5 ms·

Yeah, this particular comment[1] is quite damning—the person got booted by FOSDEM, FSF Europe, Debian[2], Alpine Linux and more. I wonder if the court consider

• Karellen 5y ago
  > I wonder if the court considered all this past evidence. Sorry, the guy very much appears to be an asshole - but how does any of that count as "evidence" in the matter of whether or not his domain infringes on Red Hat's trademark?
  • encryptluks2 5y ago
    • notriddle 5y ago
      Letting Pocock keep the domain is not a fact. It is a choice. The choice is based on law, and the rendering of the judgement was based on facts, but it is ultimately turning out this way because some people once upon a time decided that domain names should: * be first-come first serve * be rented for an ongoing, nominal subscription * to the maximum extent allowed by law Giving up any one of these properties, and the Internet would be a totally different place. And none of these are fundamental human rights, or necessary for free speech. They’re just designed to work this way because someone thought it was the best way to avoid various stupid, useless outcomes, like domain names being permanently lost because the owner dies, or some teenagers squatting all the domain names because they think it’s funny, or having an important organization get hijacked because someone manages to fill out a form before the group that really can lay a legitimate claim to that name does it. None of these are facts. They’re values. You cannot factually prove these things. The only thing you might be able to prove is that, out of all the things we might want from a namespace system, you have to make trade-offs.
• perihelions 5y ago
  - "I wonder if the court considered all this past evidence." I'm happy that a total asshole was treated evenly and equally by the court. This is literally the first principle of justice -- she is supposed to be blind!
  • 0cVlTeIATBs 5y ago
    Definitely, justice should be blind. On admission of character evidence with so much available, I don't hope that it happened but I'd be curious if it did, especially if it was done lawfully.
• unmole 5y ago
  It doesn't seem like he was ever a member of Alpine Linux community.
• kelnos 5y ago
  > I wonder if the court considered all this past evidence. What bearing do those other things have on whether or not this person complied with RedHat's trademark requirements? He may be an asshole, but that should have no bearing on matters of trademark law.
  • kashyapc 5y ago
    Fair point. I was wondering about it from an intention and misrepresentation point of view. To me, it's misleading to claim "we make Fedora" by a lone individual while the real "we" is thousands of contributors. Disclosure: I work for Red Hat, am an occasional Fedora contributor, but I have no dog in this hunt.
    • parasense 5y ago
      Back in my days as an ambassador, I remember we had a principle: "Be Excellent". Probably wasn't a community rule, but more of a guideline... and, I think that principle has been violated here. I'm unclear of the domain owner's standing within the community, but as I've read more... it doesn't seem very excellent. I do believe there is a nexus of causality between community standing, and permission to use the trademark. However, just my opinion, actual trademark law may diverge.
• throw_a_grenade 5y ago
  Do you have a link to FOSDEM part? My ddg-fu failed me.