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At the same time though, they aren't playing the role of good community citizen either. It's really confusing to see what the motivations are here. Why openly

At the same time though, they aren't playing the role of good community citizen either. It's really confusing to see what the motivations are here. Why openly antagonize a community that you claim to be a part of and represent? I hope there is more to it, but otherwise, this just seems like a stunt. Surely @ahachete must realize that the Postgres Core team must defend their trademarks (otherwise they can be lost or lose protection). And either way, I just don't see the endgame here.

vickychijwani 5y ago
Yes I'm a bit confused about their motivations too. Sharing what I've pieced together so far (and trying to approach this from a good-faith perspective): My understanding so far is that they run a Postgres consulting firm [1], and it appears they took the liberty of registering a Postgres trademark for the class of "professional services" in order to (I presume) protect fair use by their firm and (they claim in their response) by others in the Postgres community. Some of this is admittedly speculation on my part, and I'm trying to take a charitable view of their actions to try to understand why a community member would do this. That said I have no opinion on whether this action is net good for the community, and I'm not a Postgres user so I have no horse in this race. It's just the social dynamics of this situation that are interesting to me. [1]: https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team
- ahachete 5y ago
  Actually, IMHO, it's the Core team + PAC + PEU who have acted in bad faith. As the post states, with dates, there has never been any communication from them to discuss this matter. Only through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even with laywers present. There was no need to make all this public. This clearly hurts the Community. As the post says, there's no explanation to why PEU, who is as legit as any other non-profit Postgres association, including Fundación PostgreSQL, can hold trademarks and not being sued and publicly bashed. If PEU can hold trademarks, why can't Fundación? Conversely: if there should be one trademark holder (and we agree, read the proposal we submitted to them which got no reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more solid grounds than current Core's Group (which has no legal entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque association too.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    > As the post states, with dates, there has never been any communication from them to discuss this matter. Only through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even with laywers present. That's sort of a nonsensical take. Of course people with any sort of connection to the other side would be advised not to speak to you without a lawyer, and not to speak with a lawyer if they had nothing legally relevant to add. Your actions with regard to copyright were legal in nature, you should expect a legal response. I think the very valid question in this is were you contacted in 2020 and told to cease and desist using a legal trademark by the current owners, and did you fail to do so? If that's true, I'm not sure what defense you have. As I see it, the only responsible action at that time if you really care about the issues you raise would be to cease and desist and open an dialogue that is not subject to legal proceedings and their need to defend their copyright lest they lose it. > there should be one trademark holder (and we agree, read the proposal we submitted to them which got no reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more solid grounds than current Core's Group (which has no legal entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque association too. That's not for you to decide. The correct way to go about that is not to make the holding entity and then try to surreptitiously acquire the trademark, but to have approached the community first. Did you approach the community prior to attempting to take over an aspect of their management and holdings, or not? If you did, what was the response?
    - ahachete 5y ago
      > The correct way to go about that is not to make the holding entity and then try to surreptitiously acquire the trademark, but to have approached the community first. Did you approach the community prior to attempting to take over an aspect of their management and holdings, or not? If you did, what was the response? Yes, this is the case. Indeed, many times. I have personally voiced many concerns about different aspects of the governance and workings of the Community. And in 2019 a very clear and significant case was raised when some dispute over IP (a domain name) surfaced. In this case, we declined used of the domain name following Core's request, but raised --again-- concerns over the governance of Postgres. The answer to all of these requests? Outright denial. Silence. Nada. There is no willing to change anything. Also one year later I voiced some of these concerns publicly (https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-modernize-postgresql-core/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-modernize-postgre...). Same outcome. So yes, I have at a personal level and we have at the Foundation level tried everything we believed could be done. And we perceived trademarks are more at risk with PAC and PEU than us, and we saw that some were not registered, so we proceeded to protect them and offer them openly to the Postgres Community (https://postgresql.fund/trademarks https://postgresql.fund/trademarks). And as stated publicly, we're ready to transfer them to a single entity. It just can't be the current ones.
kgwxd 5y ago
Feels a lot like the Freenode story. Still not sure what the endgame is/was there either, but the outcome certainly wasn't great for the community.
- mbreese 5y ago
  I had the same thought. I don't think it's exactly the same story, but I think that it has the potential in the future. Even assuming the current parties are all operating with good intentions, if Postgres (proper) doesn't defend their trademarks, there is potential for risk in the future. What happens if Fundación goes bankrupt and the assets (trademarks) get bought? What if they are bought by a non-benevolent company? Then we have the potential for Freenode all over again.
  - xaviersierra 5y ago
    In the case of Spain, if a foundation bankrupts their assets can only be transferred to another non profit organization. It's against the Spanish law for a company to buy a assets of a foundation
    - janc_ 5y ago
      I really doubt that’s true. It would mean that a foundation that owns any goods (buildings, rolling stock, etc.) would not be able to sell them, ever, except to other non-profits. Are there any non-profit car wrecking companies in Spain?

vickychijwani 5y ago

Yes I'm a bit confused about their motivations too. Sharing what I've pieced together so far (and trying to approach this from a good-faith perspective): My understanding so far is that they run a Postgres consulting firm [1], and it appears they took the liberty of registering a Postgres trademark for the class of "professional services" in order to (I presume) protect fair use by their firm and (they claim in their response) by others in the Postgres community. Some of this is admittedly speculation on my part, and I'm trying to take a charitable view of their actions to try to understand why a community member would do this. That said I have no opinion on whether this action is net good for the community, and I'm not a Postgres user so I have no horse in this race. It's just the social dynamics of this situation that are interesting to me. [1]: https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team

ahachete 5y ago
Actually, IMHO, it's the Core team + PAC + PEU who have acted in bad faith. As the post states, with dates, there has never been any communication from them to discuss this matter. Only through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even with laywers present. There was no need to make all this public. This clearly hurts the Community. As the post says, there's no explanation to why PEU, who is as legit as any other non-profit Postgres association, including Fundación PostgreSQL, can hold trademarks and not being sued and publicly bashed. If PEU can hold trademarks, why can't Fundación? Conversely: if there should be one trademark holder (and we agree, read the proposal we submitted to them which got no reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more solid grounds than current Core's Group (which has no legal entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque association too.
- kbenson 5y ago
  > As the post states, with dates, there has never been any communication from them to discuss this matter. Only through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even with laywers present. That's sort of a nonsensical take. Of course people with any sort of connection to the other side would be advised not to speak to you without a lawyer, and not to speak with a lawyer if they had nothing legally relevant to add. Your actions with regard to copyright were legal in nature, you should expect a legal response. I think the very valid question in this is were you contacted in 2020 and told to cease and desist using a legal trademark by the current owners, and did you fail to do so? If that's true, I'm not sure what defense you have. As I see it, the only responsible action at that time if you really care about the issues you raise would be to cease and desist and open an dialogue that is not subject to legal proceedings and their need to defend their copyright lest they lose it. > there should be one trademark holder (and we agree, read the proposal we submitted to them which got no reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more solid grounds than current Core's Group (which has no legal entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque association too. That's not for you to decide. The correct way to go about that is not to make the holding entity and then try to surreptitiously acquire the trademark, but to have approached the community first. Did you approach the community prior to attempting to take over an aspect of their management and holdings, or not? If you did, what was the response?
  - ahachete 5y ago
    > The correct way to go about that is not to make the holding entity and then try to surreptitiously acquire the trademark, but to have approached the community first. Did you approach the community prior to attempting to take over an aspect of their management and holdings, or not? If you did, what was the response? Yes, this is the case. Indeed, many times. I have personally voiced many concerns about different aspects of the governance and workings of the Community. And in 2019 a very clear and significant case was raised when some dispute over IP (a domain name) surfaced. In this case, we declined used of the domain name following Core's request, but raised --again-- concerns over the governance of Postgres. The answer to all of these requests? Outright denial. Silence. Nada. There is no willing to change anything. Also one year later I voiced some of these concerns publicly (https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-modernize-postgresql-core/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-modernize-postgre...). Same outcome. So yes, I have at a personal level and we have at the Foundation level tried everything we believed could be done. And we perceived trademarks are more at risk with PAC and PEU than us, and we saw that some were not registered, so we proceeded to protect them and offer them openly to the Postgres Community (https://postgresql.fund/trademarks https://postgresql.fund/trademarks). And as stated publicly, we're ready to transfer them to a single entity. It just can't be the current ones.

kgwxd 5y ago

Feels a lot like the Freenode story. Still not sure what the endgame is/was there either, but the outcome certainly wasn't great for the community.

mbreese 5y ago
I had the same thought. I don't think it's exactly the same story, but I think that it has the potential in the future. Even assuming the current parties are all operating with good intentions, if Postgres (proper) doesn't defend their trademarks, there is potential for risk in the future. What happens if Fundación goes bankrupt and the assets (trademarks) get bought? What if they are bought by a non-benevolent company? Then we have the potential for Freenode all over again.
- xaviersierra 5y ago
  In the case of Spain, if a foundation bankrupts their assets can only be transferred to another non profit organization. It's against the Spanish law for a company to buy a assets of a foundation
  - janc_ 5y ago
    I really doubt that’s true. It would mean that a foundation that owns any goods (buildings, rolling stock, etc.) would not be able to sell them, ever, except to other non-profits. Are there any non-profit car wrecking companies in Spain?