Wasmer and Trademarks
wasmer.io
wasmer.io
The actual rejection: https://uspto.report/TM/88703784/OOA20200227112123#2
> The attached evidence from Webassembly and Wikipedia shows that WASM is a programming language. Here, applicant provides various software, which presumably involves the use of the aforementioned programming language.
> In total, the above evidence results in the determination that in relation to the goods and/or services applicant provides, the context therefor, and to someone who knows what the goods and/or services are, WASM conveys an immediate idea about a feature or characteristic of applicant’s goods and/or services, namely, that they consist of software involving the programming language WASM. Accordingly, the proposed mark, WASM is merely descriptive and registration is properly refused on the Principal Register under Section 2(e)(1).
> Although applicant’s mark has been refused registration, applicant may respond to the refusal by submitting evidence and arguments in support of registration. If applicant responds to the refusal, applicant must also respond to the requirements set forth below.
The whole "it's not our fault, blame our lawyers" combined with "we decided to wait on issuing a non-apology until we thought the conversation would be productive for us" really doesn't make Wasmer look good.
I think is worth to make one thing clear: as CEO the fault is and ultimately will be always mine. Not the lawyers, not anyone else.
> I wrongly assumed the foundation and trademark process had halted.
Even this looks like trying to shift the blame elsewhere.
You don't appoligize for starting the trademarking process or even try to justify why you thought that "wasm" was an appropriate thing to try to trademark.
Instead you downplay it while making misleading statements like
> The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was requesting more information to pursue the WebAssembly trademark.
The USPTO was not "requesting more information", they denied your application while giving you room to appeal with additional information. What you are doing is like trying to claim that a judge who informs you of your right to appeal is "requesting you provide more information".
In addition, the USPTO record shows that your attorneys withdrew from the trademark case several weeks prior to the DM screenshot you posted where you claim ignorance. As part of that withdrawal, your lawyer attested, under penalty of law, that you had been notified about the current state of those filings.
When your verifiable statements have such a loose relationship with truth, it really casts doubts on your unverifiable statements about your intentions. When you have your employees jump in to try to praise you "transparency", it is easy to jump to the assumption that this goes beyong self-serving distortion into willful deceit.
> Although applicant’s mark has been refused registration, applicant may respond to the refusal by submitting evidence and arguments in support of registration. If applicant responds to the refusal, applicant must also respond to the requirements set forth below
As mentioned in the article, Wasmer could have still tried to submit further evidence and arguments in support of registration, but instead we left the process to expire, leading to the ABANDONMENT of the trademark.
Hope this makes things more clear!
“Tried” is the operative word here though, no? What possible evidence could convince the USPTO to let a company trademark a name already in use for the same thing?
Not sure, as we didn't tried to pursue further. Perhaps there was a way to get the trademark, or perhaps there wasn't (no idea, really... and I guess we will never know! although a negative answer is the most probable one).
But there are other examples such as Javascript owned by Oracle, where they didn't create the technology but they owned the trademark, so it's definitely possible [1]
Oracle owns the Javascript trademark because it was originally owned by Sun, who trademarked it under an agreement with Netscape who are the original authors of Javascript. Oracle at least has legal claim to the trademark.
There obviously is not a way to get trademarks on WASM or Webassembly.
If you admit the trademarks were applied for in error, why continue pretending there was a chance they would be granted?
This wasn't a huge PR challenge, all the statement needed to say was "Sorry, some lawyers we contracted applied for the trademarks in error, we have not progressed the applications and aren't claiming any ownership of the terms WASM or Webassembly".
Wasmer only has controversy because basic PR like this statement has been mishandled over and over again. You need to come off as good-faith actors participating in the WASM ecosystem. Defensiveness when you have obviously done the wrong thing, arguing with commenters under what is supposed to be an apology, employees posting supportive comments of their employer on said apology without disclosure... surely it is obvious how these actions are bad PR?
I know this reads really negatively but please understand that it's intended as sincere feedback. It's really important that Wasmer can reform it's image problem. There isn't any reason you guys should be perceived so negatively, if you can stop screwing up PR at every opportunity.
I can understand how my comments could feel defensive. It's a personality trait that I like to discuss things to satiety, and that probably doesn't help! But it's always done with the willingness to learn and grow.
I hope my appetite for discussion doesn't make our apology to the community any less valid.
We made a mistake and we own it no matter what.
Really? It appears to be blatantly obvious to everyone but you.
Bytecode alliance is a non profit organisation whose members involve some of the tech giants involved in promoting WASM development. Bytecode alliance have developed their own open runtime.
It's not obvious why we need a seperate WASM runtime developed by Wasmer, or why they would be good stewards for a "Webassembly foundation". Their recent efforts with the closed source Webassembly Package Manager reek of trying to copy the npm business model: take commercial advantage of a non-commercial programming language.
If Wasmer want to be trusted they need to stop acting like they are official stewards of Webassembly. Focus more on building good WASM products than on pretending to be leaders.
You can even see (unattributed) supportive comments from Wasmer employees in this comments section. It just feels off.
Yup. WebAssembly is not a landgrab its an opportunity to build very cool things that embody the principles of the web. Use imagination. Build product. A package manager and a runtime is hardly inspiring.
Not defending anything but competition is generally accepted to be a good thing.
But they registered a domain name on an obscure TLD before anyone else thought of it! /s
> As is dictated by our commitment to open source and the precedent of social alignment set by WebAssembly...
> Although all these events still do not portray Wasmer in the best light, I hope they can at least assuage the understandable concerns of our community that we had acted in a way so fundamentally contrary to the values of open source and WebAssembly in particular.
Wasmer recently recently released a closed source wasm package manager. Something doesn't seem right. Anyone feel something is off here?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28772863
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/o1838v/the_web...
That's great. I'm sure the closed source paid 10x faster editions of the graphene Python GraphQL server written by Syrus "CEO of Graphene" and CEO of wasmer will be open sourced in this spirit.
https://github.com/graphql-python/graphene/issues/268#issuec...
Many people in the Python GraphQL ecosystem are very aware of how much I pushed that ecosystem forward (in fact, I created it!) and actually cheered for the success of Quiver [1]. Probably downloads will speak louder than any words: Graphene has 1/5th of the downloads of Django (~1.2 million per month [2]), all on the spirit of an open community that is governed by many more people than myself.
If you want an open alternative to Quiver, you can start by investing your time creating it. But you are not entitled on other people's time doing it for you for free. As people say in the US: "Put your money (or time) where your mouth is".
Anyway, the problem isn't about charging for your work. It's about having a track record of charging for closed source additions to your own open source software platform meanwhile saying wasmer and sibling projects will be free forever as if that's how it's always been with everything else.
[0]: https://graphql-quiver.com/benchmarks/
[1]: https://github.com/graphql-python/graphql-core-legacy/blob/m...
This is completely false. In fact, it has been rather the opposite. Thanks to Quiver I did improved a lot of things on the open-source GraphQL-core that benefited the whole community.
Quiver was built as a completely new product, and to be crystal clear: it never took any open-source bits out of Graphene or GraphQL-core. Basically, anything that was open-source did continue being open-source. That's as true for Graphene as it is for Wasmer.
I'm genuinely curious. On which ground you based your allegations?
However, the API layer based on GraphQL and the CLI are completely open for anyone to use: https://registry.wapm.io/graphql https://github.com/wasmerio/wapm-cli
If anyone wants to replicate the WebAssembly Package Manager locally please send me an email to syrus@wasmer.io so we can start a discussion around a potential open-source path for it :)
EDIT: removed "for security reasons among other things" as it might imply WAPM is not secure, and that's definitely not the case
Do you mean it would not be secure if people were able to see the source?
For example, we might be using a dependency that is vulnerable to exploits or have an exploit in our own code that opens a security breach (hopefully not!).
As an open-source maintainer I like to open projects for which the code-quality is high, and this implies doing a deep and thorough review of the codebase before open-sourcing.
If I’m in the situation where I have a binary of a server without the source, I have to pay the cost of using ghidra or IDA for a few hours or days (or weeks) to figure out how the software is structured before I can come up with an exploit. If I’m dealing with an open source target that’s a cost I don’t have to pay.
Not sure if I agree with this. Obscure systems are usually harder to hack as they require an extra effort on discoverability that open systems don't have.
Easier to exploit != more exploitable. One is about the threshold to discover an exploit, the other is about the total exploitable bugs.
In my view, the "hackability level" is the same for both open and closed-source projects. Making something close it doesn't make it less hackeable, it just makes the threshold to discover bugs higher.
Also, one may argue that with open-source projects you may be able to fix more bugs since those are in the open and more people can report them (thus, more secure). I think it really depends on the contribution level and where the codebase is at to see if security might be a concern or not.
> Security and openness are mostly orthogonal.
But I mostly agree with this ;)
We’ve known since the 70s that you (provably) can’t trust source code. We know experientially that it’s easier to diagnose code than programs. We also know experientially that the teams involved have a dramatic effect on the security of the outcomes.
How will we ever decide which of our three contestants will win?
One way of seeing it is that it's mostly orthaganal at a level of all software out there, but that for those who make a serious effort to be secure, there is a lot of benefit to being open source.
There's Linus's Law, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". I think if the maintainers of Linux didn't meaningfully address security concerns, it would just mean they were doing a bit better at whack-a-mole. You see this in popular open source projects like WordPress.
So I think that's why a reader might think tptacek's two comments don't jibe with each other. If you are given a choice between an open source and a closed source application, you wouldn't just assume one is more secure than another. However, if you were starting off to make a secure system, it would be a good idea to make it open source.
It proved that FOSS isn't infallible, which I hope isn't that great a shock. To argue that it weakens the general argument, you would need to present a similar TLS library which avoided exploits by being closed source.
I myself have on occasion found high priority bugs (not security issues) in open source projects with many eyeballs, simply by turning on additional compiler warnings. The fruit out there hangs very low.
Openness counts for nothing if nobody is reading the code. Open is better than being closed source but the difference is marginal. The real difference is made by having the code reviewed by security professionals, and by how the project is maintained/lead, and those are orthogonal to open/closed source.
I have to agree. Are there any open source package managers similar to cargo?
“…I’m aware we registered the Wasmer trademark, so it might be related.”
However, that is not true.
Wasmer was not registered, just like “Wasm” and “Webassembly” the USPTO issued an Office Action for the “Wasmer” TM application, just like the other two applications the attorney withdrew, Wasmer failed to respond to the Office Action, and the application was abandoned.
With the exact same failure to respond to a USPTO Office Action for their own business name, I’m wondering did the CEO also intentionally fail to respond to the USPTO Office Action for Wasmer and if so why?
I think it was similar but far more mundane. I think they got bad vibes from Wasmer.
I was initially considering using wasmer for a project but will go with wasmtime (still open to suggestions though!)
tldr:
> Are you looking for the best possible performance to build a “serverless” infrastructure? WAVM may be better a choice, combined with “snapshots” of the linear memory made after initialization, as done in the excellent FAASM.
> For untrusted applications, and if you are into Rust, you may want to consider lucet and its unique ability to stop/resume/reschedule execution.
> Are you looking for a one-runtime-to-rule-them-all thing for multiple components of your application, written in a variety of programming languages? wasmer will probably be the easiest to integrate.
> Are you looking for a way to test the latest WebAssembly proposals? Check out wasmtime. Ditto if you need to run WebAssembly modules from Zig. wasmtime is fast, even on ARM CPUs, although I wish I could test on one of these fancy new Apple M1 machines.
> Finally, if you need something simple, lightweight, that works everywhere, wasm3 is your friend.
[0] https://00f.net/2021/02/22/webassembly-runtimes-benchmarks/
It's possible what you say is true, but, how could anyone judge the validity of such an allegation from a throwaway account without more info?
It's impossible to know. I do know someone elsewhere on HN[1] claimed to (a) work at wasmer and (b) that the decision was based on personal reasons. On a very low rated post. But that's also unverified, and could just mean that they think the founder is an ass.
What is relevant, though, is that a member of the Alliance made public claims of inappropriate behavior by Wasmer's founder and, nearly a year later, boosted them to justify why they weren't personally collaborating. I'm not going to link this for the benefit of the victim, but in fairness they did publish this online, and you can still find it if you're really interested.
And once you take this background into context, some of the issues Wasmer faces just seem to click. Consider the late-cofounder post-mortem you linked in a different thread:
> Another point: Syrus Akbary also has made many public errors that have created hostility against the company.
Could it be about different issues? Well, certainly, but that one issue was steaming for a year within the Alliance, so...
Sexual harassment issues are a serious matter. They are not discussed online as a throwaway weapon. They are denounced to the relevant authorities so they can be punished by law. I will always defend anyone doing that even if the claim goes against my person or anyone I love.
If you have chatted with anyone that has really suffered from it, you would know how important is to treat this things properly and not as a weapon to attack a company we don't like.
Are you implying this didn't affect Wasmer's rejection from the Alliance?
I hope you can understand how making unsupported claims of this caliber can be very damaging specially if done without any verification whatsoever. You didn't stated it but you did implied it.
> Are you implying Wasmer was rejected from the Alliance for a different reason?
You shall ask them instead of me.
>
> We made both of these points explicit in the rejection email. In that email, we also said that if Wasmer established a track record of positive engagement, we would re-evaluate.
From a BA member[0]. If I was you, I'd start reading some interpersonal communication books ASAP and really take some time to reflect deeply on what is happening here. It seems like a lot of people around you are making decisions that gravely impact your business and personal future (your lawyers trademarking things without you understanding what, the Bytecode Alliance rejecting you, people alleging harassment, etc.) and you're having a hard time understanding what they are doing and why.
[0] https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/issues/3#issuecomment-71...
I hope we can share the opinion that making this statement without actually pin-pointing into what's the exact behavior that is not compatible with the CoC makes the whole point plain. If provided, one can reflect upon that. Otherwise is just plain words that don't help in any way towards reflection or self-growth.
> your lawyers trademarking things without you understanding what
That's my fault, as stated in the article and other comments here. Sometimes we try to chew more than we can swallow, and fuckups happen. If you been in a startup you probably know what I'm talking about.
> people alleging harassment
This one is the one that I think we have to be most cautious about, specially because anyone can "allege" anything. Tomorrow I can read in Twitter that someone likes to kill cats and I can say that "Allegedly X is a cat killer", but that doesn't make it any more true (and to be honest, it will be irresponsible for me sharing that without proof, even if I frame it as an allegation). It's on each of us the responsibility to seriously treat those claims by putting them in the hands of the authorities so any bad behavior is penalized with the law.
> It seems like a lot of people around you are making decisions that gravely impact your business and personal future
Fortunately enough, the business thrives when we make a product that people like and use. And for me personally, I'm learning a lot and going through a lot of experiences that are for sure enriching. Thus, each day I'm (hopefully) becoming a better version of myself (or at least I try to!). Hope you do too!
This allegation is absolutely false
1. No, no one at the Bytecode Alliance ever accused me of inappropriate behavior.
2. Someone at the Bytecode Alliance accused me of inappropriate behavior, but that was a false allegation.
Spell it out, because regardless of which, this definitely played a part in why Wasmer is not a part of the Alliance, and that is what people were wondering about.
I'll do it from my end: yes, they were accused of it. Their answers are roundabout ways of never confirming it because they claim they were accused unfairly, and that's fine, if irrelevant to what ended up happening to the Wasmer-BA relationship.
> I'll do it from my end: yes, they were accused of it
Accused of sexual harassment by a member of the BA alliance? Never. This is absolutely false.
If you have proof of that please share the information. I think any future readers will like reading about it
But for the sake of discussion, let's play devils advocate. Even if such an accusation would exist (which in this case, it doesn't), it would not imply it's truthfulness. That's why it's super important to always put this matters into the hand of authorities so any bad behaviors (either sexual harassment or false accusations) are addressed with the full weight of the law.
Are you joking me? Inappropriate physical behavior IS sexual harassment. You're trying to twist words to deny something happened.
At this point I lost complete faith in you and now assume your claims that it was a misunderstanding an outright fabrication. I'm ashamed I ever rooted for Wasmer and hoped this was indeed culture clash.
At no point in this conversation was the truthfulness or the legality of whatever happened in question: the question was "why was wasmer rejected from the bytecode alliance," and a "false" allegation that you "touched someone in a prolonged and overly-familiar way that caused them discomfort according to them but wasn't sexual harassment according to you" is the answer.
In fact, you're saying this never happened and that false accusations need to be addressed with the full weight of the law? I'll see you in court I guess?
Greeting someone with two kisses (a typical way of greeting in Spain) in a public conference in front of many other people is not sexual harassment. In fact, I already suspect you know that since you also commented "For all we know, it could be a misunderstanding due to different cultures" in this same thread. In any case, if you really consider that sexual harassment I'd welcome you to report it to the authorities and see what they have to say about it.
For any future readers, this is what this throwaway account is falsely reporting as sexual harassment: https://twitter.com/syrusakbary/status/1202362342555545600
> In fact, report me to the authorities
Sure thing, I'd love to. Would you be so kind to share your real information so I can do so?