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Linux Software

SSC vs LinuxGazette.net Continued 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the more-of-the-same dept.
An anonymous reader writes "To update an earlier story about the pending battle between SSC and LinuxGazette.net, it seems SSC has taken to officially asserting a trademark on the term 'Linux Gazette' and is asking them to relinquish the domain name. Interesting to note that LinuxGazette.net has issue 97 out, while SSC doesn't."
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SSC vs LinuxGazette.net Continued More

SSC vs LinuxGazette.net Continued

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  • Whoever can... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:34AM (#7653127)
    ... should desist early and change the site name. And I mean any of both sites, perhaps both!

    A name has worth, but friendship when lost is very hard to reacquire. Besides, what's important in that name? Is it "Linux" or "Gazette"?

    Don't waste time.

    • Re:Whoever can... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe it's time for some Salomonic wisdom.

      Let's divide the name and give each one a half. ;-)
    • Linus could easily send a cease and decist to SSC for filing to register a trademark containing Linux, for which he owns the trademark.

      If I went out and created a website called MicrosoftJournal, or MicrosoftGazette, etc... not only would I likely get a cease and decist for using Microsoft in the name, but I'd probably also get sued for attempting to register that as a trademark as it's a derivative of an existing trademark.
  • I think if they filed for the trademark right after the fighting started it should not be that hard to win a court case.

  • I smell something very fishy going on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:36AM (#7653133)
    And I don't the Linux Gazette volunteers. I wondered who had the trademark to "Linux Gazette". I ran the TM search and guess what I found.
    Word Mark LINUX GAZETTE
    Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Publication of Journal. FIRST USE: 19950701. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19960801
    Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
    Serial Number 78319880
    Filing Date October 28, 2003
    Current Filing Basis 1A
    Original Filing Basis 1A
    Owner (APPLICANT) Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. CORPORATION 2208 NW Market St Suite 407 Seattle WASHINGTON 98107
    Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
    Register PRINCIPAL
    Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

    There is a trademark registered to SSC. But the application date was Oct 28,2003. The very same day that Rick Moen notified Phil Hugh that they were moving the magazine accord to the LWN article [lwn.net] [lwn.net].

    SSC is playing dirty pool not the other around.

    • He should have had it trademarked before then...

      If nobody bothered to do it until the last second, who's to say who is at fault?

    • Re:I smell something very fishy going on (Score:4, Funny)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:17AM (#7653279) Journal
      On behalf of the original poster of this comment [slashdot.org], I hereby deliver a cease and desist notice to Anonymous Coward and demand that he stop infringing on my client's copyright.

    • Re:I smell something very fishy going on (Score:4, Informative)

      by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:43AM (#7653388) Homepage Journal
      There's nothing fishy about the filing date. If you have a non-registered trademark and end up in a conflict, the first thing you should do is register it (you'd been better of registering it earlier, then maybe the conflict wouldn't have arisen in the first place, but that's another matter). Registering the trademark is a way of forcing resolution about who owns the mark - if the Linux Gazette staff doesn't object, or does not convince the USPTO that the mark shouldn't be granted, it will be significantly easier for SSC to sue for infringement.

      That said, if SSC had been smart and filed in '96 when Linux Gazette was moved to them, their trademark would have been "incontestable" now (which doesn't actually mean it's completely incontestable, but the burden of proof to have the mark declared invalid would be substantially higher)

      • I remember when LG moved to SSC. The announcement was all about how SSC would be helping LG with hosting--nothing about the two merging. SSC is being underhanded which is a real shame considering that the Linux Journal is a decent magazine.

  • WIPO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheRealFixer ( 552803 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:39AM (#7653144)
    Interesting to note that LinuxGazette.net has issue 97 out, while SSC doesn't

    But who had the trademark first, or who used the name first, doesn't matter to the WIPO mediator. According to past history, the only thing that matters to WIPO, is who has more money.

    • Re:WIPO (Score:5, Interesting)

      by qtp ( 461286 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:05AM (#7653224) Journal
      But who had the trademark first,

      That's the rub, so to speak.

      It seems that SSC has registered the trademark, but did not do so until they were notified by the LinuxGazette people of the impending move.

      Aparently SSC is claiming use of the trademark since 1996 (LinuxGazette issue 8), when they began providing hosting for the LinuxGazette volunteers. The LinuxGazette volunteers were using the trademark as early as 1995, and continued to do so after SSC so kindly offered to host the site for them.

      IMHO, SSC should screw off. Providing a service to a volunteer org does not give you the right to dictate how they do business and especially does not give you ownership of the work that the org produces.

    • FIRST USE: 19950701. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19960801

  • Precedence claims (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Llyr ( 561935 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:40AM (#7653150)
    From the "cease and desist" letter from SCC:
    Specific examples of our use of this trademark go back to 1996

    Ok, but the first issue on LinuxGazette.net is July 1995 [linuxgazette.net], so is this claim of precedence bogus or am I missing something big here with respect to the history of this dispute?

    • ... and yes I meant SSC, not SCC. oops.

    • Re:Precedence claims (Score:5, Informative)

      by trystanu ( 691619 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:51AM (#7653176) Homepage
      It seems a little more complicated than that (from here [theage.com.au]):

      Until recently, SSC provided web hosting for the Gazette and allowed some of its (SSC's) staff to assist in production of the Gazette during working hours.

      However, all that seems to have changed. SSC is now running a site at linuxgazette.com which it calls Linux Gazette. The people who were running Linux Gazette earlier have moved to a new site at linuxgazette.net - and are running Linux Gazette as well!

      According to an explanation posted by SSC, "a group of the Linux Gazette contributors opposed the transition of our site to a Content Management System. While we did our best to address the concerns, some have elected to leave Linux Gazette and start their own publication. We regret their decision but as (most) were volunteers, it certainly is their right.

      "Unfortunately, they have so far continued to use our Linux Gazette trademark in conjunction with their new site. Until such time as they stop using that trademark, we have been advised to remove any references to that mis-use (sic) from our site."

      According to Rick Moen, contributing editor of Linux Gazette, the decision to move was due to a number of things, "including SSC's unexplained, unannounced, retroactive deletions of prior issues' articles, its stripping of authors' copyright notices and substitution of their own corporate one, and its proclaimed plans to make LG cease being a magazine and cease having editors, turning it into solely a dynamic Web site."

      Moen said after the move to new quarters, SSC "to our astonishment produced a November issue purporting to be Linux Gazette, immediately after our November issue went to press. This was surprising because we'd been told they intended that monthly magazine issues would cease."

      • Re:Precedence claims (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Llyr ( 561935 )
        Hmm. I would certainly hope that providing hosting and some support doesn't entitle them to take over the name. That'd be a very dangerous precedent; are we supposed to register the names of any and all web publications just in case it becomes popular and our ISP decides to take it over?

        This (my question above) is a relatively naive take on the matter, but in general the approach to business of initial web publications, especially in the early days of the web, has been very naive. Many pro sites started a

        • Suppose that www.groklaw.net did NOT file a trademark for Groklaw.

          PJ becomes very popular.

          I see that and file a trakemark for Groklaw and then send PJ a cease and desist letter.

          Which way do you think the courts would lean?

          The problem is that COURTS COST MONEY.

          SSC has more money than a volunteer organization.

          It looks like I might have to cancel my subscription to Linux Journal if SSC doesn't start behaving like reasonable adults.

    • Re:Precedence claims (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:15AM (#7653262) Homepage Journal
      For the first year it was a completely independent web periodical. That changed in 1996.

      I don't like SCC's dirty tactics but the Welcome section in issue 8 may be why they think they own the name:

      "News Flash!

      Linux Gazette coming under New Management!
      Yup, it's true! As of the next LG issue the Linux Gazette will officially come under the auspices of the Linux Journal . The 'ol Linux Gazette has grown over the past year -- this is actually its First Birthday this month -- and it is probably fitting that after a year it's ready to come under the watch care of the folks at Linux Journal. Phil Hughes has very graciously offered to take over the day-to-day management of the Linux Gazette while continuing its tradition as a free and freely available WWW publication.

      For details of the transition, please head on down to the "Welcome" section below and read all about it. :-) "

      http://tldp.org/LDP/LG/issue01to08/lg_issue8.htm l

      Scroll down to the Welcome section. I can easily see how SCC can think they own LG.

      I would personally like to see an itemized list of the accusations against SCC, people claim editing and altering past articles, and gradually forcing out the original staff. I'd like to see what known changes are and the chronology of when non-SCC volunteers were forced out, if that happened. If the emails used in forging a deal between LG and SCC are still available, I'd like to read them.

      • Re:Precedence claims (Score:4, Informative)

        by Llyr ( 561935 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:33AM (#7653341)
        Someone should seriously mod up the parent, as it's very informative.

        John M. Fisk writes (as part of this "Welcome") in issue 8: I've decided to turn the Linux Gazette over to the Linux Journal.

        and furthermore writes: I think that the Gazette has demonstrated the "proof of concept" -- that a freely available and open-to-all online publication is a great means for sharing information and ideas. There are a number of great things that could be done with this and I'm excited about the Gazette continuing on in this tradition.

        So I can see why SSC thinks that they're in charge -- the previous "in charge" said so. And the "great things that could be done" bit certainly allows for trying to change the format, as long as it's still "freely available and open-to-all". 'Course, we don't know what the changes were turning into, eg. Slashdot is freely available and open to all but you get it earlier if you subscribe (but not enough earlier to claim that it's not really free).

        The people who've been volunteering in the years since have some grounds with respect to copyright on their articles, but volunteering for something doesn't make you in charge (any more than hosting would make SSC in charge). You'd need paperwork from that time to figure out this mess, I agree.

        However, legally correct business is frequently not good business, and screwing over key people in the Linux community is not a good way to sell subscriptions to the Linux Journal. If they're rewinding the changes, it would make sense to try for an agreement with the volunteer staff rather than bully them.

        • Linux Gazette Issue 8 (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Llyr ( 561935 )
          On the other hand, issue 8 also contains a post from Caldera talking about their comittment to cooperative efforts in the Linux community and encouraging developers to work with them. I quote:

          This is an Open Development which will result in a Branded UNIX which will be freely distributed on the Internet in source and binary forms.

          A lot has changed since issue 8 with respect to people's intentions....

        • However, legally correct business is frequently not good business, and screwing over key people in the Linux community is not a good way to sell subscriptions to the Linux Journal.

          Nor is it a good way to renew subscriptions.
          Mine expires next month, and I am NOT renewing it. LJ should consider that they have competition... "Linux Format", for example, especially if you have a narrow band connection, because this mag comes with two CDs or a DVD chock full of the latests apps, copies of distros, etc...

  • ...also have a more responsive server, from where I am. That should earn them a small prize, at least. ;)

    As has been noted elsewhere, 1996 has been trumped.

    • Re:LinuxGazette.net... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by vidarh ( 309115 )
      That is irellevant. Publication of Linux Gazette independent of SSC seized in '96 when the magazine was "handed over" to SSC.

      So PROVIDED that SSC could get a court to agree that that handover was done in a way that gave them property rights to the magazine assets (which given the nature of it as a non-commercial volunteer based magazine where authors retain copyright would be mostly goodwill and any trademark rights) and effectively "owned" the magazine, the court would also likely agree that any claim th

  • Slashdot vs. Linux Gazettes (Score:5, Funny)

    by trystanu ( 691619 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:44AM (#7653163) Homepage
    linuxgazette.com slashdotted.
    linuxgazette.net still standing.

    Seems like the trial is over to me...

    • CMS (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's content management systems for ya.

  • Cancel your subscription to Linux Journal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peeping_Thomist ( 66678 ) * on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:45AM (#7653165)
    The only thing corporations understand is money. Cancel your subscription to Linux Journal until SSC abandons this foolhardy path. You can always resubscribe.

    The time to act is now, not after SSC has used the courts to screw over the community.
    • Better yet, write to SSC's sponsors how SSC uses their money on useless legal action fighting for something meant to be free and distributed with many major distro. Also, remind them of switching sponorship to LinuxGazette.net who can do more timely update, manage a faster/more stable server and write less ugly website, than SSC.

      SSC is just telling the world that "I sucks in all aspect, but I've sponsor's money to sue you."
    • SSC is being childish with their trademark, C&D, etc. The ex-volunteers are being childish by starting a new service with a name and logo that is all but indistinguishable from the original.

      If the volunteers didn't like what SSC was doing, they should've done one of two things: stand and fight them, start a new service with a new name. History is full of instances where members of an organization became dissatisfied and started their own spin-off. In most of these cases, the spun-off group took on a ne
      • LG is not a service. It's a publication. And it's a publication that existed _before_ SSC started hosting it, and it still exists, with the same people, after SSC has decided it no longer wants to support the publication, but instead wants to publish something new.
        • Yeah well, I used "service" as a generic term for an organization's product, beit a tangible product, service, publication, religion, etc. And in case you want to pick any further, I used "organization" as a generic term for a corportation, volunteer group, religious group, sporting league, etc.

          Whether the owners of LG.net are right is irrelevant. They're trying to remedy their problems by starting a new version which uses a similar name and logo. If their goal is to fight SSC, they should have stood their
          • I assume you are not a long-time reader of Linux Gazette. SSC radically changed the format of the publication, to the point where it is a substantially different product. (For example, they didn't even plan to have a monthly publication, until after the split took place and SSC realized it needed to backpedal on the changes.)
            • Like I said... both sides are being childish. But just because one side does something childish, it doesn't justify that the other side should behave the same way.
            • Not only that, but the CMS format was put in place while the developers were still "learning the ropes". They admitted that they had no experience with the product and were inflicting their learning curve on the Linux Gazette reader base. I ask you, would they have done the same thing with Linux Journal? ....

              "We at Linux Journal support environmentalism. We thought about using re-cycled paper to print future editions, but we really don't know much about any of this, so as an experiment this months edi
          • In an ideal world, yes, they should have fought for "linuxgazette.com". Unfortunately this is not and ideal world but the real one, where "linuxgazette.com" is owned by SSC and not the LG volunteers, so they have no rights to it and SSC certainly isn't going to let them use it. So, instead of jerking their readers around the volunteers have registered "linuxgazette.net" and got new content out on schedule, where as SSC still have no new content.

            For me, this is the correct course of action; I associate L

          • The name of the magazine is not linuxgazette.com. It is Linux Gazette. The fact that their host decided to appropriate the site for a different and unwelcome format does not mean they lose the right to the name of the magazine they created prior to their host being their host. So, they took their magazine, Linux Gazette, elsewhere.

            The second biggest mistake in all of this is that somebody somewhere trusted SSC, a for-profit business, enough to let them register linuxgazette.com, rather than place that doma
      • I think they are doing option one, namely "stand and fight them".
        They are keeping their name, they can't control the .com, but they have the .net.

        I don't see anyone suggesting Linus take a new name and fork Linux, or RMS take a new name and fork GNU.

      • Why are the people who started Linux Gazette supposed to just abandon a brand they have worked hard to create? It has been their contributions of articles not SSC's dubious contribution of some free hosting. Though the Linux Gazette probably should have paid a token fee just to keep this sort of thing from happening $1 /year ).

        The bottom line though is that the Linux Gazette people contributed to the brand. SSC did not. Therefore there exists no reason they should abandon it.

        My two cents!

        • > Though the Linux Gazette probably should have paid a token fee just to keep this sort of thing from happening $1 / year ).

          --Dude, have you seen Scary Movie 3 yet? They gave Sheen's character a *month* to come up with a $1.50! Do you have any IDEA how hard that kind of cash is to come by?! You don't find it just lying around on the street ya know!

          --What do you think LG.net's volunteers are, rich or something??

          YHBT. PPTF. TYFP.
          HAND. ;-)
    • I have subscriptions to both Linux Journal and Linux Magazine. For some reason, I have found that I read less and less of the Journal each month. This latest nonsense may be yet another reason that I should pass on renewal.
    • You can always resubscribe.

      Or, better, you can *not* resubscribe. Linux Magazine [linux-mag.com] and Linux Format [linuxformat.co.uk] (in the UK, but relevant anywhere) are both better publications.

      And if I had to choose just one Linux information source, it'd have to be Linux Weekly News [lwn.net] -- high quality journalism and analysis in a very timely fashion, written by people who know what they're talking about.
  • linuxgazette.net and linuxgazette.com are seperate entities.

  • This is just what Linux as a whole needs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07, 2003 @09:58AM (#7653197)

    Confusion about who owns what. This is just playing into the pockets of SCO who is spreading the "ownership is shady with Linux" meme.

    Expect to see some major news outlet (Slashdot is not such) publish this news, and exaggerate it over the top.

  • oops SSC my bad

  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cigarky ( 89075 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:03AM (#7653217)
    Can someone please clarify who www.linuxnj.com is/are and how they obtained this letter? I am not very happy with SSC over this situation but I would like to know who is providing this and what axes they have to grind. Verifying its authenticity would be helpful.
    • If you look around on the website a bit, you can see a link to a .pdf file (hint: just change the .txt to a .pdf) of the actual letter that was sent.

    • "Linux New Jersey" (www.linuxnj.com) is a Linux consulting company in New Jersey (creative naming, I know :-). I, Faber Fedor, run "Linux New Jersey".

      I don't have any axes to grind with SSC; I'm simply a member of the Linux Gazette Answer Gang who paid for the domain name for the 'zine's new location hence the C&D letter was sent to me.

      Authentic enough for you? :-)

  • People, please. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RedK ( 112790 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:12AM (#7653254)

    Why is everyone bashing SSC ? Okay, fine, it's a corporation going after the little, defenseless contributor who most likely, didn't get paid while giving their labor away. But something you have to note, is that SSC have been running the Linux Gazette since 1996, and it was only this year that the contributors started linuxgazette.net. Check out the domain registration dates :

    Domain name: LINUXGAZETTE.NET
    Record Created on 12-Jul-2003.

    Domain Name: LINUXGAZETTE.COM
    Record created on 18-Oct-1997.

    Basically, the unpaid contributors didn't like where the company was going with the product, and decide to start their own, only they used the same name. Now, IANAL, but if that is not trying to cause confusion in the market, I don't know what is. SSC is in it's right as it's been exploiting the Linux Gazette name for longer, no matter when they decided to register it as a valid trademark.

    Why must the slashbots always criticized corporations. Sometimes the little guy is just being a jerk.

    • You may be right, but if LinuxGazette existed and pre-dated SSC's involvement in the project, how do they have a right to the trademark? This is the problem with these kinds of informal relationships. My guess is that SSC does rightfully own LinuxGazette.com (the domain) because they registered and owned it and provided hosting on behalf of the LinuxGazette publication which they helped sponsor and were involved with for several years. But they can't assert ownership of the trademark over the people who

    • Re:People, please. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:36AM (#7653357) Homepage
      dont even play that game.

      DNS registry information means nothing other than ownership of a few characters. SSC was NOT running The Linux Gazette. they were donating space. that is a very HUGE difference between running it and helping it.

      Some of their staff were allowed to contribute to the linux Gazette.

      Nowhere was there a transfer of ownership or did the creators of Linux Gazette ever say ," we thank SSC and hope they will take ownership and run it as they see fit."

      the Linux Gazette is not and never was the property of SSC. They are being complete and utter jerks about this, and simply are trying to steal something that has a larger readership than the abortion that the Linux Journal has been for the past 2-3 years. (The linux Journal was a GREAT magazine... now it's as worthless as a Ziff-Davis computer publication)

      SSC claims it's interests are for the good of linux... They refused to buy The Perl Journal, one of the best programming publications this side of Dobbs's publication. They refused to change The linux Journal back to it's origional user direction from it's current corperate pinhead focus.

      the little guy is not being the jerk in this case. SSC wants to make the Linux Gazette into a worthless publication just like how they have made the Linux Journal. The Creators and Owners of the Linux Gazette dont like it so they grabbed their ball and left.

      SSC is violating the trademark of Linux Gazette and now they are trying to steal it completely.

      Moral of the story? if a company wants to help your effort... do NOT accept their help, they cant be trusted as when the changing of the leadership will assume they own you.
      • As the sex.com lawsuits showed, a domain name is even less than that. You don't have ownership to the string - you have rights of use. And even the rights of use are limited only to cases where your rights to the name is not successfully challenged either through arbitration or in court. In the sex.com cases the court found that domain names aren't property, but are service designators of the same character as phone numbers.

        They don't prove ownership to a name. In fact they don't prove ownership to anythi

      • Moral of the story? if a company wants to help your effort... do NOT accept their help, they cant be trusted as when the changing of the leadership will assume they own you.

        Bah.

        The moral of the story is that the terms of any business agreement, whether for profit or not, ought to be put in writing. Which is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said.

    • Re:People, please. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Your comments certainly make sense, as far as they go, but it seems to me that you're overlooking a material fact in the matter. The Gazette was formed in 1995, by the volunteers. They started working with SSC in '96.

      At some point this year the volunteers decided to split from SSC. Then SSC goes out to trademark a name someone else has used for roughly eight years. SSC claims they've been using the name since '96. So what? The volunteers have been using it since '95.

      You say, "SSC is in it's right as it's

      • At some point this year the volunteers decided to split from SSC. Then SSC goes out to trademark a name someone else has used for roughly eight years. SSC claims they've been using the name since '96. So what? The volunteers have been using it since '95.

        As far as I can tell, SSC has only been suing the name for about a month. The volunteers who started Linux Gazette in 1995 have been using it for 8 years.

    • Re:People, please. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by kuzb ( 724081 )
      because most slashbots are the little guys.
      • Most slashbots vigorously struggle against being anything but 'the little guys.' Every 'get a job' and 'why don't you start thinking about moving that subnet of 386sx boxes out of your mom's basement to your own place' is met with vigorous denial.

        Which really isn't that big of an issue. Waiting until reaching the age of majority before moving out isn't a bad idea...

    • Re:People, please. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:18AM (#7653535) Homepage Journal
      The issue is more complex than you and a lot of other people make it out to be.

      First of all, SSC didn't start Linux Gazette. The first LG issue was released July 1995, run entirely by volunteers. It was in issue 8 where LG was given the support of SSC, by hosting and editing support. I really can't tell if SSC was given the right to do with LJ or the name as they please or not.

      Some people said that ALL of the orininal LG volunteers have left the SCC pub, after some others were forced out and there are claims of re-editing of old articles without the original author's permissions.
      • Some people said that ALL of the orininal LG volunteers have left the SCC pub, ...

        What happened, is that the complete editorial staff (consisting of volunteers) saw no other option, then to no longer use the SSC provided webspace to publish Linux Gazette.

        ... after some others were forced out ...

        I don't know where you read that, but that is not the case.

        and there are claims of re-editing of old articles without the original author's permissions.

        To be more exact, there have been three things happeni

  • The SSC version linuxgazette.com actually DOES have an issue 97 (December). You can read it here:

    [tldp.org]
    http://tldp.org/LDP/LG/issue97/index.html

    Unfortunately their own home site is a bit hard to navigate.

  • Does anyone have an email address that can be used for sending comments on this matter to SSC? Their 'contact us' page only lists a snail-mail address.

  • First off.. let me tackle some of their "response points"

    1. A product that is not commercial can still violate trademark. (Cite: www.uspto.gov)

    2. LG stated that , in issue #8, they were going to e under the management of the SSC crew. Management implies content rights.

    3. They state in their response that they feel a trademark does not exist. It does. It definately does. This can be checked at www.uspto.gov.

    Whining like little brats will not solve the problem, and will only create more. LinuxGazet

  • Read the history - Who is LinuxGazette ? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SmegTheLight ( 521218 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @12:01PM (#7653793)
    I have said it before, and I will say it again:

    This [linuxgazette.net] achive of Issue # 8 seems to be unclear as to what happened when they started being hosted by Linux Journal.
    And finally, I want to offer a very special note of thanks to Phil Hughes at the Linux Journal. Phil is one of those infectiously nice guys that starts a casual conversation with you and after 2 hours, you're talking and laughing like life-long buddies. He's a great guy and I'm absolutely delighted that he and the folks at the Linux Journal have been willing to take over the care and feeding of the Linux Gazette.
    That seems to support lg.net's position - Just a hosting arangement.

    But..

    So, after chatting at some length with Phil Hughes about this, I've decided to turn the Linux Gazette over to the Linux Journal. I think that the Gazette has demonstrated the "proof of concept" -- that a freely available and open-to-all online publication is a great means for sharing information and ideas. There are a number of great things that could be done with this and I'm excited about the Gazette continuing on in this tradition.
    That seems to show that Fisk is turning it over to SCC. If that is the case then this is SCC's baby now. You can see in the write up where each side is getting their views

    Net result, this could have all been handled with a little more tact on both sides. If SCC had just followed the wishes of the people who produced the article, this wouldn't have been a problem.

    It should have been the creators of the work, the volunteers, who should have been deciding on what direction the magazine should take. Not some marketroid who found way to suck $$, or techie who felt this was his site, and wanted to put up a CMS and/or excert his power.

    I from what I read of #8, I would have to say SCC has the stronger argument, even if they have the ,IMHO, worse site - I want a online mag, not a CMS.

    Though two sources of free online linux articles is better then one.
  • Last month I pitched a story idea to Don Marti (editor of Linux Journal) and he told me to contact Heather Mead (web editor for same). We agreed that I'd write a 3-part article to be run on the LJ website, with the first part due on December 3.

    As soon as this story broke on December 2, I emailed Heather asking for clarification and explanation from their side, as I was especially concerned about the apparent appropriation of other people's work, since I had been planning to place the articles on a website
  • How can "Linux Gazette" be a trademarke owned by anyone else other than Linus Torvalds? As far as I know, he's the only one who can use the Linux name in a trademark. If trademarks don't work that way, then perhaps anyone can make a "Microsoft Gazette", although I don't think they'd last long in court and the bankruptcy M$ would put them through.

    = 9J =

  • Ownership issues (Score:5, Informative)

    by rickmoen ( 1322 ) <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Sunday December 07, 2003 @03:38PM (#7654942) Homepage
    Anyone seriously interested: Please read Linux Gazette's answering of pretty much all questions [linuxgazette.net] raised here, and correcting quite a few few misconceptions. E.g.:

    • We didn't "leave because we don't like CMSs" (Phil Hughes's claim)

    • It wasn't "some of the volunteers" (Phil Hughes's claim) but rather 100% of the staff by unanimous decision

    • We didn't spring the decision to move on SSC by surprise at the last minute (Phil Hughes's claim), but rather had warned them for months about what would happen if they went ahead with their plan.

    • The editors moved LG to new quarters in part because SSC had said the monthly magazine would cease to exist entirely. (We had no idea SSC would change its mind later and direct uncredited SSC employees to resume producing issues at our old site.) I.e., we actually don't think it's OK to "open up a new site under exactly the same name, even using the same logo", nor were we starting "a spinoff under the same name"; it was a question of move the magazine or let SSC kill the magazine by corporate decree, according to everything they'd told us.

    • Founder John M. Fisk, in 1996, transferred custody LG to SSC explicitly as a free magazine to be run in harmony with SSC's commercial magazine, Linux Journal. It was explicitly not to be a commercial property.

    • You cannot "own a name": You can own a commercial brand identity, but Linux Gazette has never been a commercial offering. SSC's assertion to the contrary in its USPTO filing is materially false.

    • Ownership of everything in LG is retained by each individual contributor, and issued to the public under an open-source licence -- just like with the Linux kernel

    • Even successful assertion of a trademark that you prove you own lets you enjoin only competing commercial goods or services using your mark in ways likely to confuse your customers into thinking those are your offerings. SSC's attempt to misuse trademark law -- in which they showed no interest for seven years until the very day we told them we were moving the magazine -- against our volunteer magazine seems to assume we're clueless techies and ignorant of trademark law fundamentals [chillingeffects.org].

    Discussion of the matter has been occurring at LWN [lwn.net]. Here are my two recent posts:

    "Chilling Effects" letter received from SSC, Inc.
    (Posted Dec 5, 2003 9:05 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen) (Post reply)

    Alan Cox wrote:

    John Fisk founded Linux Gazette in 1995. He's not visibly part of either side of the argument which begs the question who did he give it to.

    It's a fair question, and the top-level answer is that copyright over all content belongs to the individual authors, being published by each of them under an open-source licence (in LG's case, OPL v. 1.0, and two predecessor open-source licences for very early issues). Alan's no doubt very familiar with this concept. {grin}

    Alan is of course thinking of some concept of ownership over the magazine as a whole, and that too is a fair question: The answer is that there's really nothing of that sort to own. The compilation copyright (if any) would likewise be OPL-licensed, and LG was from its inception explicitly a community, non-profit effort.

    And that leaves an equally fair third question: What was it that John M. Fisk entrusted to SSC, Inc. -- subject to the promise to keep it non-commercial -- when medical school was keeping him too busy to keep things going? Please read again what John wrote: Phil Hughes and SSC, Inc. willingly assumed (and carried out admirably for many years) an obligation, a volunteer job, a custodianship.

    And explicitly not over a corporate balance sheet asset, a lesson that Mr. Hughes seems to have f

    • Re:Ownership issues (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I am very sympathetic to your position, but I have a few argumentative points (for which I'll probably get mod'ed down):

      * Other "non-commercial" entities do register trademarks. Examples: Amnesty International USA and United Way of America.

      * Your "non-commercial" theory argues for a gigantic loophole. Suppose Widgets and Gadgets are competing products, and the maker of Widgets sets up a separate, non-profit corporation "Gadget Evaluators" to spread misleading (vaguely truthful) information about Gadgets.
  • Is this bad decision coming solely from Phil Hughes? I don't know much about the corporate structure of SSC, but maybe some here do: who exactly as SSC is the person with the authority to change this bad decision?
  • From: "me" me@notmydomain.org
    To: nothisaddress@aol.com
    Subject: Re: someterm is a registered trademark
    Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 23:02:14 -0600

    Now you were nice in your request so I will inform you that the usage of the
    term in question was submitted by a user at the title of their website.
    Since the user in question has updated the title of their website I have
    updated the listing in question.

    Research what exactly having a trademark entitles you to

    http://www.chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq.cg i

    You need to und
  • Let's try a real world analogy. Suppose I made a "Lost Pet Journal" of stray dogs and cats getting caught on the steet, to help them find back any owners, published this in every supermarket in the area every week.
    Now some local print shop offers to print it for me for free because they like the initiative. After some time I can not continue, and some friends take over. It still gets printed for free.
    Then the local print shop claims ownership of the "Lost Pet Journal" want to turn it into something else, bu

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