4 ms·
The adware is not part of the GPL'ed code. It almost certainly counts as "mere aggregation". See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#MereA
by dalke 11y ago
The adware is not part of the GPL'ed code. It almost certainly counts as "mere aggregation". See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#MereAggregation http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#Me... or http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation .
- zamalek 11y agoAh, pity. It would have been nice to have a legal reason for them to take it down.
- dalke 11y agoThe main way I know of would be through trademark infringement. That's why there's GNU IceCat/IceWeasel - Firefox contains trademarked material. I believe Mozilla uses trademark precisely to prevent third-parties from including user-unfriendly components in "Firefox".
- qbrass 11y agohttp://slashdotmedia.com/terms-of-use/ http://slashdotmedia.com/terms-of-use/ (Sourceforge's TOS) "By sending or transmitting to us Content, or by posting such Content to any area of the Sites, you grant us and our designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), assignable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to link to, reproduce, distribute (through multiple tiers), adapt, create derivative works of, publicly perform, publicly display, digitally perform or otherwise use such Content in any media now known or hereafter developed. You hereby grant the Company permission to display your logo, trademarks and company name on the Sites and in press and other public releases or filings. Further, by submitting Content to the Company, you acknowledge that you have the authority to grant such rights to the Company. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF ANY COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS AND SERVICE MARKS IN ANY CONTENT YOU SUBMIT."
- dalke 11y agoAnd this is relevant because ... why? There's no trademark or service mark, and as we've already discussed, the GIMP copyright allows this sort of use.
- mynameisvlad 11y agoI think the point was that, even if there were a trademark case, GIMP would have given Sourceforge license to use it when they accepted the ToS.
- dalke 11y agoThe permission clause is "You hereby grant the Company permission to display your logo, trademarks and company name on the Sites and in press and other public releases or filings." This does not appear to include the right to use the trademark in installers, as an installer is neither a site nor press release, etc.
- Buge 11y agoWould there be any possibility of taking action through trademark? I assume the name GIMP is trademarked and it is creating user confusion that the actual GIMP organization is backing that installer.
- dalke 11y agoThere's no need to assume. I searched the US trademark database. There was a registration for GIMP in 2001, number 78084356 ("computer programs for creating and manipulating graphic images on a computer. FIRST USE: 19990600. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19990600"), but it's abandoned since June 7, 2002. There are no other relevant registrations that I can find. As far as I can tell, there's no formal "GIMP organization".
- nandhp 11y agoTrue, although http://www.gimp.org/donating/ http://www.gimp.org/donating/ states that "The GNOME Foundation has graciously agreed to act as fiscal agents for us." Maybe they could hold the GIMP trademark? By the way, the trademark you mention was Caughron, Mathew K. INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES, who seems to have been responsible for the old WinGIMP and MacGIMP distributions that cost money.