[hobbit] Don't make the pie higher! (was: RE: [hobbit] "Hobbit" name legal stuff; slight name change will happen)

[Galen Johnson]

I'm not saying they weren't very nice...I agree it could have been handled in a much less friendly manner...lawyers never cease to amuse me.

Of course, when we pick a new name, I'm going to have to figure out a different name for The Shire to go with it...maybe I'll call it "Live Dog" or "Undead Hamster" or "Flushed Fish"... :-D

=G=

-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk]
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 10:32 AM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: Re: [hobbit] Don't make the pie higher! (was: RE: [hobbit] "Hobbit" name legal stuff; slight name change will happen)

In <36304.192.168.0.1.1217859745.squirrel at epperson.homelinux.net> "Hobbit User in Richmond" <hobbit at epperson.homelinux.net> writes:

>On Mon, August 4, 2008 09:00, Galen Johnson wrote:
>> After reading the letters, it looked to me that as soon as they found out
>> they couldn't pin anyone down to get a slice of the ephemeral pie, they
>> decided that the name should be changed.

>Well, as a PHB who's also a Linux lead, the way I read the letters is that
>as soon as they found out they couldn't pin anyone down to commit to not
>selling  slices of their client's pie and not giving any more of it away
>than was already the case, they wanted a name change.  I thought the
>attitude was quite refreshing after seeing decades worth of threatening
>cease-and-desist letters.


I agree. I think they have been treated me nicely; they could have just
sent me a "stop-doing-this-or-we'll-sue-you-now" letter. They didn't,
and in fact they have been generous to suggest a couple of possible
name changes that I could do which would keep them happy.

Add to this that they actually knew what I was talking about, when I
told them that Hobbit is an Open Source product, so there is no money
involved.

They have a trademark to defend, and one of the rules of that game is
that they MUST react when they become aware of possible violations of
their trademark; if they don't, then they can forfeit their ownership
of the trademark. So they have to do something, and I think they handled
this nicely.

Sure - having to rename everythin IS annoying, but I should have thought
about that when I first picked the name.


Regards,
Henrik


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