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> You have to protect trademarks or you lose them.

Let them be lost, who cares? It's not even a novel name, they just co-opted an existing word for their little gang and now don't want anyone else to use it.

Even Oracle, the chief lawyer-assholes of the industry, have basically given up on trying to own "JavaScript", and that at least is a uniquely derived term.




> Let them be lost, who cares?

Users who don't want malware/abandonware. See more: Mumble.com and Mumble.info


You're arguing one of them should have exclusive right to use the word "mumble" in reference to software related to vocal communication?


Yes, one of them should have the right to use that logo and name for VoIP, absolutely.

There are plenty of names everyone can pick that don't namesquat on an existing project. I find it especially nasty if it's a FOSS project that gets its name abused.


I'm not sure if people who don't double check the URL are the same people who would memorize or compare logos on a site... (which is in no way a defense of what's happening, but I don't think the other thing would help either)


Do you think they would care if you started a company named Oracle?


Conflating product names with legal company names does nothing to help the discussion. The fact of the matter is I can have a business called https://learnjavascript.online/ but not one called https://learnrust.online/, because the Rust team has decided they are uniquely suited to govern all usage of the word "rust" as their dumb little users can't manage to think for themselves and determine which resources are worth consulting.


They are trademarks, though, are they not?

Should I be permitted to fork Go an call it Rust? learnrust.com with fine resources to learn ru.. I mean go, no wait. Rust. Definitely rust.

I am a user of Rust and I am neither dumb nor little, but thank you for your kind consideration of my mental abilities. But I think you are the one missing the point here: it has to do with the stability of the brand, language and environment; I've invested a lot of hours into this and will continue to do so. Without the protection I would not because it could be gone tomorrow, basically.


> It's the Rust foundation that considers it's users dumb and little, unable to think for themselves and determine which resources are worth using. How could you in good faith read what I said and come away thinking I support controlling the availability of resources named rust?

Those are your words and I think you should own them.

The trademark process is there to prevent malicious entities from doing that. And in an environment where some brand has a certain value, there will be people that would want to infringe on it to have a share of the proceeds. Why else are we even having this conversation, if it wasn't for the fact that people _do_ want to infringe on the brand?

I went with the Go example to make the difference bigger. We can talk about the Crabs Language instead; imagine they take that language in another direction. (I don't mind that at all, doing so probably adds to the community of knowledge and information so I'm all for it.) But now let's also call them Rust.

What does learnrust.com mean, then? Which Rust? A new users or a company looking to hire resources in this arena, would you call them dumb and little for not being able to expertly tease out the differences?


If you cant wait for the cool off period to expire before responding, consider you might be too worked up to make a coherent case.

For one, any reasonable interpreter of the English language would understand that sentiment was being attributed to the foundation, not me.

And someone wanting to use the word Rust doesn't make them "infringing". It's a word. It's a technology. I can use any other technology name to describe an offering, but I use Rust and it's a big deal? Hard pass.


Cool off period? I am calm as a jug of yoghurt my dear Internet friend :)

It seems to me that it would be educational for you to read a little about how trademarks work. The stuff that you direct at me has thorough explanations; these are not my opinions. To be honest: I'm not even 100% sure I even want the current trademark system, but I do understand the arguments for it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WN86qywLVY

And it seems to me you could take a look at how literally any other language manages their name. Rust is alone in this drama-fest, as they tend to be.


It's the Rust foundation that considers it's users dumb and little, unable to think for themselves and determine which resources are worth using. How could you in good faith read what I said and come away thinking I support controlling the availability of resources named rust?




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