[Koha] Don't pass out bad instructions (was Re: How frequently to run zebra rebuild and what switches)

[MJ Ray]

On 22/08/13 15:21, Hilton Gibson wrote:
> Just thinking, would it have been too much trouble to trademark a new name
> and then carry on as usual?

This was discussed around
http://koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com/Foundation-conversation-td3213032i30.html#message3215936
http://koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com/Koha-demo-links-on-koha-org-td3060269.html
and will always remain as a last-resort option, but I think there was a
strong feeling similar to "why should we give in to terrorists?" among
some of the koha community.

Personally, I feel it seems utterly inappropriate to abandon this Maori
word to trade mark law.  It makes as little sense as the recent attempt
of "Red Bull" to claim the word "Red" as a trade mark in England and
force the Redwell Brewery near me to change their name (I think you'll
find the details if you search for "Red Bully" or "#RedBully") which
also failed.

There's also the simple fact that LibLime only registered the name as a
trade mark many years after many other companies had already built it up
in commerce, including social enterprises like software.coop and
BibLibre, and only one of those had sold their claim to LibLime (which
was in turn bought by PTFS).  The co-op didn't register the name as a
trade mark locally because we get some rights simply from use and we
also want to collaborate freely with other GOOD players, which I feel
the increasing criminalisation of trade marks hinders.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/