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Erik Hetzner <[log in to unmask]> > MJ Ray wrote: > > Will people please stop suggesting that PTFS's attempts to register > > Koha trademarks in various jurisdictions are somehow because of > > inattention on the part of the Koha users and developers? > > > It was my intention only to suggest that trademark issues were > something that one needs to pay attention to, not that the Koha > community had not paid attention to trademark issues. Thanks for > clarifying the issue: I was unclear. OK, sorry, I'm probably a bit sensitive because of some of the crazier press coverage that we've had, suggesting that users or developers should have done various things - often contradictory - but like the old saying goes: the price of freedom is eternal vigilence. My personal opinion is that it wouldn't matter if friendly people had already registered it as a NZ trademark for whatever class covers software (and I understand someone has a similar trademark for it). Aome ratbags could still come along, register it for another class (books, perhaps), slip past the regulator by mistake and screw with the community for a while. Trademarks aren't quite as awful as patents, but they're not far off. Neither are as narrow and straightforward as copyright can be and are much more expensive to defend. They're a bottomless pit for resources and ideally private trademarks and patents should not be allowed for FOSS. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha