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Comment by ISV_Damocles | Hacker News Reader

This has certainly soured my view of the Elementary OS project. Someone has created a project to help himself and other users and chose an obvious name for it, then a representative from the company behind it wants the name changed and threatens legal action if they don't?

Regardless of the actual trademark status at hand, they decided that they would rather burn a bridge with a dedicated user who spent their free time to improve their product and in a way to provoke fear of legal costs. Why wouldn't he look for supporting data to offset that legal threat?

They're literally abusing the power imbalance in this situation to try to get things done their way, and I don't understand how anyone in here is siding with them?

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There was never any legal threat, in fact I try to clarify that repeatedly. The user kept steering it to a poor understanding of trademark law and then publicly uploaded documents with a physical address in response.

This user has been repeatedly disruptive in the subreddit and Slack before this incident, and then they go and publicly doxx someone? There is zero tolerance for that behavior.

If that was true, you never would have brought up trademarks in the very first post of the issue?

You don't "want" to use the legal threat of trademark law, but you'll dangle it in front to try and coerce your desired behavior.

And there's no doxxing here. That's a legal document he pulled up that's publicly available.

I guess an LLC has _never_ been started out of someones garage /s

Just because it's publicly available doesn't mean it can or should be broadcast for all the world to see.

krisives took the time to download the document and mark it part of the repository so _at the very least_ they should have redacted any PII.

Yes, if they were perfectly fine with using that address in public records they should understand that it will be searchable, tying the business to that address.

There are tons of cheap services[1] to provide obfuscated business addresses for LLCs very cheaply, and by the time you're navigating filing documentation for legal trademarks I would expect this to be a known solution, as their legal counsel should've brought it up when they were establishing the LLC in the first place.

[1]: https://www.noobpreneur.com/2018/05/04/how-to-use-a-virtual-...

Diluting a brand and trademark is something that can and does happen and does not imply a threat whatsoever. I clarified that multiple times.

And uploading legal filings with private addresses in them and publicly associating with a GitHub user account in response to me opening a GitHub issue is absolutely doxxing. It was not necessary at all, and they refuse to remove it.

The only address I see is the one for an LLC, which is also a public address?

If you mean the email address, it's just your first name and your company, which is the same name you're using for HN and Github? How are they not already publicly associated?

Please, just "mea culpa" that you got off on the wrong foot here, unban the guy, and work out this situation slowly over time. The repo has only 2 stars!

Your ridiculous overreaction is what makes me never want to touch Elementary. I don't want to make this about me, but I'm in your customer profile, typing this on a System76 laptop and having a PineBook Pro sitting next to me. I want to pay OSS companies for quality work! You should really think about what you're doing here and what kind of reputation you want your company to have amongst your potential customers.

This is one of your comment from the Github thread,

> ...which affords certain protections under US trademark law and has enabled elementary to prevent people from distributing other items under our brand name—but regardless this issue is in no way a legal threat as much as you want to insinuate...

Honesty, it looks like a legal threat to me despite claiming otherwise given your other comments on the Github thread have been on the legality of your request.

Also, claiming the repo owner has a poor understanding of trademark law when you are not a lawyer reflects poorly on you. If you wanted to change their name to "Unofficial elementaryOS Tweaks" - just ask nicely without getting into legal gobbledygook.

That's actually the edited version, the original one stated:

> ...which affords certain protections under US trademark law and has enabled elementary to prevent people from distributing other items under our brand name—but I absolutely do not want to go the legal threat route

Which is much more of an "it'd be a shame if something happened" kind of phrasing.

Yeah, but it also clearly states that they don't want to go the legal threat route. So I don't know. I think that thsi think was clearly mishandled by both sides

I don't want to break your legs but you should stop parking your car in front of my house.

It's not a threat because I said I don't want to break your legs.

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