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Adobe Responds to KIllustrator
j7953 writes: "German news service heise online reports that Adobe wants to settle the KIllustrator case. According to the article (here's Google's translation), they demand that KIllustrator gets a new name, but don't want to stop its distribution or development. They also promise that the author won't have to pay anything."
Ah, but the REASON he objected was because the 7100s two sister projects, the 6100 and 8100, were code named Cold Fusion and Piltdown Man, one a bogus technology (for now), the other being a famous hoax. Then, when Carl Sagan found out, he sent his lawyers after Apple to get the code name changed. Apple did, and changed the code name for the 7100 from Carl Sagan to BHA, which he also gave a stink over and again had his lawyers make Apple change. Apple's final code name for the 7100?
LAW: Lawyers Are Wimps.
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
Why don't they just call it the K'ustrator?
--Jim
Hi,
being in Germany, I called Adobe Germany and told them -- in a polite way -- that I am unhappy with their way of dealing with a free software project. And that I, being the guy who decides what software to buy in my little brandnew software company, have chosen not to buy any Adobe products as a form of protest because I do not want to support this business behaviour.
After a bit of dialing and transferring, I finally reached an Adobe PR official instead of a clueless call center guy. And speaking to her, it was obvious that Adobe Germany was in a big mess there and that they were very nervous what to do.
This whole stunt appears to have been originated at Adobe USA and these German lawyers, I was told, were appointed by the US company.
Adobe Germany is more or less just a little call center for user support and a few marketing and sales people for the local German market. I have the impression that they are not allowed to act without approval from their US mother.
However, Adobe Germany was not told by Adobe USA that they would go after the Killustrator team. And since you Americans had a National Holiday last week right during the incident, the German officials were unable to ask their US superiors what to do about it until the end of the weekend.
Meanwhile, Adobe Germany was amid a storm of a roaring protest, beginning with mail bombs of "fuck you" messages and angry phone calls all day. My polite call must have been a very unusual thing that day.
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You may like my a cappella music
<rant>While I hate corporatism, the state of open-source application names makes me wish every company would do this. Any chance Adobe could make the stipulation that the new name does not have the letter "K" in it? Could we file a class action suit against the Gnome/GNU/KDE developers to keep them from using such ugly, unintuitive, useless names? Why does everything have to be Gno-this or K-that or GNU-whatever? Where's the application naming howto?</rant>
KINK Killistrator is now KINK
They should rename it KNotIllustratorAtAll.
The cake is a pie
They could always call it KDraw or something :)
What about KorelDraw!
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Does that mean the Adobe Jihad is off? I just finished making my Adobe-as-Borg icon.
Excuse me? I read the article, the message list, etc. and I felt the overall tone was one of "How can a company be allowed to trademark a single word?" I agree whole-heartedly with this point.
KIllustrator is a clone product of IllustratorKIllustrator, if anything, is closer to CorelDraw than anything else. Evidently, you've never used the program.
I think we should applaud Adobe on this.Applaud a company for using strong arm tactics to protect an obvious travesty of trademark law. I suppose you agree with Microsoft's business tactics as well. What is to say Microsoft won't go after KWord, Kwrite, Abiword, etc. How long before Adobe turns it legal team on XPDF (violating a possible tradmark on the letters P, D, & F)? I'm sick of watching the English laguage being turned into a commodity.
I gave up thinking of a cool sig
I don't think it gets more fair than this. KIllustrator is grossly in violation of Adobe's trademark. Slashdotters all agreed on this on the previous article.
KIllustrator is a clone product of Illustrator, its the same type of product (software), doing the same thing (raster drawing). Of course the name is meant to capitalize on Adobe's product!
Now, Adobe has some courses of action. The one they are taking is by far the mildest and most polite. They need to protect their trademark. They need KIllustrator to get a new name. They can take this court, they can aim for monetary damages. They aren't.
I think we should applaud Adobe on this. They have to protect their trademark, after all. If nothing else, they are helping a KApplication get a better name.
Robert
I just checked, and www.KSlashdot.org is available.
troll#1: "Bastards! They're trying to leech off of the name of Slashdot!"
troll#2: "Bastards! Slashdot is trying to crush innovation! 'Kay'-Slashdot is obviously very different than just 'Slashdot'!"
Well, ok, it may be nothing as compared to stopping development all together, but I think the issue goes deeper than a name. It's about control.
The distrubing part is that "illustrator" is a somewhat generic name, which does not specificlly indicate a piece of IP owned by Adobe Systems, Inc. Had this been a case of something like Kacrobat or Kphotoshop, then I would agree with their reasoning, maybe even say they're justified. But "illustrator" is just too generic.
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#nohup cat
In the best GNU fashion they should call it KINI (KINI Is Not Illustrator).
Or maybe ADWANK (Adobe Doesn't Want ADWANK Named Killustrator).
Then again, maybe not.
KIllustratosphere
KDraw (already mentioned)
KPicture
Karicature
Ksketch
Kart
science is a religion
With a name like "Adobe", is it any wonder that they played dirty and engaged in mud-slinging?
'I live in a.. ummm... ahh... KBrick house? no... GMud? ahh... whatever'
It's easy to write songs, you just sit down and write them.
Most companies would be suing them and cursing the GPL, and accusing Linux of infringing on their trademarks...
As far as the other stuff you say, though... I think you're probably right about them losing the Linux market. Although, actually, if they ported PhotoShop to Linux, I'd use it. (Provided it was actually *affordable*; I know it's a "hugely powerful" tool, but ~$600?! I'll sacrifice my familiarity with PhotoShop and just use the GIMP for that price...)
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suwain_2
Dr. Kai-Uwe upholsterer
Well, I'm certainly pleased to know that there's now a Free solution for all my upholstery needs.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
And by bringing this lawsuit up in the first place, and by forcing them to change their name, isn't that (at least temporarily) halting distrobution and development?
AFAIK it is still unclear whether Adobe were actually aware of the warning letter which was sent by the lawyers firm. (it never got as far as a lawsuit)
In Germany, law firms can send warning letters on another companies behalf and charge those they send them to for their time. The company for whom the warning is being sent is not neccessarlity aware that this has been done. There is more information on this in the earlier article, especially this posting