Slashdot Mirror
Groupon Backs Down On Gnome
Rambo Tribble writes: Groupon has announced it will abandon the 'Gnome' name for their product, ending the recent naming controversy that had the open source community up in arms. They said, "After additional conversations with the open source community and the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark applications for 'Gnome.' We will choose a new name for our product going forward." The GNOME Foundation has thanked everyone who helped.
My question... does this represent Gnu thinking on the part of Groupon?
My question... does this represent Gnu thinking on the part of Groupon?
The GNOME foundation invented the word—nay, the letters themselves, carved and finished from wordstone hewn from the deep tunnels of the earth.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Can I have my money back then?
(I lie, I didn't really donate, I only saw it today. I wouldn't want my money back either. I love GNOME, even GNOME 3.)
Who would want it anyway?
"ending the recent naming controversy that had the open source community up in arms"
It did?
The risk was not from the Gnome Foundation's lawyers, but from smartasses all around the Internet coming up with ways to get back at Groupon with names for preposterous services that don't quite infringe on Groupon's trademark.
That would be a good new name for the GNOME project. It's what I imagine the GNOME hipsters saying to me each time I even just think about GNOME 3.
All that fuss about one word....
Which person with an IQ over 64 would confuse a Groupon service with a Linux open source desktop environment?
"Oops, I mistakenly started working on the wrong Gnome!"
Is the Gnome foundation now going after all this garden item manufacturers which are advertising their garden gnomes?
Get a life....
I thing Groupon's thinking was more like "Shit! They're willing to go to court over it!"
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The GroupOn Global Code of Conduct start with "What Groupon Stands For: Do the right thing--follow the law, act ethically, and treat people properly."
This attempt to bully a non-profit for use of it's established trademark does not seem to be consistent with the stated code of conduct. For this to drag out from May to November seems to suggest that GroupOn had no intention of following it's own code of conduct. So, if there has been no policy in place at GroupOn to keep this from happening, how long will it be before another non-profit or FOSS project suffers from the same bullying at the hands of GroupOn?
I'm also curious to know, at what expense of resources did defending the GNOME trademark come at? Who is paying for the expense of resources? Does the projects GroupOn have on github really justify the set-back that GroupOn has created for the GNOME project?
This revision of the story from Sri Viswanath leaves me with more questions than answers and makes it very clear that GroupOn is not a company I ever want to do business with.
FTW!
If they're open for input on new product names, I think "Windows 9" is available ...
Gnu thinking on the part of the Groupon Collective?
...gay.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Or all this shit was marketing. Now everybody knows that they are releasing a new product.
Whilst I agree with you in general - about intellectual property and blowjobs if not the rest (fyi, no need to be gay to appreciate blowjobs).
The problem isn't so much that Groupon want to use the same name, but more that because of the ridiculous legal situation. If you don't "defend" your trademark you lose it and eventually you'll be in the situation of having Groupon stop you using "Gnome" because now it's their trademark.
Groupon wanted people to read it "Gee-nome" not, "gnome". Why didn't they change the name with G-nome with an hyphen ? that would have been different enough from the other gnome no ?
The problem probably just finally got escalated inside Groupon. Before it was some stupid desk clerk thinking: Oh, some hobbyists I've never heard of are mad that their little programming club has the same name as our new terminal. No big deal.
Then it was "Sue them into next wednesday!" "Burn Groupon to the ground!" "Hang them higher!" and their response being "OMFG! It's a project that's FOSS and Linux and they are all friends with IBM, Oracle and Google. And they've got lawyers!"
Probably some exec with a clue got wind of the situation and concluded that "... yeah, they do have a case and this Gnome Project acutally isn't that small of a deal as one might think. And we have enough bad press as it is. Back down.".
Smart move I'd say.
And they even get a little neat publicity for playing nice.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Hate to say, but marketers can be the most oblivious people in the wold. They also create things and have the same feelings of ownership that many of us do when we cook up a heaping helping of awesome code. So, I'm not surprised by Groupon taking a minute to figure out where they stood.
Last year, the people at my company's marketing department emerged from their cave with a Hire Veterans campaign. Awesome. Except for the fact that the helmet they choose to cap the M-16 with was a Nazi Stahlhelm. When I pointed it out I got the "what do you, developer, know about marketing" response. I answered, "Three of our board of directors are Jewish."
-- $G
They just realized the bad name Gnome has now. Why would groupon use a name with a 'fsck users' connotations?
My question... does this represent Gnu thinking on the part of Groupon?
It's quite possible. Whatever else you may say about Groupon, it's undeniable that Groupon's Not Unix. In fact, it's likely that Groupon's Not Useful. Especially if their servers run the Hurd.
My question... does this represent Gnu thinking on the part of Groupon?
Gnobody Gnows.
Just another day in Paradise
For me it was already too late to remain a customer and I'm sure there are others who felt the same way. The fact that they told the Gnome project that they were going to use the name anyways when contacted about the trademark infringement was enough for me to unsubscribe from all groupon emails and offers and I will not use them ever again. There are plenty of alternatives.
We donated to Gnome to help them defend themselves against Groupon. Now they have stated that they will use the funds for the ongoing development. This is crappy message to all donors now and in the future - and a misuse of trust. Why? Because it will make it harder to convince future donors that this is a real emergency and not just a ruse to get money. If somebody asks for a donation for a specific purpose, than they should offer to reimburse the donors if that special purpose goes away. Gnome should really thing about the message they are sending here.
They are renaming it Krazy Deals Everywhere (KDE).
Do the right thing? Follow the law? Act ethically? Treat people properly? Well no fucking shit! Who has to right that down? Do we not know that's how we're supposed to behave? For fuck's sake, we learned that shit in kindergarten! The very fact they had to write that down is damning, imho. Whether code of conduct statements, mission statements, vision statements, or other corporate newspeak, my experience tells me when common sense has to be codified and written down as such, it's meaningless because the people writing it down are sociopaths, it's not common sense to them, and while it sounds nice, it holds no weight as truly guiding principles and will be abandoned before the ink dries in order to achieve their other goals (which are typically some variant on fucking over other people for their own profit).
they said, "Crap, the propellerheads found some money. Lost that bet."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Ha, thats funny. Funny because they are shelfish Coral, shelfish.
Or you could, you know, not use it and stop being butthurt. I like GNOME3
What did Groupon's Gnome and the GNOME desktop environment have in common? They are both a POS.
(I don't actually dislike GNOME though it's not my favorite desktop environment. But I couldn't resist the joke.)
Don't be silly, blowjobs haven't been sex since 1998.
"My question... does this represent Gnu thinking on the part of Groupon?"
Nope, just means they had zero chance to win the lawsuit that was about to be dropped into there laps
Jack of all trades,master of none
Perhaps it occurred to them that you probably should not anger a large group of people who happen to have the skills to get back at you in some other perhaps not-so-within-the-law ways? A day or even an hour of downtime of other unrelated servers can be rather expensive. Just saying.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
The cynic in my says that Groupon did this intentionally to generate a firestorm of controversy to get themselves some free publicity. The only other possible explanation is that they are incredibly foolish.