5 ms·

Wow, all evidence suggests that the team in charge of this at Groupon is acting in bad faith, trying to bulldoze over a non-profit with fewer financial resource

by cs702 12y ago

Wow, all evidence suggests that the team in charge of this at Groupon is acting in bad faith, trying to bulldoze over a non-profit with fewer financial resources. (I doubt Groupon would ever attempt something like this against a financially-well-backed brand such as, say, "Apple.") Consider: (1) it's essentially impossible that no one involved had ever heard of the Gnome desktop (it's the top result when I search for "gnome" on Google); and (2) after being contacted by the Gnome Foundation, Groupon filed even more trademark applications. There are a lot of decent, hard-working hackers at Groupon, and quite a few of them, I'm sure, regularly visit HN. They won't be happy to find out about this. Are there any Groupon insiders here willing to comment on this, maybe anonymously? -- UPDATE: Groupon just released an official response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590343 -- they now say they will be "glad to look for another name." If they really mean it, kudos to them for changing their position!

snsr 12y ago
The move comes across as particularly hypocritical after reading this recent Groupon Engineering blog post titled Sharing is Caring: Open Source at Groupon: https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/open-source/sharing-is-caring-open-source-at-groupon/ https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/open-source/sharing-is-...
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Follow-up, even more confusing post from Groupon: https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/ https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-a...
  - natch 12y ago
    This post makes it even more clear that the Groupon people behind this have a poorly developed understanding of ethics and scruples. "Trying to come to a resolution" looks like code for "we've been threatening Gnome with costly legal expenses."
  - apetresc 12y ago
    I e-mailed Groupon directly about it, they sent me the same response, word-for-word. It's clearly a canned text their PR firm gave them to paste.
  - rasengan 12y ago
    The most confusing part is how a post on HN with record breaking up votes suddenly falls off the front page just as Groupon issues their response. Is there biased moderation occurring? I reached out to YC for clarification and help. Hopefully I'm wrong and just jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. :)
erikb 12y ago
I agree with 2 but not with 1. I think there are loads of people out there who have heard that there is something like Linux, but have never used it. If you never used any *nix you probably don't even know that desktop environments can be switched or changed. Then how would you know about a specific desktop environment? Not accepting to respect a 17 year old trademark is very, very bad though.
- alexholehouse 12y ago
  Then those people have no business filing software-related trademarks.
- krschultz 12y ago
  There's not one single engineer that saw the conflict with the name 'GNOME'? If so, their engineering team is hopeless. (Note that I don't think erikb deserves the downvotes, I think a lot of people will give them the benefit of a doubt by saying 'maybe they don't know', but someone at Groupon had to know, and that person was ignored, and now Groupon deserves the wrath of the community)
- Svip 12y ago
  What about this guy?[0] (Stolen from this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8589879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8589879 ) [0] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/93i0gkawa4q15lh/2014-11-11%20at%2015.20.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/93i0gkawa4q15lh/2014-11-...
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  You think the team creating a POS terminal at Groupon hadn't heard of GNOME? The very first thing you do when considering customer facing names for products is a web search: first page of hits for me is filled with GNOME desktop.
  - erikb 12y ago
    > The very first thing you should do [...] Yes, but often people don't do what they are supposed to do. I did the same mistake with an open source project I've written for my thesis. Things like that happen all the time. Especially for people in Windows world there is not much else outside. They probably haven't heard about TextMate or XCode either.

by cs702 12y ago

snsr 12y ago

The move comes across as particularly hypocritical after reading this recent Groupon Engineering blog post titled Sharing is Caring: Open Source at Groupon: https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/open-source/sharing-is-caring-open-source-at-groupon/ https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/open-source/sharing-is-...

scrollaway 12y ago
Follow-up, even more confusing post from Groupon: https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/ https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-a...
- natch 12y ago
  This post makes it even more clear that the Groupon people behind this have a poorly developed understanding of ethics and scruples. "Trying to come to a resolution" looks like code for "we've been threatening Gnome with costly legal expenses."
- apetresc 12y ago
  I e-mailed Groupon directly about it, they sent me the same response, word-for-word. It's clearly a canned text their PR firm gave them to paste.
- rasengan 12y ago
  The most confusing part is how a post on HN with record breaking up votes suddenly falls off the front page just as Groupon issues their response. Is there biased moderation occurring? I reached out to YC for clarification and help. Hopefully I'm wrong and just jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. :)

erikb 12y ago

I agree with 2 but not with 1. I think there are loads of people out there who have heard that there is something like Linux, but have never used it. If you never used any *nix you probably don't even know that desktop environments can be switched or changed. Then how would you know about a specific desktop environment? Not accepting to respect a 17 year old trademark is very, very bad though.

alexholehouse 12y ago
Then those people have no business filing software-related trademarks.
krschultz 12y ago
There's not one single engineer that saw the conflict with the name 'GNOME'? If so, their engineering team is hopeless. (Note that I don't think erikb deserves the downvotes, I think a lot of people will give them the benefit of a doubt by saying 'maybe they don't know', but someone at Groupon had to know, and that person was ignored, and now Groupon deserves the wrath of the community)
Svip 12y ago
What about this guy?[0] (Stolen from this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8589879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8589879 ) [0] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/93i0gkawa4q15lh/2014-11-11%20at%2015.20.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/93i0gkawa4q15lh/2014-11-...
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
You think the team creating a POS terminal at Groupon hadn't heard of GNOME? The very first thing you do when considering customer facing names for products is a web search: first page of hits for me is filled with GNOME desktop.
- erikb 12y ago
  > The very first thing you should do [...] Yes, but often people don't do what they are supposed to do. I did the same mistake with an open source project I've written for my thesis. Things like that happen all the time. Especially for people in Windows world there is not much else outside. They probably haven't heard about TextMate or XCode either.