Re: [OT] Harassment of open source developer !
On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 01:00:38PM -0500, Balbir Thomas wrote:
> Hi,
> Yet another case of open source developers being harassed. Adobe
> lawyers ask developer of killustrator to pay fines for using a name
> that abuses their trade mark illustrator. Go read about it at slashdot
> , and then give your feedback to Adobe. I already did. We can't let
> such harassment go without being protested. If I were a conspiracy
> theorist I would see a pattern here . While corporation are leagly
> portected to indulge in some kinds of "negative advertising" as a
> "competitive stratergy" open source developer are sued because the
> english language words are now "trademarks".
Protest all you like, but I think Adobe probably has a valid claim of
trademark infringement. It doesn't take any stretch of imagination to
see that "KIllustrator" is a knock-off of "Adobe Illustrator [tm]".
Like it or not, probably any U.S. court would agree. I'm sure the
"KIllustrator" folks will just change the name and move on. Nothing
will be gained by stuffing Adobe's inbox with rants. While Adobe has
been circumspect about Linux and *BSD, a bunch of rants is more likely
just to irritate them and make them not want to support Linux/*BSD in
the future.
--
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>
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