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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.
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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
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 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'!"
'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
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