Cease and Desist from Watchfire

[Gary Momarison]

ahopkins at ahopkins.dynacare.com (marduk) writes:

> Hey guys,
> 
> As most of you know, I have not worked on linbot in quite a while.
> The latest snapshop release was October '99.  I have been pretty
> busy and had put the project on hold.

marduk -

This is not legal advice.  Consult a licensed lawyer for that.
There are also lots of web sites about copyright and trademark law.

I've used linbot a few times (with mixed results) on a rather big site
and was glad for it.  Even as a Python babe, I could easily find and
hack out one show-stopper and was glad you chose to use Python.

You seemed to imply that the LinkButts only wanted you to change the
name, so that's what I'm commenting on.  If they are talking about
Look-and-Feel or other issues, please say so.

1) Most people in your situation soon descover that they are dealing with
Bullies who will push you farther than you can afford to risk going.
One can sometimes go down the legal path (even at low cost) far enough
that they will find something more rewarding to do, but if you go too
far you risk big losses.  You almost surely should Cry Uncle ASAP,
though some people would first try to get them to pay for their
nastiness by keeping their legal people busy.  Like waiting for the
next step, then saying OK, then renaming linbot to LinkRobot, repeat.,
etc.  But it takes effort and entails risk.  You'd want to consult
a cheap lawyer about how far to go.  You can get more thoughts on
this by consulting related old article comments at slashdot.com, etc.

2) Whether you're using the GPL, something else, or nothing is
irrelevant as that is a copyright issue and they are worrying about a
trademark issue.  Whether Linbot and Linkbot are too close or whether
your non-commercial use is a problem hardly matters either, practically.

But note that people (including you) needn't change "linbot" to
anything for most purposes.  Just where it's being used out there in
the big bad world of commerce (eg, the Internet).

3) If you want linbot to belong to the People, the copyright holders
(only you?) have to transfer all copyrights (and maybe patent rights)
to the People with words like this:

    I, Full Name, hereby transfer all rights in the linbot program
    all associated files (as distributed in the containing tar file)
    to the Public Domain.  Full Date, (& preferably) Full Address/ID

Since IANAL, consult a lawyer for legal console on this.  While your
post implies the above, it wouldn't be explicit enough for most people.
You want users to be able to prove (sort of) that they aren't infringing 
on some jerk that might claim to hold the linbot copyright.

4) Your post exemplifies the reason for one of my continual rants about
the GPL.  Too many people that don't care about licensing use it without
knowing the implications because the propagandists makes it sound like
it is something it is not.