is Zope Foundation being used as a pawn in the corporate strategies of Zope Corporation? I find this unclear intent pretty disconcerting.
Why did not ZEA came up with such arguments against the ZF *much earlier*? The ZF proposal is out since some weeks. There was meanwhile an IRC chat with Rob, a lengthy discussion on the mailing list and Rob spoke at Europython. I can not remember having heard any objections from ZEA against this proposal. I have not heard any public statements of Paul Everitt at Europython during the ZF presentation *against* the ZF. Speaking as independent developer - neither representing the interests of ZC nor of ZEA - I find these behind-the-curtain negotiations extremely counterproductive from the community point of view and definitely not in the sense of the Zope community. -aj
Andreas Jung wrote:
--On 20. Juli 2005 12:43:22 +0100 Matt Hamilton <matth@netsight.co.uk> wrote:
ZEA's registration represents an abuse of registration and management of international trademarks and the misappropriation of a mark that is clearly the property of Zope Corporation.
So why is Zope Foundation being used as a pawn in the corporate strategies of Zope Corporation? I find this unclear intent pretty disconcerting.
Why did not ZEA came up with such arguments against the ZF *much earlier*?
Speaking for me, I felt asking this type of questions suspecting ZC to found ZF for its own sake would not have helped. Having a Foundation is a major step if we can manage to have it built community-oriented. If you remember well, I did ask some questions about the tone of the IRC chat which I did not feel as an opened discussion : rather I felt it as a suite of questions/answers about things that were presented like facts. I had the feeling that my reaction was already misunderstood my some of the attendants. So I did not even think of speaking of the trademark question... which had striked me as one of the critical points : IIRC, the TM was the first thing mentioned in ZC longer explanation.
The ZF proposal is out since some weeks. There was meanwhile an IRC chat with Rob, a lengthy discussion on the mailing list and Rob spoke at Europython. I can not remember having heard any objections from ZEA against this proposal. I have not heard any public statements of Paul Everitt at Europython during the ZF presentation *against* the ZF.
There is nothing against the ZF : there is sthing against ZC being the sole owner of the TMs when the current value of it has been established by the community as a whole, especially out of USA. This is why I support the proposal made by a few members of the community to have the ZF own the TMs and that would give a perpetual license to Zope Corporation to use it. For instance, """...it would be far better for everyone if Zope Corporation were instead to transfer the trademark to the foundation and receive a perpetual/irrevocable/etc. license back.""" posted by webmaven on plope.org see http://plope.org/Members/chrism/namechange/talkback/1120068594/discussionite...
Speaking as independent developer - neither representing the interests of ZC nor of ZEA - I find these behind-the-curtain negotiations extremely counterproductive from the community point of view and definitely not in the sense of the Zope community.
-aj
It's definitely better to speak about it in the open air, where we all will be able to think about it together. Disclaimer : I'd like to remind english-only-speaking readers that my mothertongue is french not english. IOW, some of my words may need to be explained rather than taken literally. -- Godefroid Chapelle (aka __gotcha)- BubbleNet http://bubblenet.be
Hi Godefroid, Godefroid Chapelle wrote:
It's definitely better to speak about it in the open air, where we all will be able to think about it together.
Amen. I wasn't aware of this until ten minutes ago, and now it seems a whole bunch of stuff has gone on, up to and including people getting shirty with each other, which I would have liked to have known about earlier. I'm an independent developer and I'm pretty quiet in the community, but I've pretty much bet my livelihood on Zope - this stuff /matters/ to me! What makes me unhappy about this is people making sweeping and inaccurate statements which also imply bad faith. The idea that an organisation that only registered a trademark in one territory describes the registration of the same mark in a /different/ territory as a "violation" is very irksome because it ignores the nature of trademark law (in which context ZC not registering it in Europe is negligence, plain and simple, if they want to pursue it), but infinitely more irksome is the implication that this was somehow done in bad faith, when what little I know about it indicates the exact opposite. This has the potential to make the Zope community look like muppets, and not in a good "Swedish chef" kind of way... -- Regards, PhilK Email: phil@xfr.co.uk PGP Public key: http://www.xfr.co.uk Voicemail & Facsimile: 07092 070518 "You'll find that one part's sweet and one part's tart: say where the sweetness and the sourness start." - Tony Harrison
Philip Kilner wrote:
This has the potential to make the Zope community look like muppets, and not in a good "Swedish chef" kind of way...
I'm not sure muppetism applies to the Zope community, it appears to be Zope Corporation who are coming out of this looking less than clever. It's a shame, because really, they should be the ones benefitting from the community they've created, but instead they're more and more isolating themselves from a community which is finally starting to realise that Zope's continued popularity is not predicated on the survival of Zope Corporation. I hope Lois in particular reads this and understands that you can't bully an open source community, and doing so is likely going have much worse consequences for the bully in the medium to long term than it will for the people being bullied. cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk
Hi Chris, Chris Withers wrote:
This has the potential to make the Zope community look like muppets, and not in a good "Swedish chef" kind of way...
I'm not sure muppetism applies to the Zope community, it appears to be Zope Corporation who are coming out of this looking less than clever.
Agreed/understood - but ZC are part of the community, too - the BDFL part, I guess. I was trying to be as inclusive as possible, since it takes two to get into these messes... -- Regards, PhilK Email: phil@xfr.co.uk PGP Public key: http://www.xfr.co.uk Voicemail & Facsimile: 07092 070518 "You'll find that one part's sweet and one part's tart: say where the sweetness and the sourness start." - Tony Harrison
Philip Kilner wrote:
Agreed/understood - but ZC are part of the community, too - the BDFL part, I guess.
Well, ZC are becoming less benign and more dictatorial, and that's where the BDFL model breaks down... Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk
"Chris Withers" <chris@simplistix.co.uk> wrote in message news:42DE7F6F.4060207@simplistix.co.uk... This has to be one of the more ill-informed, offensive posts that I have seen from a member of the Zope community, and that's saying a lot. It's obvious that there's a good ventriloquist pulling Chris' strings, since he's making assertions that are so easily proven incorrect that they are laughable.
I'm not sure muppetism applies to the Zope community, it appears to be Zope Corporation who are coming out of this looking less than clever.
Yes, of course, we are looking less than clever. We offer up a Foundation. We give all of our ZPL copyrighted code to this Foundation. We give committers free membership and an equal number of board seats to vendors who pay for those board seats. Somehow, we're "bad guys" in this. I agree. Trying to work with some of the people in this community make me personally feel less than clever... ZEA takes marks _directly from our website_, registers them as their own, and they are "white knights". You're a genius.
It's a shame, because really, they should be the ones benefitting from the community they've created, but instead they're more and more isolating themselves from a community which is finally starting to realise that Zope's continued popularity is not predicated on the survival of Zope Corporation.
See above. More and more we are isolating ourselves, by joining sprints internationally, contributing our code to a Foundation that _we_ are bringing to the community, and by offering to participate completely in the ECM project as well. I can see how this is isolationist. Again, you're a genius.
I hope Lois in particular reads this and understands that you can't bully an open source community, and doing so is likely going have much worse consequences for the bully in the medium to long term than it will for the people being bullied.
And now, for the ultimate in idiocy. Lois has not _once_ communicated directly with the "community" on anything other than announcements regarding training. Certainly, she has never "bullied" the community on any topic, including the Foundation. So, how do I know you are being manipulated into making stupid public statements? Someone obviously had to tell you that Lois was involved in the ZEA discussions. Want to know how? Probably not, since you were stupid enough to parrot someone else's words, but for the benefit of everyone else who has a brain, and cares to really understand the truth, here goes: Rob and I had the only interactions with any ZEA members, and they were _exclusively_ with Xavier Heymans and Paul Everitt. After one exchange with Paul, he requested to be let out of the continued discussions due to potential conflicts of interest (which we respected). Lois received an email out of the clear blue from another ZEA member (who had not been on any of the emails between Rob, Paul, Xavier and myself). He reached out to Lois asking her to participate in a conference call with him, another ZEA member (also not on any previous communications) and Xavier. Rob and I were not invited to participate in this call. Lois was _not_ in the loop on our side either previous to this attempt to reach out to her. The three ZEA members discussed the issue with Lois for 70 minutes. I doubt they reached out to her because they thought she was the "bully" in our bunch. At the end of the conversation, Lois came to Rob and I and supported some of the requests that ZEA made in terms of compensation for the transfer. The amount that was originally requested (20,000 EUROS, plus additional "transfer fees") was absurd to me, and even though Lois was willing to find a middle ground, she was the "messenger" that related to them that "management" rejected their offer. Three days later, Lois wrote back a note to Xavier (this past Friday), again playing the messenger, with a offer to pay any expenses that we otherwise would have had to pay to be the original registrars of the marks. It is my contention that if someone steals something from you, you shouldn't have to pay them a premium to get it back, should you? We have had no response to that note, and we informed them more than a week in advance that we would make this matter public if they didn't respond. Obviously, they didn't mind it being made public, or they would have found a way to work it out. Now, let's continue with the history lesson, this time concentrating on me, rather than Lois. I invested in Zope Corporation (then Digital Creations) in October 1998. I was the largest investor (using my personal money) then, and through two additional rounds of funding remain the largest single personal investor (by a long shot!). So, my money is where my mouth is in this company. It was _me_, and me alone that suggested in November of 1998 that we open source the software (before it was even called Zope). It was me that discussed the licensing issues with Bruce Perens to come up with ZPL 1.0. It was me who discussed the licensing issues with Richard Stallman to come up with ZPL 2.0 which was also GPL compatible (which ZPL 1.0 was not). I participated personally in the numerous hours on the phone last year (yes, last year!) with our attorneys to discuss what the steps were in forming a Zope Foundation. When Zope 3 was finally ready for prime time, at the request of Rob Page, I fully supported kicking off the process of launching the Foundation, and giving over all of the copyrighted ZPL code to it. For those who don't know me, I'm the greedy VC in this bullying company who has been so abusive to the community. It's obvious that I (and by extension) Zope Corp are out to get all of you... The bottom line is that I have been supportive of the community from the minute it was formed, and have never done anything to hurt the community in any action since then (7 years is not a short track record!). To be accused of anything nefarious or "bullying" is simply a personal affront. To accuse Lois is simply ignorant, since she doesn't deal with the community at all. It is people like you, and posts like this, that make me wonder whether the economic risks of starting a Foundation, donating our copyrighted code to it, and licensing our marks to it on an irrevocable basis are worth the trouble. Obviously you don't think so. Perhaps, we could work something out by paying everyone in the community $100,000 per year to download Zope and use it. Would that work for you personally? The only reason that I won't consider not continuing with the Foundation is that like in everything else in the world, I honestly believe that there is a true _silent majority_ in the Zope Community. Hard-working honest people who don't think that Zope Corp is "out to get them", who appreciate most of what we've done _for_ and _with_ the community, but are too busy leading their lives to chime in and publicly support our various efforts. It would be a double outrage to hurt those people in any way, just to spite an idiot like you. So, I won't, and you too will benefit from our largesse. Too bad...
cheers,
Chris
Hadar Pedhazur wrote: ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively. My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry? ZC saying the marks were stolen seems a little over the top. What if ZEA registered them defensively? if that's possible then ZEA should be given then benefit of the doubt and not be called a thief. If there was a need to register them to protect "zope", then why didn't ZC do it? Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stop broadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (for example). Its making us all look childish. Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but also inappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around the software we all love and are grateful to ZC and non-ZC related programmers alike for, Zope. <--> george donnelly ~ http://www.zettai.net/ ~ "Quality Zope Hosting" Complete Zope Hosting ~ Managed Servers ~ Plone Hosting Solutions Y/AIM: zettainet ~ Jabber: info@zettai.net ~ Sales: (866) 408-5395
Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stop broadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (for example). Its making us all look childish.
+1. Please folks, remember that this is a public venue and your words will be archived for a long time. Let's have no more name-calling, and no more mysterious digs at named and unnamed third parties. FWIW, I think the Foundation is an important and commendable initiative, and I think ZC has been doing a pretty good job of supporting and reaching out to the community lately. And now more than ever, the amount of software that we get free (and Free) from ZC is just staggering. The trademark issue is an unfortunate, if unignorable, distraction from the progress that's being made. I remain hopeful that an amicable solution is forthcoming. -PW
--On 20. Juli 2005 19:17:59 -0500 George Donnelly <list@zettai.net> wrote:
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively.
My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry?
I am disappointed hearing that ZEA registered the trademarks silently already 18 months ago. The German Zope User Group (DZUG) asked ZC for permission using the Zope logo and the domain name zope.de for our community websites (which was never a problem). But in this case we would have to ask ZEA for permission as keeper of the trademarks in Europe?! I am sorry to say this but the secrecy on the ZEA side is not really acceptable. I can understand ZEA argument to have registered the trademarks for defending Zope from improper use but why did not you notify ZC or the community about it? As someone working in the Zope business I need to know who is having what and why. Such things should not kept secret when you are dealing in the open-source business. So this whole issue is a shame for the complete Zope community. -aj
Andreas Jung wrote:
--On 20. Juli 2005 19:17:59 -0500 George Donnelly <list@zettai.net> wrote:
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively.
My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry?
I am disappointed hearing that ZEA registered the trademarks silently already 18 months ago. The German Zope User Group (DZUG) asked ZC for permission using the Zope logo and the domain name zope.de for our community websites (which was never a problem). But in this case we would have to ask ZEA for permission as keeper of the trademarks in Europe?! I am sorry to say this but the secrecy on the ZEA side is not really acceptable. I can understand ZEA argument to have registered the trademarks for defending Zope from improper use but why did not you notify ZC or the community about it? As someone working in the Zope business I need to know who is having what and why. Such things should not kept secret when you are dealing in the open-source business. So this whole issue is a shame for the complete Zope community.
-aj
I am a casual watcher of what happens in the Zope community (I only check the development things actively). However I believe that I knew that ZE did register the Zope logo. (All tough "instinctively" I would have to have gone to ZC to ask for permission to use it should the need have presented itself). So I do not believe it really was a secret, neither is it a cause for disappointment. Somebody had to do it and sometimes you just have to move forward. This is fine with me if you do so as a "good" community member trying to secure things without going into to much of the legal paperwork that is sure to erupt when you deal in such affairs with an US company. It is the handling of affairs that is .. what should I say .. fascinating. Somehow I have the impression that we had similar exchanges on these canals amongst the same performers before. Seems that being a good person does not necessarily mean you are a nice one. Robert
--On 21. Juli 2005 08:02:32 +0200 robert rottermann <robert@redcor.ch> wrote:
I am a casual watcher of what happens in the Zope community (I only check the development things actively). However I believe that I knew that ZE did register the Zope logo. (All tough "instinctively" I would have to have gone to ZC to ask for permission to use it should the need have presented itself). So I do not believe it really was a secret, neither is it a cause for disappointment.
If it wasn't a secret I am sure that ZC would know about the secret. At least after the announcement for the ZF I would have expected that someone from the ZEA would have set: well, the ZF is fine but there is a problem with transfering the right to the ZF because *we* have the trademarks registered in Europe :-) -aj
Andreas Jung wrote at 2005-7-21 08:29 +0200:
... ZEA "silently" registering the Zope logo ...
If it wasn't a secret I am sure that ZC would know about the secret.
This reminds me a discussion between two business students: They planned how to make money with little effort. Their business plan looked like this: Check in which countries Coca Cola (or some other large quickly expanding company) has not registered its trademarks. Register them and wait until Coca Cola recognizes its error. Let them pay for the transferal of the trademark rights. This discussion convinced me that the trademark laws are almost as bad as the patent laws... I do not know ZEA and do not know whether they hired business students like the above.... But it looks very suspicious when they say that they registered logos they did not design for protective reasons *without* informing the company that officially use these logos (and paid for the design) *before* the registration... -- Dieter
Am Mittwoch, den 20.07.2005, 19:17 -0500 schrieb George Donnelly:
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively.
My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry?
ZC saying the marks were stolen seems a little over the top. What if ZEA registered them defensively? if that's possible then ZEA should be given then benefit of the doubt and not be called a thief. If there was a need to register them to protect "zope", then why didn't ZC do it?
Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stop broadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (for example). Its making us all look childish.
Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but also inappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around the software we all love and are grateful to ZC and non-ZC related programmers alike for, Zope.
+1 this is also my understanding judging from the messages flowing around. The statement of ZC indicates they want to transfer their trademark to ZF and now find the european trademark in other hands. OTOH, why not just transfer/licence what they have (the .us trademark) and just agree to ZEA transfer/licence the european trademark to ZF too? As I understand, the benefit of a ZF with the source in the hand would be to help contributors to defend against patent issues which you probably cant avoid if you do any development. So I really like to see ZF founded as soon as possible. So please ZC and ZEA come together, the community really wants it. May I suggest to create a temp not-public-archived mailinglist to further discuss this issue? -- Tino Wildenhain <tino@wildenhain.de>
Tino Wildenhain wrote:
The statement of ZC indicates they want to transfer their trademark to ZF and now find the european trademark in other hands. OTOH, why not just transfer/licence what they have (the .us trademark) and just agree to ZEA transfer/licence the european trademark to ZF too?
No, just the opposite. ZC do *not* want to transfer the marks to the ZF. I do find this position strange. Whilst they are willing to transfer all the IP, for which yes we are grateful. The issue being that many companies around the world are investing marketing money and time in developing and promoting the 'zope brand'. The problem is that this brand now (since ZC renamed from DC) also co-incides with Zope Corporation. The value of this brand is increasing and needs to be protected, hence why the marks have been trademarked in the other companies in which ZC did not register. I am guessing that ZC registered the marks in the countries that are most commercially valuable to them -- an understandable move as it was their bucks paying for it. However the *zope community* extends beyond these countries and needs protection too. The main conflict arises because: * The zope community and Zope Corporation use the same word 'zope' to identify themselves. * ZC don't want to let go of their trademarked name as that is a major asset to their business. * Many people in the zope community feel uneasy that a corporation which can be bought and sold owns the name of the software that they are developing. All these points are perfectly valid and understandable, but what we need to work out is a way in which we can try and combine and merge these conflicting points in a sane way. I personally (remember, these views are all mine) welcome Rob's ideas on how to ensure that ZC's potential successors or assigns use the Zope trademark in a fair way. The problem being, I don't see how that can happen if the trademarks are owned by ZC as if the company were bought it would be up to the new owned what would happen with its own property. Yes we could put a contract in place between ZF and ZC to say that ZF can be the arbiter of any disputes, but I don't see how that can remain in place if ZC changes hands. -Matt -- Matt Hamilton matth@netsight.co.uk Netsight Internet Solutions, Ltd. Business Vision on the Internet http://www.netsight.co.uk +44 (0)117 9090901 Web Design | Zope/Plone Development & Consulting | Co-location | Hosting
"George Donnelly" <list@zettai.net> wrote in message news:dbmpjp$kl8$1@sea.gmane.org...
ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively.
I am amazed at how people pick and choose what to read and repeat, and what to ignore. I will mix in a few quotes from a few posts responding to my note yesterday to highlight this problem. After this post, unless someone makes a profound new statement, I will remain silent, as many of you have requested, and complete the trademark challenge process through the official channels that have already begun. George, others have already replied to this, but Rob has written about this as well before, so I'm surprised that this is still a question. A defensive registration of _our_ trademark should have been _explicitly_ called to our attention. In fact, any reasonable company would have alerted us to any specific danger, and asked us if _we_ intended to register our trademarks in the appropriate jurisdiction. Beyond that point, _we_ are the first registrants of the ZOPE trademark in WIPO. ZEA registered our LOGO, not the word ZOPE, which we registered _before_ they registered the LOGO. So, everyone, please pay attention. We did _not_ ignore our trademark rights in Europe. We registered our base trademark, the word ZOPE, in a number of countries in Europe. ZEA then registered our LOGO (taken from our website), including the name ZOPE in it (which we had already registered). I am truly unsure as to how to make this point any clearer.
My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry?
There isn't really a communication problem here (though it would wonderful if there was). There is a backtracking and a rewriting of history going on, because ZEA got caught with their hands in our cookie jar. They could have settled this incredibly quietly and quickly. Instead, they chose a path that has led us here. We could have fought it silently too, so it's 100% true that we are the ones that brought this fight into the public. On the other hand, I can't imagine what would have happened if this private battle dragged on until January, and then we got beaten up for missing the launch date on the Foundation, and only then alerted the community as to what was going on. So, we did what we thought was the most prudent thing, and alerted the community 2 days after we initiated the challenge to their registration. I don't know how we could have been more transparent about it.
ZC saying the marks were stolen seems a little over the top. What if ZEA registered them defensively? if that's possible then ZEA should be given then benefit of the doubt and not be called a thief. If there was a need to register them to protect "zope", then why didn't ZC do it?
Read the above response again (and again if necessary). More importantly, ask yourself why ZEA admitted to us during a phone call that they believe that there were deals that they could not have won if they didn't control the mark? Now extend that thought one more inch and ask yourself how the Zope-based companies that they competed against in Europe would feel if they knew that this was a commercial leverage point for ZEA in winning against their bid?!?!? And again, read the above to see that our registration of the mark "ZOPE" predates theirs.
Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stop broadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (for example). Its making us all look childish.
Indeed, we do look childish, and I'm perhaps _more_ to blame for that escalation than others. That's why I will try to keep this as my last communication (at least for a while) on this topic. That said, a number of people responded saying that they were not only glad to be made aware of this problem, but were surprised that they didn't know about it sooner. The rhetoric (mine as well!) is louder than it should be, but I believe the issue(s) definitely needed to be aired, as it's utterly obvious that even the more basic of the "facts" are still misunderstood by a number of posters. As an example, the repeated questioning of why we didn't register our own marks in Europe, which we did.
Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but also inappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around the software we all love and are grateful to ZC and non-ZC related programmers alike for, Zope.
Please don't say that things are "innacurate" when you aren't involved, and have already repeated a number of "innacuracies" yourself, which were readily available for you to check before you repeated them... Matt Hamilton wrote:
No, just the opposite. ZC do *not* want to transfer the marks to the ZF. I do find this position strange. Whilst they are willing to transfer all the IP, for which yes we are grateful. The issue being that many companies around the world are investing marketing money and time in developing and promoting the 'zope brand'. The problem is that this brand now (since ZC renamed from DC) also co-incides with Zope Corporation. The value of this brand is increasing and needs to be protected, hence why the marks have been trademarked in the other companies in which ZC did not register. I am guessing that ZC registered the marks in the countries that are most commercially valuable to them -- an understandable move as it was their bucks paying for it. However the *zope community* extends beyond these countries and needs protection too.
This is correct. We are transferring IP, and not the trademarks. Are we allowed to keep anything, or should we donate all of our programmers to the Foundation, but keep paying their salaries as well? Just tell us what will make 100% of the people in the community love us, and we'll consider it... Amazingly enough, we have owned the trademark since 2002 (we changed our name in 2001, and it took that long to get the trademark registered in the US). There was _no_ hope of a Foundation at the time. Yet, by your own admission, you and others continued to invest marketing money in the brand. Why? The more amazing part is that now that we will transfer the IP to the Foundation, and give an _irrevocable_ license to the Foundation for the use of the word ZOPE to brand the software (which can _never_ be taken back, even if someone acquires us), but somehow, _now_ you are worried about investing in the Zope brand. I simply can't connect the dots. Two months ago, you would invest, when there was no Foundation on the horizon, and the Zope software could be revoked by a future acquirer of ZC. Now, there will be a guaranteed future for the Zope software and brand forever, independent of ZC, but that's somehow now "risky" for you to invest...
The main conflict arises because:
* The zope community and Zope Corporation use the same word 'zope' to identify themselves.
True. We're not the only ones. MySQL, JBOSS, etc.
* ZC don't want to let go of their trademarked name as that is a major asset to their business.
True. However, it is _nothing_ like what is being described by people who think we're being bad (you included). We want to make sure that when something has the word Zope in it, that it can't _mistakenly_ give the impression that it is a product of Zope Corporation. PERIOD. Trademark is purely a _sourcing_ issue. If the use of the word Zope does not connote Zope Corporation, then we have no problem with it (and never have had). Rob gave a number of examples in his follow up yesterday. I'll repeat one of them since it seems that repetition is more necessary than I would have thought. Egenix uses the word Zope _directly_ in one of their product names: eGenix mxODBC Zope DA They asked (as a result of some of these public TM discussions) whether they needed a license from us or not. We immediately informed them that they did not require a license, even though the word Zope was in their product name! Do you get it now? No consumer could have been confused that this was a product of Zope Corporation. Therefore, we assert _no control_ over the word Zope in that regard.
* Many people in the zope community feel uneasy that a corporation which can be bought and sold owns the name of the software that they are developing.
Agreed, but again, it is truly just paranoia (see above). Worse, it can only get better after the Foundation has feel and clear (and eternal) use of the mark to brand the software "Zope", but somehow, it's now a bigger issue than it has been in years...
All these points are perfectly valid and understandable, but what we need to work out is a way in which we can try and combine and merge these conflicting points in a sane way.
At the moment, there's nothing to work out. We will prevail in our challenge to ZEA's filing, and everything will then continue on course. This can be accelerated if ZEA voluntarily gives up their registration (or transfers it to us, etc.). Our TM is our asset. We don't intend to give it away. We don't intend to give our building away either. Perhaps the community wishes to chip in (or perhaps just ZEA) and wants to make an offer to ZC to purchase the TM for themselves or on behalf of the Foundation. All reasonable offers will be considered :-)
I personally (remember, these views are all mine) welcome Rob's ideas on how to ensure that ZC's potential successors or assigns use the Zope trademark in a fair way. The problem being, I don't see how that can happen if the trademarks are owned by ZC as if the company were bought it would be up to the new owned what would happen with its own property.
I agree that Rob's suggestion was a good one, and the fact that I agreed to it shows that we are more than willing to work with the community to find _reasonable_ ways to solve problems.
Yes we could put a contract in place between ZF and ZC to say that ZF can be the arbiter of any disputes, but I don't see how that can remain in place if ZC changes hands.
Perhaps European law is different that US law, but Rob stated clearly that the contract would name ZC's successors and assigns, which makes it legally binding on anyone who purchases ZC as well. In the US, that contract would survive the sale of ZC. I see no reason to be paranoid about that eventuality, as long as you would trust the initial contract between ZC and the ZF. To repeat myself (yet again), this is my last post unless someone makes a truly new point.
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
Beyond that point, _we_ are the first registrants of the ZOPE trademark in WIPO. ZEA registered our LOGO, not the word ZOPE, which we registered _before_ they registered the LOGO. So, everyone, please pay attention. We did _not_ ignore our trademark rights in Europe. We registered our base trademark, the word ZOPE, in a number of countries in Europe. ZEA then registered our LOGO (taken from our website), including the name ZOPE in it (which we had already registered).
I am truly unsure as to how to make this point any clearer.
A few points I want to clear up... the next two paragraphs I write are about technicalities, I am not refering to any moral right or wrong, or who did what etc. In my view the confusion is apparent. If I go to zope.org I see the same logo (admittedly with the word community added to it). If I install Zope and go to the ZMI one of the first things I see is the Zope logo. I can clearly see how people associate the logo with the software. Very few clients (and potential clients) we talk to in the UK are even aware of ZC... *in their mind* Zope is a CMS not a company. And please please please remember that there is no such thing as 'registered the trademark in Europe'. There are many companies in Europe and the trademarks have to be registered in specific countries.
Read the above response again (and again if necessary). More importantly, ask yourself why ZEA admitted to us during a phone call that they believe that there were deals that they could not have won if they didn't control the mark? Now extend that thought one more inch and ask yourself how the Zope-based companies that they competed against in Europe would feel if they knew that this was a commercial leverage point for ZEA in winning against their bid?!?!?
You are twisting the truth here -- I wish I had recorded the phone call now to prevent the chinese whispers :) On the call to Lois, Xavier said that there are certain possibilities of using Zope for EU projects which would be hampered by a corporation (ie ZC) owning the trademark to the OSS software. ZEA does not want the trademark. Repeat. ZEA does not want the trademark.
it's utterly obvious that even the more basic of the "facts" are still misunderstood by a number of posters. As an example, the repeated questioning of why we didn't register our own marks in Europe, which we did.
Yes, you are still mis-understanding the facts. Europe consists of many countries, of which you registered the mark in just six - Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy. ZEA then went on to further protect the mark registering it in: Austria, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Cyrus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine
Amazingly enough, we have owned the trademark since 2002 (we changed our name in 2001, and it took that long to get the trademark registered in the US). There was _no_ hope of a Foundation at the time. Yet, by your own admission, you and others continued to invest marketing money in the brand. Why?
Because we believed (and still want to believe) in the good of all the parties involved. I guess when we started investing in promoting the software there was no confusion with the name, now there is.
The more amazing part is that now that we will transfer the IP to the Foundation, and give an _irrevocable_ license to the Foundation for the use of the word ZOPE to brand the software (which can _never_ be taken back, even if someone acquires us), but somehow, _now_ you are worried about investing in the Zope brand. I simply can't connect the dots.
I guess its because IANAL, but I just: 1) Don't understand how an irrevocable license works. 2) Am still unclear of licencing issues, when Rob spoke at EPC about the foundation it was very unclear as to who would make decisions on licensing, in some cases ZC would have the final say, and in some cases the ZF. It just seemed confusing to me. 3) ZC is a very small, yet very powerful part of the Zope Community (maybe this is just my view from Europe). Can you explain to me exactly what benefits ZC has in holding the trademarks as opposed to them being held by an independant foundation? The fact that ZC doesn't want them to be held by an independant 3rd party makes me think something sinister is planned on the horizon.
Two months ago, you would invest, when there was no Foundation on the horizon, and the Zope software could be revoked by a future acquirer of ZC. Now, there will be a guaranteed future for the Zope software and brand forever, independent of ZC, but that's somehow now "risky" for you to invest...
Yes a future acquirer of ZC could try and revoke the software, but it is licensed under the ZPL so is joint ownership. I think this creates enough of an incentive to prevent this happening as much of the code is contributed by people other than ZC.
I agree that Rob's suggestion was a good one, and the fact that I agreed to it shows that we are more than willing to work with the community to find _reasonable_ ways to solve problems.
Yes, it is reasonable and it is a start of dialogue. This is a distinct improvement over last week's approach of 'We are not negotiating anything. Hand it over or we set our lawyers on you'. When I *specifically* asked Lois if something like this was possible she re-iterated that you would not be willing to enter any further discussion.
Perhaps European law is different that US law, but Rob stated clearly that the contract would name ZC's successors and assigns, which makes it legally binding on anyone who purchases ZC as well. In the US, that contract would survive the sale of ZC. I see no reason to be paranoid about that eventuality, as long as you would trust the initial contract between ZC and the ZF.
OK, in which case, that makes sense to me. Combined with Rob's idea of letting the board of the ZF make the decisions on licensing issues I think I personally am happy. -Matt -- Matt Hamilton matth@netsight.co.uk Netsight Internet Solutions, Ltd. Business Vision on the Internet http://www.netsight.co.uk +44 (0)117 9090901 Web Design | Zope/Plone Development & Consulting | Co-location | Hosting
Matt, unfrotuntately (for me), you make a number of very good points, so I will break my self-imposed silence to respond ;-) Unfortunately for everyone else, this continues the thread, but at least it feels to me like we're "de-escalating" and hopefully actually getting somewhere good, faster... "Matt Hamilton" <matth@netsight.co.uk> wrote in message news:42DFBAF8.4040000@netsight.co.uk...
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
Beyond that point, _we_ are the first registrants of the ZOPE trademark in WIPO. ZEA registered our LOGO, not the word ZOPE, which we registered _before_ they registered the LOGO. So, everyone, please pay attention. We did _not_ ignore our trademark rights in Europe. We registered our base trademark, the word ZOPE, in a number of countries in Europe. ZEA then registered our LOGO (taken from our website), including the name ZOPE in it (which we had already registered).
I am truly unsure as to how to make this point any clearer.
A few points I want to clear up... the next two paragraphs I write are about technicalities, I am not refering to any moral right or wrong, or who did what etc.
In my view the confusion is apparent. If I go to zope.org I see the same logo (admittedly with the word community added to it). If I install Zope and go to the ZMI one of the first things I see is the Zope logo. I can clearly see how people associate the logo with the software. Very few clients (and potential clients) we talk to in the UK are even aware of ZC... *in their mind* Zope is a CMS not a company.
You are absolutely correct. In certain usages, we try to make the distinction obvious (like Community being part of the logo, and certainly in adding "Corporation" in our own logo). That said, our "Logo Usage" page on zope.com, which has been there for a _very_ long time, makes it clear that we own the trademark for _all_ variations of the mark, and that we _freely_ license it (without any signatures!) for certain usage, and license it under a contract for all other usages (most of those are free too!): http://www.zope.com/about_us/legal/zope_logo_usage.html The point is that even the logo in the free Zope software is "owned" by us. It just happens to be freely licensed, with no fee or contract. That doesn't make it available to be registered as an owned trademark by someone else. We don't care if potential clients of yours don't associate the logo with us, that's obviously fine. We _do_ care if they associate the logo with ZEA and nobody else. If they associate it with Zope the software, that's fine too, and doesn't require a license, but that still leaves us as the owners of the mark.
And please please please remember that there is no such thing as 'registered the trademark in Europe'. There are many companies in Europe and the trademarks have to be registered in specific countries.
Again, you are correct. I noted in my previous response to you that you were also correct that we picked countries that were economically interesting to us.
Read the above response again (and again if necessary). More importantly, ask yourself why ZEA admitted to us during a phone call that they believe that there were deals that they could not have won if they didn't control the mark? Now extend that thought one more inch and ask yourself how the Zope-based companies that they competed against in Europe would feel if they knew that this was a commercial leverage point for ZEA in winning against their bid?!?!?
You are twisting the truth here -- I wish I had recorded the phone call now to prevent the chinese whispers :) On the call to Lois, Xavier said that there are certain possibilities of using Zope for EU projects which would be hampered by a corporation (ie ZC) owning the trademark to the OSS software. ZEA does not want the trademark. Repeat. ZEA does not want the trademark.
Huh? ZEA does not represent everyone in the Zope Community (as Rob has already pointed out) and worse, does not even represent all commercial Zope companies in Europe. How does ZEA holding the trademark make an EU project "less hampered" than ZC holding it? You can keep repeating that ZEA doesn't want the trademark, and yet, you registered it...
it's utterly obvious that even the more basic of the "facts" are still misunderstood by a number of posters. As an example, the repeated questioning of why we didn't register our own marks in Europe, which we did.
Yes, you are still mis-understanding the facts. Europe consists of many countries, of which you registered the mark in just six - Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy.
This is the third time that I am publicly agreeing that we made a choice.
ZEA then went on to further protect the mark registering it in: Austria, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Cyrus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine
Really? We registered the base word Zope, from which all of our other marks derive (except for the separate trademark that we have on the Circle-Z logo). You did _not_ register the word Zope in any of the other countries, so you did not in fact "further protect the mark" in the countries that you mention above. You registered a logo that we have a registered trademark for in the US, that we paid to design, that includes our registered (in a number of EU countries as well) trademark "ZOPE", with publicly stated policies for its usage available on our website, and not only registered it in the "additional" countries, but also registered it in all of the countries where we were already "protected". I truly think it's time to just call it like it is, and stop pretending that you were saving the world from a few bad guys. People make mistakes, we all do. We didn't threaten to sue you (though we were most definitely accused of having threatened to sue you, which we responded to in writing that we did _not_ intend to sue you!). We simply pointed out that the mark was registered in your name, and that we wanted it transferred back to us. At this point, the transfer would still solve the problem quickly, but we are just as happy to have it "reversed", which in some sense will more firmly cement that our position was correct all along...
Amazingly enough, we have owned the trademark since 2002 (we changed our name in 2001, and it took that long to get the trademark registered in the US). There was _no_ hope of a Foundation at the time. Yet, by your own admission, you and others continued to invest marketing money in the brand. Why?
Because we believed (and still want to believe) in the good of all the parties involved. I guess when we started investing in promoting the software there was no confusion with the name, now there is.
My point is that the confusion has existed since 2001. This is 4 years later, and you continue to invest. It's obvious (to me) that we haven't behaved in any way that should cause people to stop investing in the brand, and that we continue to try to be creative in finding ways to make people feel even more comfortable in continuing that investment (like Rob's recent suggestion of having the ZF be the ultimate arbiter).
The more amazing part is that now that we will transfer the IP to the Foundation, and give an _irrevocable_ license to the Foundation for the use of the word ZOPE to brand the software (which can _never_ be taken back, even if someone acquires us), but somehow, _now_ you are worried about investing in the Zope brand. I simply can't connect the dots.
I guess its because IANAL, but I just:
1) Don't understand how an irrevocable license works.
Straight from the dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irrevocable "Impossible to retract or revoke: an irrevocable decision." Note the word "Impossible" in the definition...
2) Am still unclear of licencing issues, when Rob spoke at EPC about the foundation it was very unclear as to who would make decisions on licensing, in some cases ZC would have the final say, and in some cases the ZF. It just seemed confusing to me.
We have attempted to clarify that in writing in Rob's post on Tuesday. The Foundation will be responsible (100%) for any licensing involving the Software, and ZC will not be involved. For any "business" use of the word Zope, ZC will be involved if there is any ambiguity regarding whether the business use implies ZC.
3) ZC is a very small, yet very powerful part of the Zope Community (maybe this is just my view from Europe). Can you explain to me exactly what benefits ZC has in holding the trademarks as opposed to them being held by an independant foundation? The fact that ZC doesn't want them to be held by an independant 3rd party makes me think something sinister is planned on the horizon.
Sinister? We want two things from holding the trademark: 1) No confusion as to the source of our products. 2) The right to license the mark to those that see value in it. Since the rights that 99.9% of the community are interested in are covered 100% by the license to the ZF, there should be a handful of people world-wide who will be unhappy with this (if everyone truly understands the issue), and those people are unhappy today anyway, since we already own the mark.
Two months ago, you would invest, when there was no Foundation on the horizon, and the Zope software could be revoked by a future acquirer of ZC. Now, there will be a guaranteed future for the Zope software and brand forever, independent of ZC, but that's somehow now "risky" for you to invest...
Yes a future acquirer of ZC could try and revoke the software, but it is licensed under the ZPL so is joint ownership. I think this creates enough of an incentive to prevent this happening as much of the code is contributed by people other than ZC.
We are talking apples and oranges here. You could always fork the software. Before the ZF though, your fork would have had to be renamed and the brand equity you so desire would be gone in an instant. With the new ZF, and our irrevocable license to it, no acquirer can _ever_ take back the word Zope from the community (or more properly from the ZF). This is _way_ better than the situation you are currently in, but somehow, the TM debate rages on.
I agree that Rob's suggestion was a good one, and the fact that I agreed to it shows that we are more than willing to work with the community to find _reasonable_ ways to solve problems.
Yes, it is reasonable and it is a start of dialogue. This is a distinct improvement over last week's approach of 'We are not negotiating anything. Hand it over or we set our lawyers on you'. When I *specifically* asked Lois if something like this was possible she re-iterated that you would not be willing to enter any further discussion.
Let's make another important distinction here. We were not, and are not willing to negotiate with ZEA over the registration of our TM. We are _more_ than willing, and have _always_ been willing to listen to the community regarding issues that can help the community grow. So, when the current TM dispute is behind us, and it is obvious to one and all that we own the TM wherever we choose to register it, we will be happy to continue to find even more ways to make the community feel comfortable regarding TM and anything else, for the growth of the community, and the benefit of all.
Perhaps European law is different that US law, but Rob stated clearly that the contract would name ZC's successors and assigns, which makes it legally binding on anyone who purchases ZC as well. In the US, that contract would survive the sale of ZC. I see no reason to be paranoid about that eventuality, as long as you would trust the initial contract between ZC and the ZF.
OK, in which case, that makes sense to me. Combined with Rob's idea of letting the board of the ZF make the decisions on licensing issues I think I personally am happy.
Excellent! Like I said in my first post yesterday, even with the current dispute ongoing, it is our intention to fulfill every promise we have made with regard to forming the Foundation and delivering the code and the license for the marks. The only thing we said was there might be a delay in the formation, until the dispute is resolved. Perhaps, since you are a member of the ZEA, you can help make some of your other members more comfortable, and help accelerate the resolution of the dispute. If not, that's fine too.
Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
"George Donnelly" <list@zettai.net> wrote in message news:dbmpjp$kl8$1@sea.gmane.org...
Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but also inappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around the software we all love and are grateful to ZC and non-ZC related programmers alike for, Zope.
Please don't say that things are "innacurate" when you aren't involved, and have already repeated a number of "innacuracies" yourself, which were readily available for you to check before you repeated them...
Thankfully i'm not directly involved in these pointless internecine battles between ZC and one of its founders, but I am involved in the zope community and ZC brought this issue into the community so i am involved as is everyone else here. You don't get to make the issue public and then tell people they aren't involved. According to rob page's post of yesterday, Zope registered the word "Zope" while ZEA registered the Zope logo. So when i ask why didn't ZC register the marks earlier, i am clearly not repeating an innaccuracy, unless you are saying that rob page's post to zope announce was innacurate.
ZC: Potay-to. ZEA: Potah-to. ZC: Potay-to! ZEA: Potah-to! ZC: Potay-to!! ZEA: Potah-to!! ZC: POTAY-TO, you evil thief!!! ZEA: POTAH-TO you dictatiorial pig!! Not a communications problem? My ass.
HAHAHHAHA!!! LOL! Man! There has got to be some humor in this at some point! Honestly, though, I appreciate your discussions being held here. I truly appreciate the fact that I have Zope to work with and offer to my customers. I feel that I owe that thanks not only to Zope Corporation, but to the community as well. I just wanted to chime in from a tiny part of the *silent majority* so that both parties hear it. I love Zope, we all do. Work this out. :-) Greg On 7/21/05, Lennart Regebro <regebro@gmail.com> wrote:
ZC: Potay-to. ZEA: Potah-to. ZC: Potay-to! ZEA: Potah-to! ZC: Potay-to!! ZEA: Potah-to!! ZC: POTAY-TO, you evil thief!!! ZEA: POTAH-TO you dictatiorial pig!!
Not a communications problem? My ass. _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
-- Greg Fischer 1st Byte Solutions http://www.1stbyte.com
I would like to inform that ZEA is in the process to transfer the trademark to Zope Corporation. A number of actions will be taken including the preparation of the list of expenses to secure the trademark, and meetings with our trademark expert to work on the administrative details. We would like to emphasize that no action taken by Zope Europe Association are illegal from a European perspective. As said earlier, our action was aimed at securing the mark stopping third party registrations. Best regards, Xavier Heymans CEO, Zope Europe Association On 21-juil.-05, at 14:35, Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
"George Donnelly" <list@zettai.net> wrote in message news:dbmpjp$kl8$1@sea.gmane.org...
ZC says: the marks were stolen ZEA seems to be saying: the marks were registered defensively.
I am amazed at how people pick and choose what to read and repeat, and what to ignore. I will mix in a few quotes from a few posts responding to my note yesterday to highlight this problem.
After this post, unless someone makes a profound new statement, I will remain silent, as many of you have requested, and complete the trademark challenge process through the official channels that have already begun.
George, others have already replied to this, but Rob has written about this as well before, so I'm surprised that this is still a question. A defensive registration of _our_ trademark should have been _explicitly_ called to our attention. In fact, any reasonable company would have alerted us to any specific danger, and asked us if _we_ intended to register our trademarks in the appropriate jurisdiction.
Beyond that point, _we_ are the first registrants of the ZOPE trademark in WIPO. ZEA registered our LOGO, not the word ZOPE, which we registered _before_ they registered the LOGO. So, everyone, please pay attention. We did _not_ ignore our trademark rights in Europe. We registered our base trademark, the word ZOPE, in a number of countries in Europe. ZEA then registered our LOGO (taken from our website), including the name ZOPE in it (which we had already registered).
I am truly unsure as to how to make this point any clearer.
My read on this is that there is a serious communication problem going on here between the lines. Why doesn't Paul come out and state what the ZEA position is? Why are ZC's words so angry?
There isn't really a communication problem here (though it would wonderful if there was). There is a backtracking and a rewriting of history going on, because ZEA got caught with their hands in our cookie jar. They could have settled this incredibly quietly and quickly. Instead, they chose a path that has led us here.
We could have fought it silently too, so it's 100% true that we are the ones that brought this fight into the public. On the other hand, I can't imagine what would have happened if this private battle dragged on until January, and then we got beaten up for missing the launch date on the Foundation, and only then alerted the community as to what was going on.
So, we did what we thought was the most prudent thing, and alerted the community 2 days after we initiated the challenge to their registration. I don't know how we could have been more transparent about it.
ZC saying the marks were stolen seems a little over the top. What if ZEA registered them defensively? if that's possible then ZEA should be given then benefit of the doubt and not be called a thief. If there was a need to register them to protect "zope", then why didn't ZC do it?
Read the above response again (and again if necessary). More importantly, ask yourself why ZEA admitted to us during a phone call that they believe that there were deals that they could not have won if they didn't control the mark? Now extend that thought one more inch and ask yourself how the Zope-based companies that they competed against in Europe would feel if they knew that this was a commercial leverage point for ZEA in winning against their bid?!?!?
And again, read the above to see that our registration of the mark "ZOPE" predates theirs.
Everybody needs to calm down, stop insulting each other and stop broadcasting this problem to the whole world on zope-announce (for example). Its making us all look childish.
Indeed, we do look childish, and I'm perhaps _more_ to blame for that escalation than others. That's why I will try to keep this as my last communication (at least for a while) on this topic. That said, a number of people responded saying that they were not only glad to be made aware of this problem, but were surprised that they didn't know about it sooner.
The rhetoric (mine as well!) is louder than it should be, but I believe the issue(s) definitely needed to be aired, as it's utterly obvious that even the more basic of the "facts" are still misunderstood by a number of posters. As an example, the repeated questioning of why we didn't register our own marks in Europe, which we did.
Making either side into the bad guy is not only innacurate but also inappropriate and is not conducive to building a community around the software we all love and are grateful to ZC and non-ZC related programmers alike for, Zope.
Please don't say that things are "innacurate" when you aren't involved, and have already repeated a number of "innacuracies" yourself, which were readily available for you to check before you repeated them...
Matt Hamilton wrote:
No, just the opposite. ZC do *not* want to transfer the marks to the ZF. I do find this position strange. Whilst they are willing to transfer all the IP, for which yes we are grateful. The issue being that many companies around the world are investing marketing money and time in developing and promoting the 'zope brand'. The problem is that this brand now (since ZC renamed from DC) also co-incides with Zope Corporation. The value of this brand is increasing and needs to be protected, hence why the marks have been trademarked in the other companies in which ZC did not register. I am guessing that ZC registered the marks in the countries that are most commercially valuable to them -- an understandable move as it was their bucks paying for it. However the *zope community* extends beyond these countries and needs protection too.
This is correct. We are transferring IP, and not the trademarks. Are we allowed to keep anything, or should we donate all of our programmers to the Foundation, but keep paying their salaries as well? Just tell us what will make 100% of the people in the community love us, and we'll consider it...
Amazingly enough, we have owned the trademark since 2002 (we changed our name in 2001, and it took that long to get the trademark registered in the US). There was _no_ hope of a Foundation at the time. Yet, by your own admission, you and others continued to invest marketing money in the brand. Why?
The more amazing part is that now that we will transfer the IP to the Foundation, and give an _irrevocable_ license to the Foundation for the use of the word ZOPE to brand the software (which can _never_ be taken back, even if someone acquires us), but somehow, _now_ you are worried about investing in the Zope brand. I simply can't connect the dots.
Two months ago, you would invest, when there was no Foundation on the horizon, and the Zope software could be revoked by a future acquirer of ZC. Now, there will be a guaranteed future for the Zope software and brand forever, independent of ZC, but that's somehow now "risky" for you to invest...
The main conflict arises because:
* The zope community and Zope Corporation use the same word 'zope' to identify themselves.
True. We're not the only ones. MySQL, JBOSS, etc.
* ZC don't want to let go of their trademarked name as that is a major asset to their business.
True. However, it is _nothing_ like what is being described by people who think we're being bad (you included). We want to make sure that when something has the word Zope in it, that it can't _mistakenly_ give the impression that it is a product of Zope Corporation. PERIOD. Trademark is purely a _sourcing_ issue. If the use of the word Zope does not connote Zope Corporation, then we have no problem with it (and never have had).
Rob gave a number of examples in his follow up yesterday. I'll repeat one of them since it seems that repetition is more necessary than I would have thought. Egenix uses the word Zope _directly_ in one of their product names:
eGenix mxODBC Zope DA
They asked (as a result of some of these public TM discussions) whether they needed a license from us or not. We immediately informed them that they did not require a license, even though the word Zope was in their product name!
Do you get it now? No consumer could have been confused that this was a product of Zope Corporation. Therefore, we assert _no control_ over the word Zope in that regard.
* Many people in the zope community feel uneasy that a corporation which can be bought and sold owns the name of the software that they are developing.
Agreed, but again, it is truly just paranoia (see above). Worse, it can only get better after the Foundation has feel and clear (and eternal) use of the mark to brand the software "Zope", but somehow, it's now a bigger issue than it has been in years...
All these points are perfectly valid and understandable, but what we need to work out is a way in which we can try and combine and merge these conflicting points in a sane way.
At the moment, there's nothing to work out. We will prevail in our challenge to ZEA's filing, and everything will then continue on course. This can be accelerated if ZEA voluntarily gives up their registration (or transfers it to us, etc.).
Our TM is our asset. We don't intend to give it away. We don't intend to give our building away either. Perhaps the community wishes to chip in (or perhaps just ZEA) and wants to make an offer to ZC to purchase the TM for themselves or on behalf of the Foundation. All reasonable offers will be considered :-)
I personally (remember, these views are all mine) welcome Rob's ideas on how to ensure that ZC's potential successors or assigns use the Zope trademark in a fair way. The problem being, I don't see how that can happen if the trademarks are owned by ZC as if the company were bought it would be up to the new owned what would happen with its own property.
I agree that Rob's suggestion was a good one, and the fact that I agreed to it shows that we are more than willing to work with the community to find _reasonable_ ways to solve problems.
Yes we could put a contract in place between ZF and ZC to say that ZF can be the arbiter of any disputes, but I don't see how that can remain in place if ZC changes hands.
Perhaps European law is different that US law, but Rob stated clearly that the contract would name ZC's successors and assigns, which makes it legally binding on anyone who purchases ZC as well. In the US, that contract would survive the sale of ZC. I see no reason to be paranoid about that eventuality, as long as you would trust the initial contract between ZC and the ZF.
To repeat myself (yet again), this is my last post unless someone makes a truly new point.
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
+-------[ Xavier Heymans ]---------------------- | I would like to inform that ZEA is in the process to transfer the trademark to | Zope Corporation. A number of actions will be taken including the preparation | of the list of expenses to secure the trademark, and meetings with our | trademark expert to work on the administrative details. | | We would like to emphasize that no action taken by Zope Europe Association are | illegal from a European perspective. As said earlier, our action was aimed at | securing the mark stopping third party registrations. | You took someone else's work and claimed it as your own. This is the worst crime you can commit in the Open Source world. -- Andrew Milton akm@theinternet.com.au
Hi! Andrew Milton wrote:
You took someone else's work and claimed it as your own. This is the worst crime you can commit in the Open Source world.
I think it's not really a discussion about Open Source here as it should make no difference to the Zope community whether ZC or ZEA is holding the TM. Both don't represent it and both possibly could do harm to it if they just wanted to (which they don't want as I see it). I think it's more a story about a company which some time ago made their software open source. The result of that was a big win for the Zope project as it attracted a lot of developers and, as a result, created a lot of additional projects like Silva, Plone, CPS etc. So now we have quite a big community advocating the use of Zope and now also doing the main development of the software itself (in form of Zope3). I am part of that community and I am proud of that :-) So from Zope having it's roots in that company these problems arise IMHO. So having said that I am a bit disappointed by the recent discussions here as it's maybe the sign of some unresolved problems between certain important players in the Zope world. Some points: - How the thread was started by ZC was IMHO not really good style. For me it sounded like very hard words and threatening with not doing the foundation did not sound too good and not really a good thing for the community. I also still don't understand what the foundation has to do with the actual TM discussion - wasn't it just the logo about which was being discussed? So what would have happened in the case if not ZEA did register it but any evil guy? To hold the creation of the Foundation should not have been the answer in any case! - if ZEA has registered the TM without telling ZC this is of course not ok. I understand if you don't discuss it loudly so that other parties hurry to register it but it could have been solved easily back then with a silent negotiation between the two parties. (too bad ZC did not simply register everything themselves so we would have one discussion less) - in general: Bashing each other will not help Zope and not the community. And a damaged community cannot help ZC or ZEA or any other player in the Zope world. So it should be in everyones interest to keep things going in a good mood. So that much about the form now more about my worries about the TM itself. Legally of course ZC is the right owner of the TMs as they created Zope. But OTOH it would feel more right if the TM would be transferred to the Zope Foundation. ZC once opensourced their project and the main work in terms of coding and marketing seems to be done by the community now and less and less by ZC (at least it seems to me that way). And for me Zope also feels like an open source project through and through and not something belonging to some single company.
From what I see that's also the way most of the rest of the world thinks about it, especially in Europe. Thus for me it would just feel better if also the TM would be given to the community in form of the foundation (as "the community" is no real legal person the foundation might be the next possible thing).
I also read about the irrevocable license given to the Zope Foundation and it might make no difference legally for the TM whether ZC or the ZF owns it. But as said before, I am no legal expert and thus I don't know about all the impacts and thus I am worried. So also because of this it would feel better for me if the TM would be owned by the ZF as there are just more checks&balances between their members than there will be with a single player. And hopefully I would at least trust one of them ;-) But maybe somebody can answer me some questions about it anyway: 1. What does the license mean. Does it mean that ZF will also have the right to decide who is allowed what to do with the TM, and even restrict ZC? 2. If ZC might get evil (I don't assume that, btw :-): What might happen with sites like zopelabs or any other site/institution having "Zope" in it's name. Can they tell them to remove that name? 3. What will happen in this worst case if ZC (or more exactly evil ZC) will suddenly start doing a Java CMS under the name "Zope"? Can the ZF prevent this? So basically it's not quite clear to me if the license just means that ZF is allowed to use the name or if they also can really protect it. There might always be the possibility to rename the whole project but why should I advocate Zope now if this investment might be lost someday? So because of this discussion I am a bit worried. It might be called "irrational fears" but I might not be the only one and as many in the community are not fluent in legal things this stuff should be thought about very carefully in order to keep the environment intact as this is what Zope makes alive. (OTOH the community seems not really taking part in that discussion so maybe it's just me who is a bit worried ;-) Finally I would like to ask all arguing parties, like ZF and ZEA (and after reading their blog maybe also Nuxeo) to get together and get things get sorted out between them. I hope there's a will to do it. Otherwise the often repeated phrase "we are all in one boat" etc. sounds a bit strange.. The climate could at least be better.. regards, Christian PS: Sorry for this long post ;-)
Hi Christian, Thanks for this long and balanced post. Far less heated than I (or other hot people of the community) can produce. I hope ZC will take time to answer your legitimate questions... I suppose you'll await some progress on the negotiation before joining us in ZEA... BTW, do you have the feeling ZEA was trying to steal anything, have you heard of others that would think we tried to ? At least I agree ZEA should have communicated with ZC far earlier. Christian Scholz wrote:
Hi!
Andrew Milton wrote:
You took someone else's work and claimed it as your own. This is the worst crime you can commit in the Open Source world.
I think it's not really a discussion about Open Source here as it should make no difference to the Zope community whether ZC or ZEA is holding the TM. Both don't represent it and both possibly could do harm to it if they just wanted to (which they don't want as I see it).
Thanks mainly for this paragraph... which ZEA itself would agree with, at least if I understand their(our) position correctly.
<snip> -- Godefroid Chapelle (aka __gotcha) http://bubblenet.be
Hi!
Thanks for this long and balanced post.
Far less heated than I (or other hot people of the community) can produce.
I hope ZC will take time to answer your legitimate questions...
I'd also prefer some answers by some independant people regarding legal topics (as long as it can be told based on the facts).
I suppose you'll await some progress on the negotiation before joining us in ZEA...
Well, it was explained to me what ZEA is at EP and I was just listening for now ;-) The same is true for the ZF.
BTW, do you have the feeling ZEA was trying to steal anything, have you heard of others that would think we tried to ?
Well, I cannot look into the heads of people but in general I trust people so when ZEA says they just wanted to protect it, I believe it as I believe that ZC has no evil plans with the TM. I think trying to steal it wouldn't be a good idea anyway and I think that the people at ZEA know this as the publicity of this would be against them (as we see now). Moreover I know some people at ZEA and they seem to be nice guys anyway and not "business sharks". Actually it feels a bit like a competition issue between ZC and ZEA and it would be nice if this would be sorted out between them (internally please) as the market is big enough (especially if one party is in the US and the other one in Europe). So about this whole topic actually there are two points: 1. How the issue was handled. IMHO not good on both sides. 2. What the plans with the TM are and what they mean to the Zope community.
At least I agree ZEA should have communicated with ZC far earlier.
Good :-) -- christian
Godefroid Chapelle <gotcha@bubblenet.be> wrote:
There is nothing against the ZF : there is sthing against ZC being the sole owner of the TMs when the current value of it has been established by the community as a whole, especially out of USA.
This is why I support the proposal made by a few members of the community to have the ZF own the TMs and that would give a perpetual license to Zope Corporation to use it.
This is beyond my understanding. ZC created Zope. ZC created the brand. ZC is called "Zope Corp". Why on earth would they relinquish the core asset that is their trademark and branding? It's theirs. They're giving the full use of it to the community. What's wrong with that? Why do you want, require, more? The current state of what ZC proposes doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything reasonable. "Give them your hand, and they'll ask for your arm"... Florent -- Florent Guillaume, Nuxeo (Paris, France) CTO, Director of R&D +33 1 40 33 71 59 http://nuxeo.com fg@nuxeo.com
Florent Guillaume wrote:
The current state of what ZC proposes doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything reasonable.
"Give them your hand, and they'll ask for your arm"...
Indeed. I don't have any problem with ZC keeping the trademarks, but why are they tying the creation of the foundation onto their retreival of their lost marks? The two seem totally unconnected to me... Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk
"Chris Withers" <chris@simplistix.co.uk> wrote in message news:42DEACC7.4030409@simplistix.co.uk...
Florent Guillaume wrote:
The current state of what ZC proposes doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything reasonable.
"Give them your hand, and they'll ask for your arm"...
Indeed. I don't have any problem with ZC keeping the trademarks, but why are they tying the creation of the foundation onto their retreival of their lost marks?
The two seem totally unconnected to me...
Considering that we have agreed to license our marks to the Foundation, and that the lawyers tell us that this is the first step, we have to have _clear title_ to them in order to have a valid license agreement. If there's an ongoing trademark dispute, then we can't cleanly license the marks to the Foundation. It seemed obvious to us in our post that we were explaining this, but it must not have been clear enough. Is it clear now?
participants (17)
-
Andreas Jung -
Andrew Milton -
Chris Withers -
Christian Scholz -
Dieter Maurer -
Florent Guillaume -
George Donnelly -
Godefroid Chapelle -
Greg Fischer -
Hadar Pedhazur -
Lennart Regebro -
Matt Hamilton -
Paul Winkler -
Philip Kilner -
robert rottermann -
Tino Wildenhain -
Xavier Heymans