[BlueOnyx:25522] Re: Have you ever wanted to run BlueOnyx on a Blue Onyx?

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Meaulnes,

> ha! isn't the name BlueOnyx trademarked? Even with one or two spaces in it?

A trademark does not need to be registered for the owner to prevent 
others from using it or using a confusingly similar mark. BlueOnyx isn't 
a registered Trademark (not that it matters anyway - see above) and 
registering it back in 2008 would therefore have been a legally 
meaningless hassle as I would have needed to be register it in multiple 
countries due to the intended worldwide usage.

However: I did my due diligence in search engines to check if the name 
"BlueOnyx" or "Blue Onyx" was already taken. The first dozen pages of 
results only turned up gem stone related topics and the *.com, *.net and 
*.org domains for it were parked at domain harvesters who resell or 
auction expired domains for ridiculous prices.

Since then consulting companies (unrelated to software), a bistro, a 
Rental Homes & Apartment company of that name, a Pvt. Ltd. doing 
construction and a whole heap of unrelated businesses and organizations 
have adopted this name. /shrug

And there are of course cases, where individuals quite liberally (and 
sometimes in libelous fashion) used "BlueOnyx" for other software 
products, web pages and related services, or created social media 
accounts under the "blueonyx" name.

There have been individuals that for example uploaded our entire code 
repository to places like SourceForge or Github under the BlueOnyx name. 
Not just forking it, but in an impersonating fashion. Giving it the 
appearance as if the code hosted there were authorized releases and/or 
they were doing official BlueOnyx business.

THAT was and is were I draw the line and have sent politely worded 
take-down requests, which all have been honored. Even though SourceForge 
took their sweet time to do it.

So while I would defend our software copyright (as far as it applies due 
to the very liberal modified BSD license) and the licensing for shop 
related non-BSD products tooth and nail, it's not worth it to pick 
fights over the term or trademark "BlueOnyx".

As far as I see it: The RockyLinux guys using "Blue Onyx" for their EL9 
release is an embarrassing and ridiculous failure in due diligence 
(we're on the first page of THAT search result) but not necessarily an 
intentional slight.

I may prod Gregory Kurtzer with a humorous "Dude, WTF?" note, though. :p

After all: They'll be the ones suffering when someone Googles Linux 
related questions with "blue onyx" in the query. I can almost guarantee 
that the result hits our mailing list archive or webpage first.

> What would happen if you would baptize 5211R something like RockyOnyx or 
> AlmaOnyx? (I know you wouldn't anyway:-)
Uuuh. I don't want to go there. ;o)

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber