Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: registration, dictionaries and upgrades
have just installed neoj1.1 from cd, (selling same from web site would seem to be an ideal fund raiser), and went to registration link page where the word registration/register does not appear - how do we register?
did spellcheck test and chose our local english dictionary which reverts to us english with next word - no options under tools or dictionary preference choice - how do we set dictionary?
downloaded NeoOfficeJ-1.1_Release_Candidate-Patch-3.dmg several times and it fails to mount - any suggestions?
any assitance with these matters is appreciated.
we wholeheartedly support this project and will be regular donors.
thank you
Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:18 pm Post subject: Re: registration, dictionaries and upgrades
berrima wrote:
have just installed neoj1.1 from cd, (selling same from web site would seem to be an ideal fund raiser), and went to registration link page where the word registration/register does not appear - how do we register?
It's not so much registration in the traditional sense as making sure that people who get Neo/J from a source other than planamesa.com/neojava visit the website, find out about the support resources (like trinity and the wiki), and also the donation page (this is a project done on a volunteer basis, and bandwidth costs alone are tremendous...there are a couple of threads about this, but showing the donation page does help).
(We are hoping to get some sort of international CD distribution/sale effort going once 1.1 is released..first things first. Out of curiosity, where did you get the CD with Neo/J on it?)
berrima wrote:
did spellcheck test and chose our local english dictionary which reverts to us english with next word - no options under tools or dictionary preference choice - how do we set dictionary?
Neo/J activates the dictionary for the language set as default (topmost) in the System Preferences, and this also gets set as the default language of your document. See this article in the wiki for more info.
berrima wrote:
downloaded NeoOfficeJ-1.1_Release_Candidate-Patch-3.dmg several times and it fails to mount - any suggestions?
Try downloading again, esp. with something other than Safari. Safari seems to have a nasty habit of truncating downloads before they're really complete. There's a recent thread around here somewhere with more details about other options....
berrima wrote:
we wholeheartedly support this project and will be regular donors.
thank you
Welcome, and thanks for your support. Hope these replies helped.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
This individual is in violation of US trademark laws. Any sales to individuals in the US using the NeoOffice name will be considered violation of US trademark laws and he will be the subject of lawsuits as appropriate.
you cannot be serious - they provided a burn of an open source program for no profit in order to assist us, and to our knowledge it is the first time they have done so.
many vendors supply cd copies of open office for a minimal fee and to claim neo cannot be made as readily available is absurd.
making copyright threats and enaging in micro-bullyboy tactics is totally contrary to the spirit and intent of the open office environment and serves no useful purpose.
you cannot be serious - they provided a burn of an open source program for no profit in order to assist us, and to our knowledge it is the first time they have done so.
Then they (and you) should state so. I don't know the cost of a CD-R but they can be bought, on a spindle, here for about USD .20. I figure if they are paying someone to do this, the total cost is less than USD 1 for the entire process. Costs maybe higher in Australia though and this maybe indeed, ASD 10 per disk.
berrima wrote:
many vendors supply cd copies of open office for a minimal fee and to claim neo cannot be made as readily available is absurd.
There should be no additional costs, other than a minimal cost to produce and distribute the disk. And there is a vast difference between distributing a CD of Open Source software and a Trademarked product (such as NeoOffice/J.) It is against International Trademark provisions (which Australia is a signator) to use trademarked names, emblems and graphics in/on your products without a release from the trademark holder. The trademark holder can take any actions necessary to stop the use of trademarked items. Again, I don't think Ed's actions are to stop the distribution of NeoOffice/J, just the making of $$$ without his consent.
berrima wrote:
making copyright threats and enaging in micro-bullyboy tactics is totally contrary to the spirit and intent of the open office environment and serves no useful purpose.
It is against the sprit of the law to make $$$ off of other people's work. Sorta like "I did this and I made money off of it" when in reality it was someone else's work. It is up to the trademark holder when you have crossed the line. I've heard of research professors being hauled into court and fined/jailed for the use of their colleage's work. There are even research workers suing their professors for using their work without acknowledgement. In any case, it is up the the trademark holder as to the level of enforcement they want to employ. I think that Ed has stipulated that all 'net proceeds' from the sale of NeoOffice/J related items be given to the NeoOffice/J effort. It costs a lot of $$$ to keep up a server and Internet connection to it, not to mention loss of time when you have to fix said server or work to restore connection(s) to it.
And I know it is legal to distribute NeoOffice/J as I do this on a daily basis, risking my Internet connection (it is not a technical violation of the agreement between my ISP and me, but my service is subject to termination if the agreement changes.) And if I were to press a few copies of NeoOffice/J for others, I would definately include credits to Patrick and Ed.
what is the difference between someone supplying a copy of neoj at cost and someone supplying a copy of open office at cost?
the person who did so is a strong supporter of this project and to threaten them with prosecution is beyond reason, as is any suggestion they somehow profit from other's work by recovering the cost of a cd and postage, for less that the $US10 most charge for an open office cd.
are people who download neoj breaching copyright?
are people who burn copies and install them on other computers breaching copyright?
an fbi agent told me that virtually every computer user on earth breaches copyright.
it is also disturbing that making a threat took priority over answering our question concerning dictionaries.
we were about to make a $100 donaton to the neo project, and offer assistance in other ways, but are frankly disinclined to do so if we are dealing with people so concerned with claiming ownershp of somethng, based on an open source.
you want to do a red hat, go for it, however, threatening supporters who act in good faith is hardly conducive to the success of future endeavours.
we trust sanity prevails so we may become regular donors and staunch supporters.
many thanks patrick for the answer to our question about the spell check dictionary.
what is the difference between someone supplying a copy of neoj at cost and someone supplying a copy of open office at cost?
the person who did so is a strong supporter of this project and to threaten them with prosecution is beyond reason, as is any suggestion they somehow profit from other's work by recovering the cost of a cd and postage, for less that the $US10 most charge for an open office cd.
I cannot speak for Ed as he has sole ownership of the NeoOffice trademark. It is his and, therefore, he has sole discretion for how he handles it. Even I can only use it within the NeoOffice/J product name because Ed explicitly granted me a license to do so. More importantly, Ed has formally extended a no cost license to use the NeoOffice/J trademark.
[quote="berrima"]Now to get to your first question. IANAL, but trademarks and copyright are two separate things. Trademark is the right to use the name "NeoOffice" whereas copyright is the right to copy the work that has been distributed under the name "NeoOffice/J". Confusing? There's more. "NeoOffice" is a trademark owned by Ed Peterlin. OpenOffice.org, on the other hand, is not trademarked and is probably not trademarkable even if Sun wanted to trademark it. In fact, the name OpenOffice.org was used because "OpenOffice" is a trademark of some company in Asia.
But doesn't the GPL allow anyone to copy, modify, and redistribute NeoOffice/J? Yes, but the GPL only covers the copyright, not the trademark. In other words, changing the name of the product to "XYZ Office" (or some other untrademarked name), recompiling the code, and distributing it with the new name requires no trademark license from Ed. You such case, you are only bound by the terms of the GPL.
However, if you don't change the name and distribute it with "NeoOffice" in the product name, you (and I) must comply with Ed's trademark license.
berrima wrote:
are people who download neoj breaching copyright?
are people who burn copies and install them on other computers breaching copyright?
The answer is no to both questions. In the first case, I am the distributor and Ed has explicitly given me a license to use "NeoOffice" within the product name. In the second case, you are distributing for less than or equal to the cost of producing the copy so you are in compliance with Ed's trademark license.
BTW, if you think Ed's trademark license terms are unreasonable, take a look at http://www.abisource.com/tm_guide.phtml. ABI Word is GPL but forces you to jump through a bunch of hoops before you can reuse the name. Ed just requires that you not make a profit.
Quote:
it is also disturbing that making a threat took priority over answering our question concerning dictionaries.
Please don't mix issues between different people. Ed was upset about his trademark usage. I answered your dictionary question after working a full day of work. Linking our actions together makes no sense as Ed, I , and the other volunteers work independently with essentially no contact outside of these forums. We each have our area of interest and expertise and expecting a first-in-first-out response is a bit unrealistic.
Quote:
we were about to make a $100 donaton to the neo project, and offer assistance in other ways, but are frankly disinclined to do so if we are dealing with people so concerned with claiming ownershp of somethng, based on an open source.
you want to do a red hat, go for it, however, threatening supporters who act in good faith is hardly conducive to the success of future endeavours.
we trust sanity prevails so we may become regular donors and staunch supporters.
Do what you feel is right. If you don't think we deserve your money, then you shouldn't give it to us. We don't want people donating who are going to be unhappy that they did. $100 is nice, but regardless of whether you donate or not, Ed and I will continue putting in far more money and time than we will ever recoup. Neo/J doesn't make money and we don't expect it to.
It bears repeating here: Ed's trademark license only requires that you not make a profit. The logic is simple, we don't make a profit doing Neo/J and we don't want others making a profit off of it either.
as the facts attest the person who supplied the neoj cd, and also provides open office cds, did not profit as $A10 is a reasonable cost recovery fee, and they certainly made no claim on, or modification to, the neo trademark.
thus, being in compliance with the spirit and itent af the guidlines, why the threat to prosecute? this is not a case of trying to steal or misrepresent the neo trademark.
anyway, enough of these machinations and unwarranted threats of prosecution.
as stated in our initial posting we wholeheartedly support this project and will make a $25 donation each month, and urge like minded people to do the same.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 7:57 pm Post subject:
berrima wrote:
anyway, enough of these machinations and unwarranted threats of prosecution.
Unfortunately, hard-line enforcement is required for a trademark to remain legal. Unenforced trademarks eventually fall into the realm of becoming "diluted", at which point they aren't enforcable any longer.
It's the same reason why the cashiers in fast food restaurants have to explicitly ask "is Pepsi OK" when you ask for a coke and they don't have it. Coke has lawyers scouring the earth for cashiers that slip up to prevent "Coke" from becoming a generic term rather than an established brand.
I've set forth quite lenient public licensing guidelines and if someone can show they're following, it's all good.
There are companies that will sell open source programs as an "official" distribution of their own. This frequently happens through online auction sites like eBay. People wind up paying money for what they think is a commercial program. These sleazebag companies then point to our own servers as their support "resource" and forums. Folks then come here and complain that we're ripping them off for the software when in fact we haven't made a single red cent.
It's happened before, and trademark law is the only leverage open source software communities have to prevent it from happening again. If someone's making profit off of our software, then it's up to them to provide support. It's bad enough that they try to freeload off of all the work we've done...it's worse when they freeload off of forums staffed by actual people spending their time to help a cause, not to help a company make a buck.
what is the difference between someone supplying a copy of neoj at cost and someone supplying a copy of open office at cost?
Well, for the code, licensing is different. OpenOffice is under LGPL/SISSL so you can take the code, change something without disclosing it and sell it. Neo is under GPL, so any changes have to be donated back.
As for trademarks, Ed has covered that. Basically, if you intend to make a profit, you have to enter into an agreement with Ed. I am wondering what a reasonable cost is. $10 seems reasonable enough, given CD burning costs, labelling , time spent, administration and shipping.
berrima wrote:
are people who download neoj breaching copyright?
are people who burn copies and install them on other computers breaching copyright?
an fbi agent told me that virtually every computer user on earth breaches copyright.
Probably. Depending on how harshly copyright is interpreted, having a few songtexts for nostalgic reasons may be a breach.
Copyright law is a strange and complicated thing. 15 years ago I would tape songs I heard on the radio. Everyone did. Nobody objected. Now you copy a song from the internet and you are in violation. Not trying to justify anything here, but as a legal lay man I see inconsistencies.
berrima wrote:
it is also disturbing that making a threat took priority over answering our question concerning dictionaries.
Internet moves at lightning speed, people don't. This is volunteer project and we all have things to do. Feel free to complain when you don't get an answer to a question after 3 days or so.
I am not trying to offend you, but ask you to please realize what you are expecting here.
berrima wrote:
we were about to make a $100 donaton to the neo project, and offer assistance in other ways, but are frankly disinclined to do so if we are dealing with people so concerned with claiming ownershp of somethng, based on an open source.
Well, just because we are nice as lambs among each other doesn't mean there aren't any predators out there. As stated, it has happened before. In such cases we get all the flak and none of the benefit and that is no fun for a group of hard working volunteers.
Please donate. The proceeds will go to an open source and freely available office suite that makes Mac computing so much easier for people all over the world.
-Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 6:50 am Post subject:
Folks, note that AU$10 is less than 80 US cents which is hardly going to make anyone any profit! Could this misunderstanding stem from the incorrect impression that the OP was quoting a US $ figure? If so, IMO, an apology is in order for an overreaction (though it did lead to an apparently needed clarification of the TM issue with the name NeoOffice).
Also, berrima, there has already been at least one "company" selling NeoOffice/J without permission for a profit - I can't find the story in the archives at the moment, but it would explain Ed's sensitivity to the issue. _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 9:32 am Post subject:
The conversion factor did slip past me, but the person in question also never gave me enough information to determine what it was they were actually doing. I did re-edit the original story to better clarify the new usage policy.
There are a couple of companies in question, but the one that started it all for me was Luxuriousity with OOo Mac OS X (X11).
It's no fun whey you start getting *phone calls* at your house from angry customers wanting a refund from a company with whom you have absolutely no affiliation.
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