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The ssh vs. OpenSSH Trademark Battle, Next Round
My favorite tidbit from the article is this: "[OpenBSD and OpenSSH Developer Theo] de Raadt cites U.S. trademark law that requires owners of trademarks to notify violators immediately ... de Raadt argues that Ylönen would have to be living under a rock not to be aware of OpenSSH before now. OpenSSH, released in December 1999 and in use before that, was used by more than 17% of all SSH users earlier this month, according to a study published on the University of Alberta Web site." Besides that, the story does a great job of listing other people whose products including "SSH" in their names have been left blissfully alone, making it seem that OpenSSH is getting what can only be called special treatment.
Of interest: here is a link to a page at openssh.com showing the legal papers received and scanned by members of the OpenSSH project, including the trademark application in question, showing an entirely lowercased "ssh" as the applied-for mark.
Intel already has a trademark on the letter I. Seriously. I'm sure many of the other 25 are already taken, too.
I'm not sure if such hijacking is legally possible, or worthwhile, but it would really be unfair and damaging to SSHCS, or any company, which is why we have the trademark laws. This may be one reason why they may have to enforce it.
The reaction of SSH Communications Services may thus be quite understandable and acceptable. But that doesn't of course negate the fact that Tatu and SSHCS made a legally fatal mistake in giving the protocol, the free version of the product, the commercial version, and the company the same name.
I think the trademark dispute of SSH in the OpenSSH name is rediculous.
Just to show how much more understanding and reasonable all the other big corporations are, I'm going to introduce the products:
OpenKleenex
OpenJello
OpenSPAM
i'm voting fer :
0p3N55h3Z 4-3v3R!
When a trademark is diluted, you legally loose your trademark (Kleenex and Xerox are the textbook examples). Don't stab him in the back for supporting open source by taking away his brand name, which was a major marketing investment.
I think its too late for that... the trademark has already been sufficiently diluted - I started using OpenSSH about 4 months ago, and I had never even heard of the company until this article.
If nobody ever re-invented the wheel, we'd all be pushing around flintstones cars, wouldn't we?
I don't see anything in there giving authorization of the Trademark...
If you're not compatible, you can't use the name.
That doesn't mean you can use the registered mark. When that was done, there was no registered mark. The Mark is owned by a corporation (founded by this gentlemen, not that it's terribly relevant), and can't be appropriated without authorization.
For example, if I write some code, call my program Microsoft, and say in my license that you may use the name Microsoft in referring to my code, you aren't authorized to use it.
That is hardly a license to a Trademark issued two years after that was written.
The author of the original software asked you not to use the name ssh or Secure Shell if they are incompatible. That is a contractual agreement as part of a license.
The company is using the Trademark SSH to refer to their company and software. When you used that license, you contracted to not name is SSH if it is not compatible. That has NO bearing on the trademark.
Ah, but Kleenex(tm) is the mark and tissue is the descriptive word. I can not trademark Tissue brand tissues and start making everyone else change their names. Likewise, doesn't secure shell describe the tool, rather than name it?
Now that I look at their product page, I see that SSH Communications Security sells a product named SSH (r) Secure Shell(tm) that implements "the SSH protocol, the de-facto standard for encrypted terminal connections on the Internet." It's an encrypted terminal connection. Encryption is used to make things secure, and you typically use a terminal connection for a shell.
Is secure shell a reasonable synonym for encrypted terminal connection? It's certainly easier to say, and securing the terminal is the real goal -- encrypting it is merely the means.
Anyway, naming the company after the unix command seemed dubious. Apparently NetManage bought FTP Software. Was FTP Software going after the other FTP client and server software vendors? WS FTP, CureFTP, WarFTP ...
Ciao PatientZero
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
News for turds, shit that splatters
does it matter?
/. response... I'd have to say it would roll with the punches, along with a lot of name calling. BUT, they wouldn't ignore it as it seems Tatu has been ignoring OpenSSH.
If they lose in court it will be because of this delay.
Considering some of the more rabid trademark enforcers and the
Ylönen gave permission to use "ssh" to describe derivatives of his program that conformed to the RFC in the license that accompanied version from which OpenSSH is derived. Now, years later, he's decided he wants to retract it.
If his permission to use "ssh" is revocable, arguably so are any other parts of his license -- including the permission to use the code in derivative works. Rolling over on the name could be used in court as evidence that the OpenSSH crew agreed that the license is revocable -- in which case he can next eliminate the whole OpenSSH project, whatever its name. Ooops...
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
I'm not a lawyer, but it appears that SSH Communications Security applied for two different marks, one a "Word Mark" and one a "Typed Drawing". The word mark registration does not include a picture and is abandoned. The typed drawing, however, includes a picture and is live.
I may be reading into this too much, but it seems to me that a word mark is the word "ssh" and a typed drawing is the specific presentation of "ssh" in the stylized way illustrated in the picture. Much like the words "Coka Cola" and the stylized cursive "Coka Cola" are separate registered marks.
Since OpenSSH is not using the stylized "ssh" anywhere, there can be no confusion between the marks.
If we really wanted to be picky, Fairchild Industries owns the word mark "ssh" for some sort of injection molding temperature control.
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
News for turds, shit that splatters
A man who worked hard to get widespread usage of a protocol by making it freely available is now trying to stuff the shit back in the horse. Sorry it doesn't work that way.
Well, at least, it shouldn't work that way. Fraunhofer is doing the exact same thing with mp3. The problem is that there needs to be a distinct line drawn between specifications and products. You shouldn't be able to trademark a specification (such as the SSH protocol).
please die.
soon.
really
I'm not kidding.
News for turds, shit that splatters
OpenSSH needs to take a lesson from Mesa & OpenGL
I've had a rely to my post saying that it was dirty of SSH to wait as long as it did to enforce its trademark (my post says theres no expiration on the right to prosecute, there shouldnt be, and openSSH should have known better.)
To say SSH is dirty for waiting is like saying that the recent DirectTV tactic of letting everyone clone their chips over and over without a word, and then destroying them all in one genious swoop, was dirty.
Sorry, they knew it was wrong, they got the benefit of instant recognition at the beginning by using SSH's name, and now they have to deal with it. If they were a bunch of idiots, I'd be sad, but they got their early recognition on the back of the name brand, and now it doesn't matter if they are great...the real name holders want them off their backs.
I say it's their right.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Too late... much too late.
Have they sued the makers of all *nix OSes yet for putting infringing statements in places like:
/etc/services
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
What a coincidence. I was thinking almost the same thing:
SSH Corp will earn my disdain if they don't make an offer to these freely offered products (maybe a license w/ a small one time fee (paid by supporters)), along with an agreement to put disclaimers on site, in docs, etc..
Also, the command line is another world. This has nothing to do with trademarks. If everybody's implementation had to use a different name, it would be confusing as hell. (gnuls kinda takes the beauty out of unix) Sym-link shim-link, it is the same thing. So what if the administrator makes the link, and the administrator does not implement it with a wrapper script that shouts at users when they use ssh that:
YOU ARE NOT USING SSH CORP BRAND SSH PRODUCTS, SO GET USED TO IT!!!!
In these cases the basis for your suggestion goes out the window, the same 'confusion' exists.
What bristles me most about this is that 'ssh' is a common name now. Almost nobody says 'So with this service, I get SecSH with it, right?' (not 'secure shell' because that is Tatu's next baby).
So, when ever someone will talk of 'sshing' I will think of how SSH Corp allowed the name to become common, then struck their most able opponent.
A company I am associated with uses F-Secure SSH. F-Secure pays their taxes, but otherwise their product acts in the same ways as OpenSSH. It works and it uses the standard naming convention for the binaries (using symlinks for ssh, but as I mentioned above, it doesn't matter whether you are executing a binary or following a symlink to a binary, it is the same effect). By your standards F-Secure is diluting the ssh mark. The only way to tell F-Secure and OpenSSH (and SSH Corp if they still matter (just kidding, jeez)) is to telnet to the port or with the '-V' flag. Then it is clear what you are using.
Maybe because Ylönen is actually in the same boat as Bezos, et. al. He submitted ssh as an open standard, which was upstanding of him. Then he turned around and tried to trademark the name of the open standard. Now he's decided that OpenSSH is taking too much of his business, and he's trying to shut them down by preventing them from using the name of the protocol in their program name.
Quite frankly, OpenSSH is not confusingly similar to ssh, or even SSH. Trying to sue them for trademark infringement (while simultaneously letting anyone else using ssh or SSH in their name slide by) is just slimy business practice. Why doesn't Ylönen just do what's right and try to compete on the basis of quality of software, not by using questionable legal tactics to try to run them out of business?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
i don't think it's very nice to let the stench of profits make you reverse course after several years of cooperation with the open source community, and then sic your lawyers on the very open source developers cooperating with you.
> Theo is being an asshole
i don't think an asshole would have responded privately to tatu's legal threats saying, basically, "let's work this out privately because going public will make you look like an asshole." which is what theo said.
theo comes out of this looking like a hero, which is basically what he is.
nobody
parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus
Case-in-hand. Here in Tampa, Florida, there's a company called "Duron Paints." Now, if Duron was a registered trademark before AMD even conceived of the chip by the same name, Duron Paints can sue AMD, and cause AMD to rename their Duron line. In reality, neither company knows the other exists, so what's the problem?
Both organizations probably wouldn't get mixed up very easily, and neither side is even in the same catagory.
The fact that these 2 companies are baking on 3 letters is ridiculous. What if I've made a certain generic... minidisc caleld "AMD" for American MiniDisc Corporation before AMD the chip company was even incorporated? Can I sue AMD and make them change their company name?
Like children fighting over toy blocks...
This episode reminds me of the early conflict between ARC (from seaware?) and ZIP (Katz&Co./PKware).
It was the classic battle of What's in a name?
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far, away when BBSes were the primary means in which the computer community communicated its data and ideas, there was a compression standard known by its .3 extension ARC... Simply put: it was the DOS .tgz of its time and everyone that frequented BBSes used it.
As a result, a company called Seaware sold a lot of copies of their compression/decompression utility also called ARC...
Well along came an inventive programmer named Phil Katz who developed a compression/decompression utilty that was compatible with ARC. Its primary feature was that it yielded slightly faster decompression times than the original Seaware product. (I believe that he originally called it PKARC.)
Needless to say, Seaware sued him over the use of the letters A-R-C (I guess 3 IS a magic number) making a lot of the same kind of claims that SSH Inc. is making. They went around and around about it until FINALLY Katz changed his utility to PKZIP and the entensions produced by his utility to .ZIP.
The problem was that in the process of protecting a quick buck, Seaware Inc. offended their user base. 'Sysops' RAN away from their commercial offerings to support Katz. Besides that, PKARC was already faster than ARC. As it all turned out, once freed from ARC, Katz went on to improve his product offer better compression and nifty features like self extraction. Now only a few even REMEMBER Seaware let alone ARC.
HERE'S THE POINT:
By maintaining the term 'ssh' as the name of a protocol as opposed to a product, SSH Inc. can probably better maintain the synergy between the two efforts. The alternative is that the OpenSSH product changes its name, goes off in a different direction and becomes its own standard much like PKWare's PKZIP did to Seaware's ARC or even GNU's gzip did to the proprietary compression format used for 'compress' and its.Z files.
Yeah, SSH Inc. could use its LAWYERS to press their point, but the fact remains that in a nontrivial way, the term OpenSSH is an ADVERTISEMENT for SSH Inc. People looking for free/low-cost solutions will find them anyway. By maintaining the positive association between the efforts, it gives SSH Inc. the room and credibility to offer the kinds of services and support that an open source project CAN'T offer to its user base.
One day, software companies may learn that LAWYERS are NOT the way to get your point across to the computing community. If anything, they probably CREATE the MOTIVATION to IGNITE its CREATIVITY. There are better ways to handle this situation and I feel that SSH addressing its own LACK OF CREATIVITY in naming their products wouldn't be a bad thing to consider.
SECURELink
CRYPTLink
SECUREConnect
There are all sorts of possibilities that do not require them to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I wonder, how would we all feel if it were Linus sending out a C&D for someone misusing the term Linux. Would we still be on the side of trademarks are bad? There is no doubt a lot of confusion here, it's not that hard to rename it.
Encrypted shell (esh)
trusted Shell (tsh)
secure telnet (stn) which btw, is more accurate, as it's not really a shell.
Get involved
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
FTP Software never sued anybody over the File Transfer Program they named themselves after. Probably because the use of the initials FTP goes way back before the history of computers, popularized by graphiti artists as an abbreviation for "Fuck The Police", often used alongside FTQ for "Fuck The Queen". -Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
You might be infringing on someone elses *EXISTING* project.
2 02 47&cid=167
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/02/14/11
and
http://freshmeat.net/projects/fressh/
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
Actually, read the license again. It simply does not deny them permission. It doesnt specifically grant any rights other than to use the code.
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
But this part of the law was created for exactly this case... when a trademark owner allows others to invest a large amount of time and/or money into an infringing mark without their knowledge of infringement, and then tries to pull the rug out from everyone at exactly the worst time.
--
The concept of trademarking an application name so close to a standard protocl name is, at best, silly. On the other hand, I don't think that it's worth starting a big fight over. There are far better things to put our energy/ time/ money into.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
> gnuls kinda takes the beauty out of unix
:-) ).
I sorta disagree. gcc was not named cc. gnutar was not named tar. They don't have to name their program ssh. RMS would say that they should do things as differently as possible, and provide a --traditional for inter-operability (Btw, I would love hearing what Theo would say if RMS tried to tell himn what to do
Sure gnuls would be ridiculous, so my example isn't worth much. Even apache is named httpd, so...
> By your standards F-Secure is diluting the ssh mark
Frankly, I don't know. I was just saying that *I* often confused ssh and openssh, and that *I* would have zero problem using asfkaos (A Shell Formelly Known As OpenSHH) as it would help me to stay away from ssh(tm) products.
OTOH, maybe you are right, and ssh corp should be told to f*ck themselves...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Wake the fuck up if you're on here bitching that SSH isn't a shell.
"ssh" is a secure replacement for rsh, "slogin" is a secure replacement for rlogin, and "scp" for rcp.
rsh was for remote shell, ssh is for secure shell.
That's why, so if you think you're cool and are allowed to speak just because you popped a RedHat CD into your Packard Bell, please reformat, reload windows, and don't come back.
Thank you.
-Nev
..but the reality is that he's selectivly enforcing his invalid trademark (check the trademark db if you don't believe me). And he's doing this enforcement against the product that's **gasp** putting him out of business. If he really wanted to protect the (tm), he would need to go after:
O SSH
TTSSH
NiftySSH
MacSSH
Java-SSH
TGssh
sshCE
An OpenVSM project called just SSH
SSH-OS2
...
and, well, you get the point. He's just going after OpenSSH because they're beating him in the market. And not only does he have no legal leg to stand on, but he's being a real slime by only going after the successfull one. Theo would be right to tell hime where to stick his lawyers.
Did you (a) make this up, (b) just guess that this is correct, or (c) lie?
You go ahead and try to sell computer products using the initials IBM. Pick your own colors and fonts. Stand back and wait for the (successful) lawsuits.
Of course, he also has a trademark on it. The question is: when did he acquire the trademark?
A Copyright license effectively will have little to do with a trademark. IANAL. Chances are they're in the right to enforce it.
Whether they waited too long is what I'm interested in hearing from the courts.
-Stu
Dear Gerald R. Ford,:
We represent Ford Motor Company in intellectual property matters. We are writing to you regarding your unauthorized use of our client's "Ford(tm)" trademark.
As you know, Ford Motor Company produces and sells low-quality automobiles and trucks, and provides related services in the U.S.A. and internationally. Ford Motor Company is the owner of the mark (Ford) in the U.S. and other countries, and also owns domain names such as "ford.com", "ford.ca", "ford.co.uk", and "ford.de". Enclosed is a copy of U.S patent number 75799920 for your convenience and information.
We have become aware that you are using the mark "Ford" in connection with personal identification, family members, business associations and matters pertaining to your presidency of the United States of America. We also note that you have made use of the mark "Ford" when making personal acquaintences, making speeches, and when subscribing to magazines.
In view of Ford Motor Company's widespread use of its (Ford) mark in many countries around the world, any unauthorized use of the (Ford) mark causes Ford Motor Company great concern. In particular, such use may falsely suggest that political science students and professors, newspaper editorialists, and historians may use the Ford trademark in a manner which could dilute, tarnish and degrade the image associated with our client's (Ford) mark.
We request that you cease all use of (Ford), including "Gerald R. Ford", "President Ford", and "Mr. Ford", and/or any name, mark or logo which is confusingly or deceptively similar. In particular, we request that you stop using (Ford) in any form, as part of your name, your family's name, and/or in any verbal or written communication with other people, and take all steps necessary to have your name removed from any texts and material containing the name "Gerald R. Ford".
Please confirm in writing by February 9, 2001, that you, on behalf of yourself, your family, and history in general, will agree to this request.
Your cooperation is anticipated and appreciated.
Sincerely,
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Bill Gates just called me about something he found on my HD called X-Windows. If anybody can contribute, I think I might owe him $100 million.
And the Apple guys didn't like what was in my lunch today.
It's Pizza and OS/2 from now on.
You're confusing SSH (the implementation) with SSH (the standard).
I really hate it when a company picks on a simple
opensource project with a very good stance on why it did and should continue to use the name OpenSSH. I was planning on rolling out SSH this summer to over 800 desktops/servers. I guess I will be DEFINATLY going with OpenSSH in light of these developments.
that kid left his candy on the table and didn't pay attention to it. there is nothing illegal about taking the kid's candy, since it was clearly abandoned. ummm. let's enjoy the candy.
nothing in his license forfeited or otherwise abandoned the SSH name. I have reviewed my copy of his license (1.2.27). I see no forfeiture. if you believe that he did, please post relevant info.
(I saw other people suggest Secure Telnet, just didn't see SecT yet) It's a word, it's easy to remember and it doesn't contain "Open", which kind of contradicts "secure".
Also,
SeCT = Secure ConnecT
Wroot
I think they should follow samba's example, and make a word out of it.... My vote is for SaSHay.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
The statement that the mark wasn't enforced was the WRONG tack to take.
Good job. We have now taken the position to the outside world of being total assholes.
The guy made an effort NOT to bully an Open Source group. He didn't send threatening lawyer letters. He asked people to be reasonable. Quite frankly, you're going to lose BADLY in a court of law, because not only is there the possibility of confusion, but there is DOCUMENTED confusion.
Now, this is totally absurd.
He didn't bully, DON'T use that against him. The arguement that he didn't bring it up until confusion happened may be legally correct, but now sets the horrible precedent that Open Source groups will be as shady as possible, and if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
Notice something, the original license (if anything tells people not to be nice and release their source code, this is the example, that was hardly a license, more of a nice gesture) allowed you to call your application ssh.
That's irrelevant.
OpenSSH could be renamed, OpenSecSH, which would be an open implementation of the SecSH protocol, which is the name of the working group. The FILE could still be called ssh/sshd.
SAMBA couldn't call itself SMB, confusion reasons, but the applications use SMB (like, smbd).
However, you can be polite, compile as osecsh and osecshd and include a symlink (automatically, but prompted) for ssh and sshd, so if you have both implementations, you can decide which one you want.
However, if the Open Source community insists on fighting on the Trademark grounds, we're in the wrong.
You can dispute the merits of Software Patents.
You can dispute the merits of long copyright terms.
You can dispute the merits of copyrights in general.
You can't dispute the merits of Trademarks.
Trademarks are the only thing that prevents confusion in the marketplace. If people are confused and think that OpenSSH is from SSH, then there is a legitamate issue.
Also, I don't think you're going to win on the enforcement. One year or so is reasonable, given that OpenSSH has minimal press coverage, etc. I think that it would be EASY for SSH to show that they found out about it, saw a problem, and then asked them to fix it.
Theo, you're going to lose, and you're being a bastard. He hasn't demanded that you stop making a version of SSH, just that you not use his product name.
Theo, I'm an OpenBSD user. I love OpenBSD. I love OpenSSH. You're in the wrong here... VERY WRONG.
Alex
Now it's open sources' turn. The right thing to do is honor the wishes of the guy who created SSH, the guy who made SSH available to you (albeit with a license you didn't like), and the guy who still tries to make a living from his hard work.
Give up the conflicting name. Not because you have to. Because it's the right thing to do.
the article raises an interesting point. Many of these crazy patent/trademark infringemtent lawsuits we see all share one thing in common: They are obnoxiously late. The law should have strong enforcement of making sure lawsuits happen right after the infringement. None of this "They making a lot of money so we'll selectively sue them" attitude. Most of the time these companies would have to be dead to not be aware of years of infringement.
-Moondog
what about the "Scotch" in scotch tape?
aye laddie. We're about to put the sue on you far yar blaytant infringemunt of ayre tlademallk.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
If he doesn't want it to escalate, then he'd best compromise. I think that there's a broad feeling of indignance in the OpenSSH developer and user community that there's a "submarine trademark" (if I may put it that way) on something which we consider to be the name of a protocol. I think there's going to be a great reluctance to go ahead with a name change, because it would let the nose of the camel into the tent. What next -- remove all mention of "SSH" from the documentation?
If Ylönen demands no less than the removal of "SSH" from the project name, and OpenSSH isn't willing to do this, then he has the choice of either backing down or going ahead and making himself really unpopular by suing a free software project. This whole direction does not strike me as being one that can result in a net win for Ylönen. If he wins his trademark rights he'll establish himself as an enemy of the OpenSSH community; if he loses his trademark he looks like a poor businessman.
Instead, he should cut his losses and suddenly realise that he can license the use of the trademark to the OpenSSH project for free, on condition that they clearly distinguish themselves from his product, and perhaps provide linkage to his web site as a clarifying measure. If the real problem is customer confusion, then let's deal with the confusion without all this ugly legal sabre-rattling nonsense.
Does Ylönen realise that he's setting himself up as an enemy of the Free Software Republic? This isn't sensible.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
All this time our policy has been that the trademarks cannot be used by others without a proper acknowledgment, and cannot be used in product names without a special license from us," he said. "We have enforced it against all significant players in the field," he added. "We have not felt it appropriate to go after every random web page or the various non-commercial student projects done at universities."
So which is it? Do we think it's better for a trademark owner to go after every single petty violation? Or does it seem to be more fair when a trademark owner lets some of the little guys slip through the cracks, but then has to take action if they become larger? You can't have both worlds...
(granted, there was that other clincher, but your particular argument conflicts with other common slashdot sentiment)
--
M$ probably thinks they own the CE suffix. winCE and all.
so would you rather M$ go after you or that SSH guy? ;-)
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Let's trademark every letter in the alphabet! That way we can sue whoever uses our trademarks. We'd make a fortune!
-brain
Actually that was easer to read than most AC postngs.
At least there's no (TM)s n your username.
That's what I thought until I read the last bit of his letter to the OpenSSH developers:
This is why we have contacted Corenic.net, your domain registration provider, to cancel all service on the "openssh.com" domain.
Until I read that, I sympathised with the SSH company - I thought they were doing the right thing by just requesting instead of sending the attack-dog lawyers. However, they made an agressive pre-emptive strike to destroy openssh.com's domain before they even have had a chance to consider changing their name.
If I were in charge of OpenSSH, I would have gladly changed the name of my code has he not pre-emptively tried to destroy my domain before I had a chance to even consider what to rename my product to!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
This is exactly my opinion, too.
What is so difficult about renaming OpenSSH to something like SecureTelnet or SecureLogin or SecureRSH? It doesn't have to have SSH in the name of the product. Nobody is saying that the OpenSSH filename can't be "ssh" or that Theo has to stop writing an SSH clone.
I like OpenSSH a lot, but if this is the way they're going to conduct themselves, then I'll switch back to SSH. SSH is guaranteed to be around in a year; OpenSSH, OTOH, might face legal problems if they keep going down this road.
Actually it will. Since naming rights are specifically addressed within the license.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
-m
Some dude in Finland is gonna sue another dude in Canada over a Trademark owned in the U.S.?
:-)
Puh-leaze!
Enough with the stupid intellectual propery lawsuits already.
I think Tatu's just pissed that OpenSSH is a better product than his commercial SSH, and that OpenSSH is becoming so widely used that it, and not Tatu's commercial ssh, is what people generally mean when they say, SSH. Shit! Now I've just supported his case.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Here are the results of grep "s.*s.*h$" /usr/share/dict/web2 | tr hs HS ....
abySSolitH
AddreSSograpH
arguSfiSH
aSpiSH
aSSiSH
aStoniSH
BakSHaiSH
bakSHeeSH
BaSkiSH
beaStiSH
beSlaSH
beSplaSH
blueStockingiSH
bookSelleriSH
BoSniScH
braSSiSH
briSkiSH
bruSHbuSH
buSybodyiSH
buSyiSH
cloSiSH
clotHeSbruSH
coarSiSH
contradiStinguiSH
counterdiStinguiSH
croSSfiSH
croSSHatcH
croSSpatcH
croSSpatH
daiSybuSH
damSelfiSH
diSembelliSH
diSenmeSH
diSeStabliSH
diSfleSH
diSfurniSH
diSgarniSH
diSpleniSH
diSreliSH
diSSoconcH
diStinguiSH
duSkiSH
eSSayiSH
eStabliSH
faStiSH
fleSHbruSH
foreStiSH
freSHiSH
FrieSiSH
froStfiSH
fuStianiSH
gaStroSopH
geySeriSH
gHoStfiSH
gHoStiSH
glaSSfiSH
gloSSograpH
gooSefiSH
gooSiSH
graSSHopperiSH
greaSebuSH
griSettiSH
guStoiSH
gutterSnipiSH
gypSyiSH
HadaSSaH
HandSomeiSH
HarSHiSH
HaSHiSH
HaStiSH
HorSefiSH
HorSefleSH
HouSeSmitH
HouSewifiSH
IbSeniSH
Hmm, I don't seem to have a full dict file! It doesn't matter though, I don't think the OpenSSH folks will find a name better than "Horseflesh."
"I like Theo".
Read the ssh 1.2.12 license once. You'll find that the OpenSSH people are meeting the terms of the license. The problem is not theirs, it's Tatu's.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
The problem with "FRESH" is that it is a real word. That means they it might conflict with someone else, that a domain name won't be available, etc. If you're going to start fresh, don't use "fresh" -- use something really fresh instead.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
> The guy made an effort NOT to bully an Open Source group. He didn't send threatening lawyer letters. He asked people to be
> reasonable. Quite frankly, you're going to lose BADLY in a court of law, because not only is there the possibility of confusion, but
> there is DOCUMENTED confusion.
You mean being polite as when you don't recive a letter saing that you give up all your clames sand a letter to the open public trying to state that please do it. The letter form the lawyer deamanded an answer before the letter to the mailinglist was sent. I think this is a real nice way of saying it and being polite. (And yes it was a thretening lawyer letter first... Then he changed...) In my optionon Tatu has been lower over the years, when he first released ssh (I had ssh as replacement for rsh since about version 1.2.20, and for almost all logins since 1.2.14. thats is since around 95) in the begining I saw his as a good guy amied in making the internet a more secure place, then he has swifted more and more to making money. Actually I don't have anything against geting payed and gaining from your products, but keep that on a nice way.
I think that he by him self is doing his best too loose money as he and SSH Comunications Security, as they tries to force all users the hard way over to SSH 2. SSH 2 is no longer free of use, that means that the step costed money for the most users, individuals and non-profit organizations. The ssh using community was quite irritated by this and most servers still are running SSH1 protocol. (This versions are soon to be removed from ftp.ssh.com). So instead of helping users to get the better protocol he has slowed that step. Now with OpenSSH the step from SSH1 to SSH2 is possible to make without upgrading ALL servers and clients at the same time. A loot easyer.
/ Balp
I also know two Alberts, this, however, is almost certainly a statistical anomaly...
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
rsh is not a shell itself, it provides access to a "remote shell". In the same way, a secure shell would be any shell that you got access to securely.
Which leads to my favorite new name for the open source version: what it does is "opens shell" or, OpensSH. There, everybody happy now?
Owning a trademark in one realm of human communication doesn't give you the right to own it in all others.
Bzzzt. Wrong. The main point of law is the question of whether the name domain OpenSSH might cause confusion. In this case, given the identical functionality if the products I think they have a good case.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
So you're suggesting that the open source community should follow the shining example set by Microsoft? That's got to be a first.
Yet.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Have I covered all the corporate legal system abusers? Hardly.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
And where is the proof that is causing unreasonable impact on SSH Corp? We only have a brief statement from the accuser that he has received "significant amount of e-mail" without qualification (x per day for example, had to add 2 employees just to tell these people to buzz off, etc...).
IMHO, it is more akin to a chain letter than an email virus. It causes problems because some people are stupid. It is not because when a person has a question about a problem with a product, it automatically emails every vendor for every piece of software installed on the machine asking for resolution to their problem.
However, this support problem works both ways. Problems with other implementations end up in free ssh forums.
Maybe next time the authors of a security system will look back on this, and will decide as a result not to release a open standard based on their work?
Yes, changing the name is inconvenient, and yes, it is probably going to end up being legal to keep the name OpenSSH, but the MS lobbying, and the RIAA cases are also legal and inconvenient to the people doing them and most people here don't seem to support them.
Please, let us be careful not to ostracise the people that actually write the open standards that OpenSource relies on. The author of SSH was kind enough to let us use the protocol, let us respect the work he put in by putting in the work of changing the name OpenSSH to something else.. and remembering the new name
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
I think the best way to resolve this is to call for a vote. Just to be fair, only people who ever contributed code to the OpenSSH project are allow to vote. They help create it and it is time they decide what they want to do.
I further suggestion a first round vote to decide if "OpenSSH" must go. If so, then a submission period for new names then vote on that again. Perhaps for the second round everyone can vote?
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
what about:
OpenAndSecureRemoteShell
sterm #it does X redirection/port forwarding
snet #kinda like telnet, only better
osh #an open/secure remote shell
osrsh
srsh
ossh
remember we can always make symbolic links, at least until the courts (upholding justice, heh, yeah right...) rule that symbolic links are a distiction without a difference, violating trademark/copyright/patent/corporate law
I think they should take Apple's lead and call it BHC.
:-)*
Butt-Head Cryptographer...
Besides, I can type bcp a smidgeon faster than scp.
In Germany some company has the trademark on explorer(tm)* for software products. So they sue everyone who is putting a link on some kind of explorer(tm)* software, like ftp-explorer(tm)*.
Microsoft DO have some deal with them, but both sides refuse to reveal details of it.
* explorer is a registered trademark of the symicron GmbH
Samba Information HQ
The Slashdot reaction would be irrelevent. At least then it would have been legal.
Ranessin
ssh... 3 letters...
MS two letters...
How long until someone tries to sue ove the use of 1 similar character?
How long until people will realize that the name of the game is selling an idea of a product to numbers of people and crap like this has little impact on what people are going to choose for low level software like this.
It is purely utilitarian!
If it does the job and people know it works and does it's job well then the story is over.
Wall Street Journal Headline:
McDonalds sues Wendy's for having a name with three of the same letters!
So which is it? Do we think it's better for a trademark owner to go after every single petty violation? Or does it seem to be more fair when a trademark owner lets some of the little guys slip through the cracks, but then has to take action if they become larger? You can't have both worlds...
Perhaps if the trademark holder was considerate enough to just notify the little guy early on that the mark was already taken, before they invested a lot of money, time, effort, goodwill, or whatever into the mark, without letting slip the hounds of litigation, we could have the best of both worlds.
Just my two copper, anyway.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Ahh, i will send an informative message to the developers once i really figure everything out. See, i know more than enough about the problem to bitch to slashdot, but a far cry from what it takes to be a helpful developer! Perhaps tomorrow :)
I'd like to address several issues raised by people in relation to my
notice of the ssh(R) trademark to the OpenSSH group. Also, I would
like to make a proposal to the community for resolving this issue
(included at the end).
First, I'll answer a number of questions and arguments presented in
the discussion.
> "the SSH Corp trademark registration in the US is for a logo only"
It is for the lowercase word "ssh" (I was mistaken earlier in saying
that it was for the uppercase word "SSH"). As many people obviously
know, trademark registrations in the USA are a matter of public record
and it is open to anyone to review the details of SSH Corp's trademark
portfolio.
Under US law, a trademark registration entitles the owner to exclusive
use of the trademark as it is registered, in relation to the goods
and/or services for which it is registered. Trademark infringement
occurs when another person uses the same, or a substantially identical
mark, for the same or related goods or services, in a manner which is
likely to cause consumer confusion. Consequently, use of the
uppercase word "SSH" or a name containing the "ssh" or "SSH" mark will
likely amount to trademark infringement under US law, if it is in
relation to goods or services within the same field of use covered by
our ssh(R) trademark. Of course, there are many possible
non-infringing uses of "SSH", for example, anyone might have a brand
of chocolade called "SSH".
> "A license was granted in 1995 that allows free use of the trademarks"
This is not accurate, but refers to the following language in
ssh-1.2.12 COPYING file:
As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software
can be used freely for any purpose. Any derived versions of this
software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is
incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be
called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell".
First, this is a copyright license ("the CODE can be used..."), with an
additional restriction on naming. It is not a trademark license.
Also, this text is from the COPYING file from ssh-1.2.12, dated Nov
17, 1995. The trademark claims were made in 1996 (ssh-1.2.13 was the
first release claiming them, released on Feb 11, 1996), and this
license provision would not have covered them anyway. Ever since, our
policy has been not to allow unauthorized use of the trademarks. The
trademark claims have been made consistently in every release ever
since.
> "no-one has ever been notified of infringement"
For example, I notified Van Dyke of the trademark a few years ago when
they used the SSH mark on their web site inappropriately. We
discussed it, they were very co-operative, and immediately added
trademark markings and acknowledgement on their website. Issue
solved. (They were not using it in a product name.)
Basically, anyone we have ever really encountered in the marketplace
has either been notified or is a licensee of ours.
> "F-Secure SSH has been using the name for years"
F-Secure (formerly Data Fellows) is our distributor/VAR, and they are
using the SSH trademark in their product name under a separate written
trademark license agreement. All of the F-Secure SSH products are SSH
Communication Security Corp's products, some verbatim and some with
modifications by F-Secure.
> (reference to FiSSH, TTSSH, Top Gun ssh, etc.)
These are all non-commercial academic projects made at universities.
We have never really encountered any one of these in the marketplace.
We have tried to notify commercial people who have been using the
trademark inappropriately. OpenSSH was the first non-commercial
implementation to raise to the radar screen.
> "why did you notify OpenSSH now"
The reason OpenSSH was contacted now was that they have only become
more visible during the last months, and I have recently seen a
significant increase in e-mails confusing the meaning of the SSH
trademarks and using them inappropriately. I have also recently
received quite a few e-mails confusing OpenSSH as my product.
> "how about the 'ssh' command name under Unix/Linux?"
This relates to the proposal I want to make.
Basically, I am willing to work out a way that will allow anyone to use
the "ssh" command name on Unix/Linux. It appears that there are
ways to do it without exposing our trademarks to unnecessary risk.
The arrangement I am proposing would be as follows.
1. We (SSH Corp) would allow the use of "ssh" (and sshd, etc) as a
command name on Unix/Linux under the following restrictions:
1.1. Any product where the command name "ssh" is used must only be
licensed under a valid license (i.e., must not be in the
public domain). E.g. BSD license, GPL, and normal commercial
licenses would all be ok.
1.2. An acknowledgement of our ownership of the ssh(R) and Secure
Shell(TM) trademarks must be included in the software (help
text, documentation, license). It would not need to be
printed out every time the program is normally run, but would
need to be included in e.g. in an appropriate place on man
pages and in help texts.
1.3 The SSH Corp trademarks cannot be used in product names
without a separate trademark license from us (which we would
not normally grant, unless we see a valid business case for
it, and then only for products using a compatible protocol).
2. A new unencumbered name is created for the protocol, which can be
used by any vendor without creating confusion. The IETF standard
would be renamed to use the new protocol name, and the community
would work to cease using "SSH" as a protocol name and would
instead start using the new name. The new name would need to be
unencumbered, and the xx.com, xx.net, and xx.org domain names
would be made to permanently point to e.g. the IETF main page. My
own proposal would be to change the name to SECSH, provided that
Van Dyke is willing to contribute their currently unused secsh.com
domain name for this purpose. We would be willing to contribute
our secsh.org and secsh.net domains on the same basis.
3. We would submit an official statement to the IETF that we will make no
trademark claims about the "bits on the wire" in the protocol (e.g.,
the protocol version strings or the various names used in the
protocol).
4. We would need to reach agreement with the OpenSSH group to change
their product name and to otherwise cease using the SSH
trademarks inappropriately. We appreciate that some people have
brought the non-commercial university group use to our attention.
We are carefully reviewing this situation.
Let's discuss the exact terms if I get a preliminary "ok, looks fine,
let's try to get this resolved along those lines" from the community
and the relevant parties.
Please let us know what you think.
Best regards,
Tatu Ylonen
Chairman and CTO, SSH Communications Security Corp
>From ylo Wed Feb 14 03:36:19 +0200 2001
From: Tatu Ylonen
To: openssh-unix-dev@mindrot.org
Subject: SSH trademarks and the OpenSSH product name
Organization: SSH Communications Security, Finland
Friends,
Sorry to write this to a developer mailing list. I have already
approached some OpenSSH/OpenBSD core members on this, including Markus
Friedl, Theo de Raadt, and Niels Provos, but they have chosen not to
bring the issue up on the mailing list. I am not aware of any other
forum where I would reach the OpenSSH developers, so I will post this
here.
As you know, I have been using the SSH trademark as the brand name of
my SSH (Secure Shell) secure remote login product and related
technology ever since I released the first version in July 1995. I
have explicitly claimed them as trademarks at least from early 1996.
In December 1995, I started SSH Communications Security Corp to
support and further develop the SSH (Secure Shell) secure remote login
products and to develop other network security solutions (especially
in the IPSEC and PKI areas). SSH Communications Security Corp is now
publicly listed in the Helsinki Exchange, employs 180 people working
in various areas of cryptographic network security, and our products
are distributed directly and indirectly by hundreds of licensed
distributors and OEMs worldwide using the SSH brand name. There are
several million users of products that we have licensed under the
SSH brand.
To protect the SSH trademark I (or SSH Communications Security Corp,
to be more accurate) registered the SSH mark in the United States and
European Union in 1996 (others pending). We also have a registration
pending on the Secure Shell mark.
The SSH mark is a significant asset of SSH Communications Security and
the company strives to protect its valuable rights in the SSH® name
and mark. SSH Communications Security has made a substantial
investment in time and money in its SSH mark, such that end users have
come to recognize that the mark represents SSH Communications Security
as the source of the high quality products offered under the mark.
This resulting goodwill is of vital importance to SSH Communications
Security Corp.
We have also been distributing free versions of SSH Secure Shell under
the SSH brand since 1995. The latest version, ssh-2.4.0, is free for
any use on the Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating systems,
as well as for universities and charity organizations, and for
personal hobby/recreational use by individuals.
We have been including trademark markings in SSH distributions, on the
www.ssh.fi, www.ssh.com, and www.ssh.org web sites, IETF standards
documents, license/readme files and product packaging long before the
OpenSSH group was formed. Accordingly, we would like you to
understand the importance of the SSH mark to us, and, by necessity,
our need to protect the trademark against the unauthorized use by
others.
Many of you are (and the initiators of the OpenSSH group certainly
should have been) well aware of the existence of the trademark. Some
of the OpenBSD/OpenSSH developers/sponsors have also received a formal
legal notice about the infringement earlier.
I have started receiving a significant amount of e-mail where people
are confusing OpenSSH as either my product or my company's product, or
are confusing or misrepresenting the meaning of the SSH and Secure
Shell trademarks. I have also been informed of several recent press
articles and outright advertisements that are further confusing the
origin and meaning of the trademark.
The confusion is made even worse by the fact that OpenSSH is also a
derivative of my original SSH Secure Shell product, and it still looks
very much like my product (without my approval for any of it, by the
way). The old SSH1 protocol and implementation are known to have
fundamental security problems, some of which have been described in
recent CERT vulnerability notices and various conference papers.
OpenSSH is doing a disservice to the whole Internet security community
by lengthing the life cycle of the fundamentally broken SSH1
protocols.
The use of the SSH trademark by OpenSSH is in violation of my
company's intellectual property rights, and is causing me, my company,
our licensees, and our products considerable financial and other
damage.
I would thus like to ask you to change the name OpenSSH to something
else that doesn't infringe the SSH or Secure Shell trademarks,
basically to something that is clearly different and doesn't cause
confusion.
Also, please understand that I have nothing against independent
implementations of the SSH Secure Shell protocols. I started and
fully support the IETF SECSH working group in its standardization
efforts, and we have offered certain licenses to use the SSH mark to
refer to the protocol and to indicate that a product complies with the
standard. Anyone can implement the IETF SECSH working group standard
without requiring any special licenses from us. It is the use of the
"SSH" and "Secure Shell" trademarks in product names or in otherwise
confusing manner that we wish to prevent.
Please also try to look at this from my viewpoint. I developed SSH
(Secure Shell), started using the name for it, established a company
using the name, all of our products are marketed using the SSH brand,
and we have created a fairly widely known global brand using the name.
Unauthorized use of the SSH mark by the OpenSSH group is threathening
to destroy everything I have built on it during the last several
years. I want to be able to continue using the SSH and Secure Shell
names as identifying my own and my company's products and
technologies, which the unlawful use of the SSH name by OpenSSH is
making very hard.
Therefore, I am asking you to please choose another name for the
OpenSSH product and stop using the SSH mark in your product name and
in otherwise confusing manner.
Regards,
Tatu Ylonen
SSH Communications Security http://www.ssh.com/
SSH IPSEC Toolkit http://www.ipsec.com/
SSH(R) Secure Shell(TM) http://www.ssh.com/products/ssh
Heh. I work for a company named Fred. We wouldn't sue =)
Bitchslapped. Neat.
This is nothing more than a company trying to rescind the actions of it's founder to protect a failing business strategy.
Why? Because people are being drawn to the open-source implementation rather than paying out good money for something they can get for free.
Tatu's also probably peeved that OpenSSH will receive wider distribution (through Linux, BSD, and possibly OS-X sales/downloads) than his company's probably capable of. And thus will be more likely to achieve ubiquity than his proprietary, commercial products.
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way Tatu. You can't fish something out there until it hits name-recognition status, then make them change their name so you can supplant them. The community is NOT your advertising tool.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
My question is whether this name change would make it to the point of actually having to change the commands. I could concede that the project name might be reasonable, but changing the commands would be pushing it.
treke
Imagine that he did back in 1999 when OpenSSH was first released. What would have been the Slashdot reaction then?
I was talking to an IP lawyer friend about this some. He said the trademark was issued in the US on Dec 2000.
Brian Macy
No, wait, don't sue me! ;)
-Omar
(or SwiSH
or SwaSH
or...
)
Encrypted SHell
What about FRESH? That would be a more precise name:
F ree (it's free software)
R emote (remote login is its main purpose)
E ncrypted (truth in advertising; encryption doesn't in and of itself provide security)
SH ell
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's OpenSSH, which is a completely different set of ASCII codes! how can the people who make "ssh" even get close to confusing "OpenSSH" with their product? it's even got a different MD5 sum and different source code!
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Actually, when I read the letter, I saw
Are you just trying to stir up the flames?--Matthew
Of course SSH has the right to demand that their name not be used by others. Even if it is an open source project that isn't demanding money for their products, it is a clear violation of a trademarked name, and I'm surprized that it took them this long to come after them. Hell, even if it can be viewed as SSH spiting the OpenSSH project for coming out with a more secure model than SSH1, well, they had the name, and someone else is using it, and gaining a usage level off of the recognition of that name. This isn't a hit to OpenSSH, it's a hit to the name, and SSH has every right to it. I'm sure if I came out with an OS called OpenWindows2000 I'd get sued as well, and I'd expect it. And, this is not a flame on either one(s), I use both, as I run linux, BSD, and Windows OS's Just my two cents.....
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
The CE suffix was just a joke. However, I am serious about the idea of a contest to pick a new name. I do not have the resources to set up a contest site but someone out there must have the capability.
I propose that the community that cares should let the guy have the SSH name as a thank you for the donation of the original code. Then get on with life with a new trademarkable name.
The winner of the contest will receive an AOL CD and 15 minutes of fame.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
No, your understanding is wrong. The standard is called "SSH". Look at the IETF SSH Protocol Description:
Abstract
SSH is a protocol for secure remote login and other secure network services over an insecure network. This document describes the SSH Connection Protocol. It provides interactive login sessions, remote execution of commands, forwarded TCP/IP connections, and forwarded X11 connections. All of these channels are multiplexed into a single encrypted tunnel. The SSH Connection Protocol has been designed to run on top of the SSH transport layer and user authentication protocols.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Big companies don't compromise. They send in the lawyers and fight to the death (or until the money runs out). Why should we compromise? As as been shown the "licence file predates the trademark, and it grants rights that cannot be removed." Also they have not chosen to enforce this until now.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Trademarking a commonly used text string has been done before, and has been solved before.
.arc extension for archived files being trademarked. The result was Phil Katz releasing the pkzip utilities, and the whole community switched over to zip files within a few months. SEA had made itself odious to the user community, and was cut off.
More than a decade ago, we saw this with SEA trying to enforce the
It could happen again.
Free the mallocs!
In summary:
See it here.
I sorta feel bad now. 4 weeks ago we (my company) was slated to buy SSH server/client software from a well known SSH "commercial vendor". I had to deploy it on 90+ SUN systems and some Windows clients. The security group did all the talking with the vendor and then they handed it off to me. (I am just a lowly Unix/SA wanna be security guy) I said "Hey, I bet their is an opensource version of SSH out there somewhere. I honestly had not heard of OpenSSH (I did know about OpenBSD.) I checked into it and sure enough there was OpenSSH. I loaded it on every box in a few days. A week later the "commercial vendor" sales guy called me to see if I was ready to go forward with the purchase. I told him I used a perfectly good opensource version called OpenSSH and would not need his product. He started blubbing about support and I started laughing at him. Then he hung up. (It was going to be a fairly expensive purchase) This is a true story I swear to God.... Blame me, I am the straw that broke the camels back.
Of course, without the product actually being opensource for a while it would never ever have reached any form of popularity.
The major marketing investment done in SSH has been made by Unix system admins who needed a secure and practical (and easily obtainable) way to connect between hosts, and who were later left to fend for themselves as the product went closed and unsupported on a large number of platforms.
And, frankly, having gone through the pains of dealing with the forms of licensing of SSH and having salesmen tell me there is NO version that has ever been free (ok, I know more about the licensing than the salesmen) to the various other stages, it was a true pleasure to dump the commercial branch and go entirely with OpenSSH.
If SSH has any brandname value it is despite SSH Inc, not because of it.
I agree that Ylönen should defend his trademark. Considering that he has commercial interests based upon the SSH name, I don't see how he can not choose to defend the trademark.
However, I also must state that he should never have gotten the trademark in the first place. His trademark is the same as the name of his company, the name of the protocol (which is also a networking standard) and the descriptive name of the product. "SSH Communications Inc.'s SSH product uses the SSH protocol..." This is what is confusing a lot of people here.
So there is the paradox. Both points are opposite yet equally valid. As far as I am concerned, this is nothing more than a bad pissing contest.
What ever the outcome is, it still isn't going to change the secure shell product that I use. So please, don't go pissing in my front yard...
BTW, sorry about gratuitously using the word "piss". Unfortunately, I don't have a better word to describe what they [the involved parties] are doing.
Besides, it's called OpenSSH, not simply SSH. Like GNUscape Navigator instead of Netscape Navigator. Big difference. And as mentioned in an earlier post, Microsoft's lawyers set the appropriate precedent in court already.
The bit about pre-emptively cancelling OpenSSH's domain was really low, by the way.
Get 'em, Theo!
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
Oh, Wait.
Sometimes I have strange dreams.
TCFKAO (The Client Formerly Known As Openssh)
;>
or just a nice ascii art symbol like a ascii-art blowfish or something
"Petrol" was once a trademark. So was "fridge" I believe.
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
You're totally right. There's no way the OpenSSH project has to change its name.
But should it anyway? It would really make us (the OSS community) look a lot better if we made a courteous move we didn't have to. And really, what will OpenSSH lose by changing its name? Not a lot.
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
You may not see why the lack of enforcement should diminish their ability to prosecute, however, long-standing trademark law DOES.
Who even knew it was trademarked? Did they ever attempt to let anyone know this before? No.
SSH is the common word for a protocol; everyone knows that. It's already been what trademark law calles, 'diluted'. It's a common name now; once something is common like that, you can't take it back just because it's trademarked. Everyone already has something in their mind when they think of 'ssh', and it's not this guys product in particular, it's merely the protocols involved.
And quoting from his email:
Some of the OpenBSD/OpenSSH developers/sponsors have also received a formal legal notice about the infringement earlier. HOW? He gave permission to call it ssh and now he wants to change his mind and that's not relevant? No reason they couldnt call it OpenSMB is there? Samba just sounds better. Oh well, opinions differ - yours and mine in this case
I find it interesting to compare an extract from his email with another from the licence for 1.2.12 which was the basis for OpenSSH:
andThat seems like permission to me, and he appears to be either forgetful or disingenuous. Given the FUD in the email about protocols.....
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Uhm. No. Yes. SSH corp did NOT enforce their trademark. In fact, they're still not enforcing it with other projects "infringing" on the SSH trademark. Unlike patents, trademarks are an all or nothing thing. But you neglect the following. Tatu SPECIFICALLY released SSH under a license that allowed use of the SSH name well before the trademark was EVER applied for. All the protocol documentation for SecShell terms secshell as "SSH protocol". SSH corp is a failing business. More than likely, they'd use the confusion of renaming OpenSSH to usurp the market share that the OSS project has achieved. Which would simply support their faulty business model a short while longer.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I RTFA, but I'm still not clear on the confusion about this. Can anyone please provide a specific example (call or email log, newsgroup post, vague recollection, anything) where even a single user became confused between the two applications, or is this just a preemptive confusion stopper? All I've read is talk about the legal mumbo jumbo and little mention about the actual issue that this is supposed to address. I'm not saying anyone is full of all the crap in the entire world, but I'd like to know if anyone has seen where this is really an issue to either SSH or OpenSSH.
How about: SSH has tried for over a year to make a private agreement with OpenSSH and thus spare the public of this affair but since de Raadt steadfastedly refused to compromise, Ylonen is now forced to take the issue publicly.
And even more ironic, didn't the OpenSSH people try to get www.openssh.com a while ago? I thought trademarks were irrelevant?
This is devolution. What a couple of morons. Call the damn thing Fred and fuck the lawyers.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This part, however, goes too far:
This is why we have contacted Corenic.net, your domain registration provider, to cancel all service on the "openssh.com" domain.
Where is that bit? I can't find it. Thanks
OK, as someone who profits from proprietary software, I do sympathize with Ylonen, but can I trademark a name that's derived of someone else's?
selnet
sicrosoft
smazon.com
What have we learned from this story?
Next time, when we start a Free project aiming to be compatible with someone else's code, why don't we *TALK* to them first?
I'm not saying we should ASK for permission to use name or anything, but just to get an idea how they'd interpret their own agreements.
Say, if the OpenSSH team talked to SSHC and said "Now we have your 1.27 license, and it says we can use the name if it is compatible. Can you verify that?"
If they said "Ok you can use that" then they'd better keep their mouths shut at this time. Too bad it wasn't what happened.
No. Although your logic is good, and actually may be viable in this instance, Microsoft did what they always do; they bought the other guys out....
u s5 .html
http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/mag/9901/dubio
Microsoft WON a case. hah. you're funny.
This case is worrying, however, because ssh is also the name of the command. The trademark is not only identifying a brand, it is also the thing you type to perform an action. If DEC (or whoever) had patented "dir" they would have made competing OSes less attractive because new OSes would have to invent arbitrary different names for conceptually identical commands. If SSH enforces the trademark, it is only reasonable that they must fight against alternative implementations using the command "ssh".
This would lead to a repeat of the look-and-feel wars of the GUIs, only this time fought over CLIs using trademark law. LnF was about users moving to different platforms/apps and expecting things to work the same. CLI is no different: users expect telnet to do approximately the same thing on all platforms. If command names are choosen to avoid infrigement, we all will lose.
you said it yourself skippy. GL IS a trademark of sgi. SSH afiak is a standard. You can't trademark www ftp cgi.
From the OpenSSH License: OpenSSH contains no GPL code. 1) Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen , Espoo, Finland All rights reserved As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software can be used freely for any purpose. Any derived versions of this software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell". However, I am not implying to give any licenses to any patents or copyrights held by third parties, and the software includes parts that are not under my direct control. As far as I know, all included source code is used in accordance with the relevant license agreements and can be used freely for any purpose...
Ahh, but then mentos would be after you.
"what are you doing?"
"running make on my new FRESH install"
"HEY! WE'RE THE FRESHMAKER!"
....
Ok, so it's a bad joke. Leave me alone.
Let me take a drink from my Thermos and then I'll explain it to you. Oh wait! "Thermos" is actually a registered trademark. It's just a brand of vaccuum bottle. But sometimes a brand name (like Coke or SSH) just becomes synoymous (sp?) with the product, no matter who makes it.
News for turds, shit that splatters
It was a defunct ISP that had a product called "Internet Explorer" one year before Microsoft released IE. In actual fact, Microsoft didn't win -- they lost, and had to pay the founder of the ISP (I think) $$$$$$.
--
I think we can all agree that secure shell is a descriptive name for this program (whether or not it actually is a shell is really a moot point, however), and the logical abbreviation - following standard shell style - is "ssh". Now, to avoid utter confusion, it is a good idea to make sure there aren't other programs called ssh. OpenSSH makes perfect descriptive sense for the program - it's open source, and it's a lot like ssh.
However, on the other side of the table is OpenGL and Mesa3D. Now, MesaGL would more accurately describe what Mesa3D emulates, but GL is a trademark of SGI, and they probably wouldn't like it if it was used without their permission. The best solution would be for the designers of OpenSSH to change their name and avoid any more disputes. This would also give open source developers a more moderate reputation, as opposed to the uncompromising one they seem to have nowadays.
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
Does this mean that if I name my software product "Sssssh!" or maybe even "Sshhhh!" (as in "BE QUIET!"), that I'm going to be sued because it has the letters ssh (TM) in the name? ;-))
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
gnapster? gaim? openssl? what about the "Scotch" in scotch tape? Isn't honestly a true brand from 3m? Or vise-grips vs locking pliers? What is allowed and what isn't?
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
If OpenSSH changes its name to, say, OpenNSA, then nsa becomes the "in" word for securely telnetting into a remote system and ssh becomes a has-been term.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
:). However, given the Canadian base of OpenSSH, as well as the wide distribution of the original product into the English speaking world, I'll make some evaluations based on English Common Law.
I'm not certain which jurisdiction's law governs here (and am not going to do the hour or two of research unless someone pays
He said that software could be used and modified, and that *incompatible* programs must not use the ssh name. That doesn't *give* permission to call compatible programs ssh, but it certainly implies it. Similarly, finding someone with a smoking gun in his hand over the shot and still bleeding body doesn't *prove* he killed him, but there's a whole lot of 'splainin' to do . . .
I don't see where he can go with this without producing more info. With implied consent and five years of silence, it's a real hard row to hoe . . .
hawk, esq.
If the original license predates the trademark, and the trademark has not been protected, and he has an IETF standard with the name, well, I don't see how he has a leg to stand on. Certainly no moral leg.
Also, I think the OpenSSH developers deserve to feel agrieved by his tactics; their name has a reputation all of it's own, entirely unrelated to the reputation of this guys company.
It seems to me he must have hoped for a lot of glory when he introduced the protocol and the IETF standard. Now this is just sour grapes that a free implementation could be competing with him so strongly.
Go OpenSSH!
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
http://www.nevis.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/man.sh?man=s sh Doesn't the wide distribution without the (TM) attribute prior to the P&TO issuance dilute these claims?
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Sorry Tatu ... you just became the next "Aspirin" ... go cry on Bayer's shoulder.
No, it's more like he left a sign on the candy that said, "If you don't like my dog, please don't eat the candy," after which someone came up, patted the dog, threw the stick for the dog, and ate a piece of candy.
STRATIG0S ton pairneis!!!
Sounds like our Finnish friends have been watching too much southpark
Three easy steps to making money:
1. Create open source protocols (aka "SSH") and engage in community support of standard.
2. ?
3. Panic that people are using the name of the standard you asked them to. Issue threatening legal letters. Make big profits.
*scoove*
SSH, Inc. (TM) is off any vendor list I'd ever approve... how about you?
Since his company apparently has problems and lots of people contant it for support for OpenSSH, couldn't he just start supplying it, for a fee? It seems to me they should be capable of that, and they'd be in a great position to point out the advantages of using their own, commercial ssh...
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I agree with you on this point. But on the overall argument I disagree. Yes, Tatu is trying to be nice. And yes, Theo is being an asshole. But that being said, I don't see how Theo's going to lose this. With his current attitude, he's in danger of losing the PR battle, but that seems to be it.
Have you seen the license for ssh 1.2.12 (which is what OpenSSH is based off of)? Here is the most salient part (IMHO):
The only thing he says about the name is that if you're not compatible, then you can't use the name. Which leaves the only possible interpretation to be that if you are compatible, you can use the name.
I think that it would be a nice gesture on OpenSSH's part to give up the name. But I don't think it is, by any means, required. And if OpenSSH wishes to protect their identity, using a publically available name, that's entirely up to them. Theo could be more nice about it, but I don't think he'd be in the wrong to keep the name.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
This story makes a nice point.
Well, then, there's the solution: just rename OpenSSH to OpenSTN (Secure TelNet).
Sure, name changes are hard, but in Quake, when a rocket is barreling towards you, what do you do? Strafe to the side, right! And this is the legal equivalent of that.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I think SSHCS's claims have no standing, and their decision to ``defend their trademark'' against only a single product sheds a poor light on Tatu Ylonen.
Nonetheless, the letter is much, much friendlier than what I've seen in similar cases -- i.e., cease and desist yesterday.
IMO, it looks like SSHCS is following good and proper form as they do this entirely questionable act :-/
--Matthew
Well, the other argument, besides the time delay, is that the trademark became diluted even before OpenSSH existed. SSH isn't just the name of a product, it's also the name of a protocol that many programs use. So a lot of the time when people talk about "ssh", they are not referring specifically to the product sold by SSH Communications Security Corporation. For example, if you sold me a shell account on your box, I would ask you, "Do you support SSH logins?" But I wouldn't actually be asking whether you run SSHCS's product or not.
Thus, due to his decision to name the protocol and the product the same thing (and encouraging others developers to also use the protocol), he caused "SSH" to not be
"SSH" cannot be a trademark, because the word isn't used that way.---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's Pizza and OS/2 from now on.
Sorry, but you better get rid of OS/2, also. I think RMS and the FSF have had a trademark on the term "half an OS" for about the last 5 years of HURD's development. :)
Cheers,
He didn't say the document didn't have claims of trademarks, or that there is no basis for trademarks based on his quote.
He said ssh was referred to the protocol name in the document.
Alas, I am too late, a moderation point was wasted on your behalf.
US Trademark law requires trademark owners to notify violaters immediately, not two years down the road.
Ranessin
Also, unless Tatu is lying outright, he says (in the paragraph that I quoted) that OpenSSH is NOT the first to be "attacked".
--
Asking the question that everyone else seems to be missing, was OpenSSH named after SSH-the-application or SSH-the-protocol?
For countless reasons, I'm sure it's the latter. But that begs the question of why SSH-the-company was so incredibly incompetent that they named SSH-the-protocol after SSH-the-application even though virtually all servers and clients try to incorporate their protocol into the name. TELNET, FTP, FINGER, PING, HTTP(D), etc. Sendmail and bind are two notable exceptions, and of course this can't apply to multiprotocol clients (e.g., Mosaic, Navigator/Commuicator).
OpenSSH, to me, says one thing and one thing only - that it's an "open" implementation of the "SSH" protocol. It has absolutely no connection to SSH-the-program or SSH-the-company other than the historical curiosity that the latter originated the protocol and is pushing it on the standards track. (Something which is undoubtably dead in the water until they (SSH, not ISO) pull their head out of their corporate assh.)
If SSH-the-company wants to keep the identity of SSH-the-program distinct from SSH-the-protocol, they should change the name of SSH-the-program.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Encrypted SHell
for some good alternative names. The best in my opinion was FRESH: Free Remote Encrypted Shell. Sounds good to me!
sulli
RTFJ.
Whether we like it or not he is at this point politely asking that his license be respected. Perhaps he could have done this earlier, and perhaps he could have been more clear. The fact remains that this gentleman has given us an excellent tool that fixes one of the worst security problems, that being clear text authentication. So why don't we thank him by respecting his wishes and changing the name? Here are some possibilities: 1. OpenShell, OSH replaces SSH. 1.1 OpenOSH, OSH replaces SSH. 2. Secure Remote Shell, SRSH replaces SSH. 2.1 OpenSRSH, SRSH replaces SSH. 3. Crypto Remote Shell, CRSH replaces SSH. 3.1 OpenCRSH, CRSH replaces SSH There could be many variants of the above that not only sound good but make sense.. I hope the community can come together on this and perhaps /. can mediate this by creating an online vote that can help the OpenSSH folks pick a new name.
- "Only those who RISK going to far can possibly KNOW how far they can really go." T.S. Eliot -
Nice selective quoting Colonel. From your link:
9. Trademark Issues
SSH is a registered trademark and Secure Shell is a trademark of SSH
Communications Security Corp. SSH Communications Security Corp permits
the use of these trademarks as the name of this standard and protocol,
and permits their use to describe that a product conforms to this
standard, provided that the following acknowledgement is included where
the trademarks are used: ``SSH is a registered trademark and Secure
Shell is a trademark of SSH Communications Security Corp
(www.ssh.com)''. These trademarks may not be used as part of a product
name or in otherwise confusing manner without prior written permission
of SSH Communications Security Corp.
Of course, as previously posted, "The Rat" apparently has a licence.
grep ssh /etc/services
Next to be sued: Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, et al. for not clearly labeling SSH as a trademark.
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
But that's not true. What the owner obtains are exclusive rights (within one field) to use the trademark in commerce. Read the law:
- 15 U.S.C. 1114(1)(a)
applies only to actions ``in commerce.''
- 15 U.S.C. 1114(1)(b)
applies only to documents ``intended to be used in commerce.''
- 15 U.S.C. 1125(a)(1)
applies only to actions ``in commerce.''
- The new cybersquatting prohibitions,
15 U.S.C. 1125(d)(1)(a), and 15 U.S.C. 1129(1)(A),
apply only to people acting with an ``intent to profit.''
I doubt that the name OpenSSH is likely to confuse or deceive people. However, even if it is, non-commercial use of the name is legal.I recently announced my plans to set up freebugtraq, a non-commercial competitor to bugtraq. I was promptly threatened with a trademark lawsuit. Where do trademark owners get the idea that they can control non-commercial activities?
I disagree completely. Theo is not being an asshole. He is being realistic.
I think Ylönen is just going after OpenSSH because several bsd and linux distributions are including OpenSSH with the basic install, and therefore taking away his market share.
I have no respect for Ylönen, he made a free product and everything was good. Decided to make some money off it, and changed a free product into a commercial product. After that, someone came along took his old free product and expanded upon it, no big deal. but when this other _free_ product became more popular then his commercial product he stats bringing out the copyright crap. get real.
Ylönen is making me lose respect for Finnish programmers (land of demo coders)..
ideal; model tiny; codeseg; org 100h; start: cli; hlt; ret; ENDS; END start
This may all boil down to "too bad openSSH, bad call on using someone elses name". As much as I'd like to support open SSH, i don't like their "expiration of right to prosecute" argument. this strangely paralels the domain fair use arguments. If it can be confused, then it infringes. (the recent win by a "*sucks.com site definitely makes it more interesting).
I can't see why any lack of enforcement in 2 years should be an argument that enforcing it now is any less just. It was never the fault of SSH Communications Security that the open project decided to use SSH letters. And maybe just now their trademark is being infringed. Noone told them to pick SSH.
Yes, it sucks, yes, there are probably motivations to enforce it NOW all of the sudden. But that doesn't make it less enforceable or less of an argument.
Just because somebody gets fed up with something, or realizes the damage it is doing late in the game does not make it less damage. (regardless of how legitimate the infringement claim will turn out to be).
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
> Good job. We have now taken the position to the outside world of being total assholes.
Saying "If you do that, you'll look like a total asshole" to Theo de Raadt is pushing him to do it. Ask around you "who is the biggest open-source asshole ?". If you remove the goatse.cx (which may not be opensource), most answers will point to Theo.
He is already the most appreciated asshole of the community.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Clearly the problem is that there are multiple tools that are used the same way and called the same thing. ssh makes a secshell connection to address with terminal emulation. One of these tools has a trademark on ssh; I think its actually in a good possition to make a case that the other tool should use a different name, such as the more descriptive secsh.
-Daniel
However, it is a clear proof that the name ssh was in general use for products complying with the ssh RFC long before the trademark was granted, which basically means the trademark isnt valid, nor has ever been a valid trademark.
Read USC title 15 section 1115 for the various reasons that a trademark can be contested. There are at least 4 possible separate paragraphs that can be used in this case, including prior use, abandonment, permission and mark functionality.
All this is is a lesson to other people that legalities like trademark issues, patents and license issues isnt something you play around with and later decide what you really meant (or change your mind about it). SSH has been messy this way from the beginning.
I wonder if who ever thought up sh (as in unix shell) therefore has some case against SSH (secure shell) for confusing their product with the original ?
funny how theres no crap about tcsh, ksh, bash, csh... etc etc
It is battle between the company called Praesense making the software product Personaware which is much like a anime-style character based information manager. One of individual made the free-implementation of the product (but incorporates better features -- such as its own protocol called SSTP) called "Nise-Haruna" (website not available, because author was forced to close site -- don't know what kind of pressure took place, though) which means "Fake-Haruna" in Japanese.
Praesense sent the author of Nise-Haruna cease-or-desist letter. The Praesense apparently didn't like the fact that Nise-Haruna used word "Haruna" and "/haruna/" in their URL!
Later author changed the name of the program, so the program prompts for character's name at first time that the program is executed.
At this moment, after the author of Nise-Haruna's forced to cease its distribution (I think it is more of the author's choice)
I wanted to share this story, because it seems quite similar to what going on with SSH and OpenSSH.
YES - I so agree ... the confusion is because SSH want both the protocol AND the trademark..
thats dangerous and I dont like it.
If Tatu had picked his own name, different from the protocol, then that would be a trademark.
what they are trying to do here is much scarrier and I think Theo is right to hang onto openssh.
If SSH was instead called "finnishSSH" would there be as much confusion ? NO.
The danger if Tatu succesfully prevents ANY ssh implementation from containing the letters ssh, is that the marketplace will think that there is ONE and ONLY ONE implementation....
just think about it.. SSH wants.. the name of the product, the implementation, the shell command... everything...
reeks of M$ behaviour IMHO...
I work at a NOC that mixes Linux and Unix (and very few Windows) servers adamantly. In a recent knee-jerk reaction, all the Unix admins (which don't really talk to the Linux admins) upgraded their commercial versions of ssh to:
:)
:)
"sshd: SSH Secure Shell 2.3.0 on sparc-sun-solaris2.8"
So, I've upgraded my servers to OpenSSH 2.3.0p1... Very well, but now half my servers can't talk to each other. I get so errors among instances of the exact same version of OpenSSH!
Disconnected; MAC error (Message authentication check fails.).
2f 75 73 72 2f 6c 6f 63
Disconnecting: Bad packet length ##########.
And one case were i can get to a password prompt, but even when i give it the right password, it rejects the attempt!
The few Unix administrators who run both OpenSSH and Commercial SSH are also finding OpenSSH isn't working the way they expected. I'm not asking slashdot for product support, just moral!
Now, I have fixed these problems and my servers are all communicating again, but it took a greater part of my day to resolve which i could have spent, i don't know, reading the onion or something.
Theo de Raadt, co-creator of OpenSSH, hopes the community, not the courts, will decide the trademark skirmish. He points to a licensing agreement that allowed independent versions of SSH before Ylönen received a trademark in 1996, and he wonders why Ylönen has taken five years to decide to enforce the trademark.
He adds: "There are two main clinchers going on here. One is the fact that this licence file predates the trademark, and it grants rights that cannot be removed. And the other is the history of non-enforcement... against anybody else in the entire field using this name, then suddenly enforcing us because we're getting big enough."
Looks like it is too little too late as far as trade mark enforcement goes. If nothing else, Ylönen may be trying to cash in on the name of OpenSSH.
Although there is a point that he (Ylönen) has to do something, I suppose, and better late than never. But it is likely too late.
Oh yeh, IANAL btw
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
the confusion is because SSH want both the protocol AND the trademark.. (and probably the command-line name if they could as well)
thats dangerous and I dont like it.
If Tatu had picked his own name, different from the protocol, then this would be a trademark.
what they are trying to do here is much scarrier and I think Theo is right to hang onto openssh.
If SSH was instead called their product finnishSSH would there be as much confusion ? NO.
The danger if Tatu succesfully prevents ANY ssh implementation from containing the letters ssh, is that the marketplace will think that there is ONE and ONLY ONE implementation of ssh....
just think about it.. SSH wants.. the name of the product, the implementation, the shell command...everything...
reeks of M$ behaviour IMHO...
Okay, we had quite an argument about SSH vs. OpenSSH just a few days ago, and now we're re-stoking the fire?
Trademark law is there to protect the consumer. Who can honestly deny that OpenSSH has been hurt SSH's business? The only point in contention is that SSH waited to long to enforce the trademark by being NICE -- by emailing the team over the period of a year, several times, at least from my interpretation of the letter in the last Slashdot piece on SSH.
Being NICE is something Slashdotters always seem to want corporations to do. And now it make have cost SSH its trademark. But we don't care, because we're so wrapped up in our own superiority and rights to entitlement that we bite back whenever it's something we disagree with, even if it's a double-standard. This attitude is no less evil than an "evil" (tongue-firmly-in-cheek) corporation.
Let's remember that there's a trademark on LINUX.
-Stu
tatu did exactly that: try to bully the openssh developers. apparently openssh is now so much better than tatu's product that it threatens tatu's profits. so he is trying to make the openssh developers stop what they are doing and respond to the threatening letters his lawyers sent out.
> He didn't send threatening lawyer letters. He asked people to be reasonable.
you are uninformed -- the threatening letters went out a couple weeks ago, before tatu went public instead of trying to find a reasonable accomodation. i'm surprised you don't know this.
> Quite frankly, you're going to lose BADLY in a court of law, because not only is there the possibility of confusion, but there is DOCUMENTED confusion.
the only documented confusion is tatu's -- and the source of the confusion is tatu himself. he apparently now regrets his openness of several years ago, now that the stench of money is in his nose. i don't think tatu has a legal leg to stand on. you can't blind yourself to the use of a trademark (allowing the openssh developers to build reputation for ssh) then reverse course. tatu did the right thing in allowing the open source developers to work on and improve ssh. it is a shame that he has now turned from that course, and chooses another one that is venal and craven.
nobody
parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus
I still can't believe bullshit like this. One, its a fucking waste! Two, if this is news, then the state of real news must be even more sad. Three, GET OVER IT!
People are stupid. Stupid people do stupid things. Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out.
News for turds, shit that splatters!
Its the truth, and you all know it.
News for turds, shit that splatters
Just trolling around, but maybe Mr.Bourne (or the author of the orig. shell) should sue them for using SH. C'mon that's pretty confusing. I might think that Mr. Bourne was involved in cryptography. (which is evil, right?) :)
But is this confusion really caused by OpenSSH having a name that is similar to SSH, or is the confusion caused by the fact that Tatu Ylonen chose to overload "SSH" to mean both a product and a protocol?
If OpenSSH is renamed to "FooShell" but still implements the SSH protocols, confusion is going to remain. The reason there will be confusion is that the word "SSH" (more often than not) will still refer to something that might not be SSH Communication Security's product. Just as when people talk about Cola, they're not always talking about Coke.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The Company name is "SSH Communications Security Corporation", now if we exapnd it it says "Secure SHell Communications Security Corporation" OH boy, this product most be REALLY secure if they can mention sercurity twice in there name! Hmmm........ CC Cookie Chocolate Chip Company or Chocolate Chip Cookie Chocolate Chip Company "There Chocolatly"
You should try emailing the developers at openssh-unix-dev@mindrot.org. We can only fix problems that we know about.
Hurt as in:
ruined reputation of?
tied up phone lines/email hubs with incessant demands for support of OpenSSH?
shorted SSH corp's stock, making Tatu's stock worthless?
OR, was it competition that did it?
Please counsel, take all the time you need to peruse your client's papers searching for a clue as to how often and how recent 'earlier' and 'already' means.
I don't particularly care in the long run whether I am using OpenSSH or OpenSecSH. 'ssh' has long been the familiar protocol name for that service. If it were so important for other companies not to use the letters 'ssh' how come most (if not all) unices have 'ssh' as the name for the service that uses port 22?
...
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
My vote is for Cryptonomicon Enabled
Nobody would object if we put a CE after everything
telnetCEftpCE
fooCE
barCE
loseCE
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Ian Goldberg, author of Top Gun ssh for the Palm Pilot, wrote that he exchanged email with Ylönen and others at SSH Communications Security in the summer of 1997. "Tatu even asked me if I'd be willing to do an implementation of the 2.0 protocol," Goldberg wrote. "No one ever asked me to not use the 'ssh' name in the program title."
Robert O'Callahan, who released Teraterm SSH for Windows in 1998, wrote that several universities have distributed his product to their students, and it's been distributed on CD software collections, including with the book "Unix Secure Shell." He said he's never heard from SSH Communications Security about a trademark violation...
makes you think about the real reasons behind SSH's sudden change of mind...huh!!
maybe we should pettition SSH to change their name to something else so we stop confusing their product with the protocol !!! showmethemoneySSH or even just $$H (thats going to hurt the shell now!)
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
OSS should take the high road and just rename itself. If OpenSSH does it now, then they can say they made their own decision and did it because they wanted to. If they wait too long, then stronger words will be used by both sides, and pretty soon emotions take over and you can kiss common sense and cooperation goodbye.
So, OpenSSH, change your name, not because you have to, but because you can. Be altruistic. I think that's the best outcome that will make everyone feel good about themselves and others.
Check out AbiWord.
Read the rest of this comment...
Please watch my new cable network! OpenCNN.
Keeping with the open sourse ethos that if you slap a 'open' on the front of any trademark you can make it your own! We will have news, weather, stock quotes, just like the real thing, but we're 'open'!
Seriously, I understand the argument, but you cant fault them for protecting a valid trademark, especially when the products are basically the same. I would be all for OpenSSH keeping the name if they made refried beans, and not network security tools.
Civik
They have Internet on computers now!?!
-Homer Simpson
Make it a malt liquor. I want to be as clever and handsome as possible.
If I remember correctly, some guy [that's how good my memory is ;) ] took M$ to court over the name Internet Explorer. He proved he had used the name Internet Explorer before they did, but Microsoft won because their browser isn't Internet Explorer, it's MICROSOFT Internet Explorer. As long as they preface it with Microsoft, it's not the poor guy's word. Same with Excel, I believe. Likewise, this isn't SSH, it's Openssh. Anyway, I have to go, Matthew Broderick is suing me for having the same first name.
'nuff said.
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Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]