gnome-mastermind trademark question

[Hans de Goede]

Filippo Argiolas wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Hans de Goede <hdegoede at redhat.com> wrote:
>> Hi All,
> Hi Hans, Hi All,
> 

Hi Filippo! Welcome! Thanks for joining us :)

>> Actually taking a quick look it is a 100% clone of mastermind, which is ok,
>> game rules are not copyrighted.
>> However using the name is not ok, as that is trademarked and thus protected,
>> take a look at the whole trademark case (as in they were sued) around
>> Scrabulous, a popular Scrabble clone which was integrated into facebook.
>> There bug mistake? Using a name too close to Scrabble. Since getting sued is
>> something we (Fedora) try to avoid, gnome-mastermind is not acceptable for
>> Fedora under its current name.
>>
>> And Filippo, unless you are looking to getting yourself sued, I seriously
>> advice you to change the name of your game.
> 
> I'm sorry for the late reply but I had problems registering to the mailing-list

No problem, glad to have you onboard.

> I faced this trademark issue multiple times since the game is out.
> I looked for a new *good* name for quite some time but then gave up
> because I didn't find any. I'm still open to suggestions so feel free
> to give yours!

I'm a coder not a creative guy I'm afraid but I'm sure that if we really want 
to, we can come up with something. I'm very glad you're willing to change the 
name if we come up with something good.

> Anyway, the usual practice of trademark holders is to send
> cease-and-desist letters before to take further legal actions, they
> never sent one and I'm ready to change the name if they'll do (or
> before if I find a good name).

We (atleast Fedora) try to take a more pro-active stance against legal issues,
when ever possible we try to avoid getting in a situation where we might get
a cease and desist letter. We package 10000 of pieces of software, if we would
get a cease and desist letter for just 0.1 % of those we would get 10 !

> As I said on irc I don't really like the name gnome-mindmaster
> because, apart being ugly, it's too similar to the original name and I
> don't really think it will preserve me from legal actions.

Ok.

> I'm more
> oriented versus some name involving the Bulls and Cows original game,
> something like gnome-bulls-and-cows (a bit long, though...), I like
> gnome-moo but isn't it too debian-ish?

As a Fedora head I have no problem with it. It is gnu-ish more then it is
Debain-ish, which is fine :)

> Other suggestions (maybe
> variations on the bulls and cows theme..)?
> Anyway I don't really think it's up to package maintainers to take a
> choice about the new name, I'm quite open towards a name change so why
> don't do it upstream?

Your absolutely right and we would love to see this happen upstream, but 
sometimes upstream is not willing to change the name, and then we have to 
choose between shipping under a different name or not shipping at all.

> About the Scraboulous thing, I think, really, that it's an absolutely
> different one.
> They were using the name for profit purposes and making quite a lot
> money out of it.
> They were actual competitors of the trademark holder. Furthermore
> Hasbro tried to acquire them before to proceed on legal ways.
> I am just a little developer with a little freesoftware project that I
> created as a *tribute* to the board game. I never intended to be a
> competitor and I acknowledge their rights both on the game and on the
> mark both in the website and in the about dialog. Needless to say I
> don't make any money out of it. I don't really think they will be
> interested to sue me.

Yes you are "just a little developer", but Fedora is running on infrastructure 
paid for by RedHat (*) (**), and RedHat is a worthy target to sue (as in they 
can pay damages).

*) My employer since Sept 1st, but I've been having discussions like these 
before that and my POV has not changed.

**) Everything said in this discussion is my own private opinion, I'm not
speaking on behalf of RedHat in anyway.

> And, there have been tons of mastermind clones abusing of the
> trademark, just do a quick google search, and I don't really think
> Hasbro, Invicta, Pressman toys or one of the other holders ever sued
> them.

Just because tons of people have driven through a red traffic light and gotten 
away with it, does not make driving through a red traffic light right.

> About the distributors question (I'm sorry if I reply here for all the
> questions), how could be the distributors involved if the trademark
> holder would decide to sue me?

Well since we (the distributors) are distributing it they could decide to sue 
us instead.

> Why all the distributors except fedora care about this thing? The
> game, as far as I know, is included in Debian (and they usually have
> strict requirements about intellectual property issues), Ubuntu,
> Foresight, Archlinux, Gentoo, Slackware, Netbsd, and probably others.
> It is hosted on GNOME svn too.
> Allow me to find it at least a bit strange that only Fedora ever complained.
> 

I completely agree with you there, I've always been amazed how other distro's 
seem to ignore trademark issues. It seems atleast the Debian people are now 
"waking up" thanks to this discussion.

> I think that's all, I hope I didn't seem rude or upset, english is not
> my language so please forgive me if I did, I'm really open to a name
> change and to good suggestions!

You came over quite polite, no worries. And I'm really happy to hear your ok 
with a name change. Now lets go and come up with a new name, I'm fine with 
gnome-moo, any other suggestions ?

Regards,

Hans