Posted by Richelieu (Alex Stewart) on April 04, 1996 at 15:39:09:
In Reply to: Selection of team member's comments posted by JAS (emailed member's comments) on April 03, 1996 at 23:44:03:
(from the message sent out via email)
> My favorite suggestion was to move the domain registry name to the
> Island of Java, thus making us a programming team simply based there.
Heh.
> This means we cannot use them in the names of any products or services.
> TeamJava, as many team members have pointed out, DOESN'T HAVE any
> products and services!
This is not true. We have services, otherwise there wouldn't be any point
to our existence. The fact that we don't charge for these services
doesn't necessarily have any bearing on Sun's licensing requirements (and
indeed, since they don't mention the issue of commercial vs. noncommercial
services in their stuff, most likely doesn't). I'm not a lawyer, mind
you, but considering the size of Sun's legal department, I'm not sure I'd
want to be in this matter either.
> No different than the "Porsche Owners Club,"
This actually isn't true, if you read Sun's legal stuff. They permit
things like "Java(tm) Programmers' Club" (as long as things are properly
qualified with (tm)s and such), but they explicitly do _not_ permit
permuting or joining "Java" with other terms to form a name (i.e.
"TeamJava" is out, because it's a combined word).
> "Team OS/2" (as pointed out by a dual member),
Just a note here, I had the impression "Team OS/2" was officially
ok'd by IBM.. not sure about that, tho..
Anyway, my main concern is that, if we start proposing things saying "this
is a TeamJava standard" or some such, Sun might have some problems with
our name sounding like we're actually a part of Sun's official Java stuff,
and thus that these are official Sun things.. If I were in Sun's
position, I would.. The question here isn't really whether we're in the
right or not anyway, but whether Sun will have a problem with it or not
(since I don't think anyone here really wants to get involved with legal
disputes). Talking to the Sun folks is, of course, the best first step to
take, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they end up saying "no".
The idea of simply renaming the TJAB is one I really like, if that's ok
with Sun, and should avoid this potential problem nicely..
-R