You must excuse me for misunderstanding the poster's point in that mish-mash of confused nonsense. What, precisely, is the difference between an operator and a built-in function? Is an operator not a keyword? Does PHP not have built-in functions with alphabetic names? Does Perl not use sigils on variables?
Some ten years ago, I bought a copy of Day of the Triffids at a used book store in Montana. When I read it, in another state, I found that the book was missing a page; someone had torn it out.
Sure, backwards compatibility (and in Perl 5's case, almost 12 years of growth without sufficient cleanup) makes it more difficult to come up with good coding standards, but if your team doesn't have good standards, you're in trouble no matter what the language is.
It's difficult to imagine a web browser plugin that could harass millions of other web browser users as easily as an instant messenger client plugin could harass millions of other instant messenger users.
I bet that $17 billion is untaxed. That makes it difficult for the government to invest in useful goods and services to promote further economic growth.
I've written a mathematically-provably-incorrect Haskell program that compiles and runs (and runs and runs if you feed it input allowed by the type system but provably-mathematically-incorrect to the algorithm). It was about fifteen lines long.
I'm starting to think that the fact that mod_perl helps avoid the standard CGI fork/exec penalty was only a side effect of being able to write Apache extensions in Perl.
That's good and useful, but \\a mod_perl as simple and featureless (in comparison) as mod_php several years ago could have made Perl more compelling in places where mod_php was easier to install and use.
As far as I'm concerned, O'Reilly should just request it@cork tack on a, "It@cork's Web 2.0 Conference" onto the thing and let it go at that....
If trademark law allows that without dilution (and assuming this is a worthwhile service mark in that particular context), that does seem like an easy and fair solution. This type of law can get tricky quickly though, especially in matters of jurisdiction and applicability.
It's really unfortunate that there seems to be no way to protect a mark from inappropriate uses while allowing community-minded groups to use it appropriately other than to enforce the mark diligently. (Per my understanding, requesting -- even without lawyer love notes -- the public recognition of the mark registration should be sufficient. Please don't confuse this for legal advice though.)
As far as I'm concerned it's approximately the same thing with only a slightly different place in an ugly chain...
I can see why you think that, but it's not the case. It's just lawyers flirting with each other.
... if the goal is to create a label for a particular type of technology...
It's not. It's to prevent confusion about the O'Reilly/CMP Web 2.0 Conference.
... that label should be general purpose...
It is, unless you want to call your own event a "Web 2.0 Conference". (How close you can get to that is a matter of discussion.)
You also can't freely publish a book called "Head First Web 2.0" that looks like an O'Reilly Head First book or "Web 2.0 in a Nutshell" that looks like a Nutshell book or "Web 2.0 Hacks" that looks like a Hacks book -- not because of the Web 2.0 conference trademark, but because of the "Head First" and "in a Nutshell" and "Hacks" trademarks.
What lawsuit? This is a C&D letter, not a lawsuit. They're very different. (I'm sure we both agree that even sending a C&D before talking to a community-based organization is a mistake, but that's still very different than filing suit.)
In the absence of trademark, what recourse is there for an entity when another entity produces a work confusingly similar by intent?
But this kind of thing makes me think twice before buying another volley (I just bought a few Head First books for idle reading) of their product.....
Why?
O'Reilly has a lot of trademarks. If you explore the purpose of trademarks, it's partly to protect a business from competitors passing off inauthentic products as the real thing and partly to protect customers from inadvertently buying the inauthentic products. If someone else were to publish a Perl book with a camel on the cover, that would intrude upon O'Reilly's trademark.
(How do you know you bought the Head First books you intended to buy? Again, in part, thanks to trademarks.)
In this case, as I understand it, O'Reilly and CMP have filed for a service mark (like a trademark but for a service) on the phrase "Web 2.0 Conference". Again, this means that no other group can use this phrase to refer to an event without permission and noting that O'Reilly and CMP have registered the service mark.
The point is to protect a business investment, yes, but also to protect customers.
The insidious thing about a trademark is that the holder must be diligent to protect its uses to prevent genericity. That is, if you don't work with the honest groups to make sure that they note that the trade or service mark is a registered trade or service mark and if you don't use appropriate legal action against dishonest groups, you lose your right to the mark. You really can't hide the fact of a trademark and you can't enforce it selectively, at least if you want to keep it.
Now reasonable people may disagree about the value and necessity of trade and service marks, and that's a reasonable debate. However, excoriating a company for having a trade or service mark as if that were a serious betrayal of some nebulous definition of a community seems to betray a deep misunderstanding of trademarks and a scary sense of blind mob justice.
... protecting this trademark to ensure that scam artists and shaddy businesses cant try to throw it around to their advantage.
Thank you! This is the one of the few comments I've read anywhere today that shows an understanding of the purpose of service and trade marks.
Whatever though, just as long as they dont go suing people just for using the term and strictly for the purpose of upholding the validity of the term.
A cease and desist letter, however unpleasant, is not a lawsuit. Sending a cease and desist letter to an organization who appears to be using a service or trade mark within its registered context without permission is part of holding and defending a service or trade mark.
Obviously it's a lot nicer to say that legitimate groups, organized for the public interest, can use the mark with proper permissions and notifications. Reviewing each and every occurrence or near occurrence of the mark for respectable use and appropriate notification is a lot of tedious work, though, so it doesn't surprise me that an attorney would send a letter first. That doesn't make it kind or right; just understandable.
Slashdot Mirror
Was that intentional irony? I quite enjoyed it.
You must excuse me for misunderstanding the poster's point in that mish-mash of confused nonsense. What, precisely, is the difference between an operator and a built-in function? Is an operator not a keyword? Does PHP not have built-in functions with alphabetic names? Does Perl not use sigils on variables?
Some ten years ago, I bought a copy of Day of the Triffids at a used book store in Montana. When I read it, in another state, I found that the book was missing a page; someone had torn it out.
Did the book store break the law?
Sure, backwards compatibility (and in Perl 5's case, almost 12 years of growth without sufficient cleanup) makes it more difficult to come up with good coding standards, but if your team doesn't have good standards, you're in trouble no matter what the language is.
If you honestly cannot tell Perl operators and built-ins from variables, I suspect you really don't know Perl.
Draw whatever conclusions you like, but the linked page is accurate.
Perhaps you meant "why a preinstalled and preconfigured OS installation still wins". Otherwise, it's an invalid comparison.
I found your problem. Hint: it has absolutely nothing to do with the language you used.
PS - don't hire crack-addicted monkeys if you care about your code.
You might prefer Perl Hacks then.
I guarantee that it contains a few things you have never seen before.
See? Completely less capable.
Seriously though, I meant to link to PERL instead.
Whoa, not for lexicals.
Nope, only after you've already dereferenced one level.
The post said Perl, not PERL. The latter isn't as capable.
Try Perl Hacks then. I don't use much as intended.
It's difficult to imagine a web browser plugin that could harass millions of other web browser users as easily as an instant messenger client plugin could harass millions of other instant messenger users.
I bet that $17 billion is untaxed. That makes it difficult for the government to invest in useful goods and services to promote further economic growth.
Unfortunately, that's the only state any of us can read.
I'm confused; I thought you wanted a superior system.
It's funny to me that I wrote the article so people would stop paying attention to articles like it. Maybe in another three years....
I've written a mathematically-provably-incorrect Haskell program that compiles and runs (and runs and runs if you feed it input allowed by the type system but provably-mathematically-incorrect to the algorithm). It was about fifteen lines long.
I'm starting to think that the fact that mod_perl helps avoid the standard CGI fork/exec penalty was only a side effect of being able to write Apache extensions in Perl.
That's good and useful, but \\a mod_perl as simple and featureless (in comparison) as mod_php several years ago could have made Perl more compelling in places where mod_php was easier to install and use.
If trademark law allows that without dilution (and assuming this is a worthwhile service mark in that particular context), that does seem like an easy and fair solution. This type of law can get tricky quickly though, especially in matters of jurisdiction and applicability.
It's really unfortunate that there seems to be no way to protect a mark from inappropriate uses while allowing community-minded groups to use it appropriately other than to enforce the mark diligently. (Per my understanding, requesting -- even without lawyer love notes -- the public recognition of the mark registration should be sufficient. Please don't confuse this for legal advice though.)
I can see why you think that, but it's not the case. It's just lawyers flirting with each other.
It's not. It's to prevent confusion about the O'Reilly/CMP Web 2.0 Conference.
It is, unless you want to call your own event a "Web 2.0 Conference". (How close you can get to that is a matter of discussion.)
You also can't freely publish a book called "Head First Web 2.0" that looks like an O'Reilly Head First book or "Web 2.0 in a Nutshell" that looks like a Nutshell book or "Web 2.0 Hacks" that looks like a Hacks book -- not because of the Web 2.0 conference trademark, but because of the "Head First" and "in a Nutshell" and "Hacks" trademarks.
Where's the outrage in that?
I have two questions.
What lawsuit? This is a C&D letter, not a lawsuit. They're very different. (I'm sure we both agree that even sending a C&D before talking to a community-based organization is a mistake, but that's still very different than filing suit.)
In the absence of trademark, what recourse is there for an entity when another entity produces a work confusingly similar by intent?
Why?
O'Reilly has a lot of trademarks. If you explore the purpose of trademarks, it's partly to protect a business from competitors passing off inauthentic products as the real thing and partly to protect customers from inadvertently buying the inauthentic products. If someone else were to publish a Perl book with a camel on the cover, that would intrude upon O'Reilly's trademark.
(How do you know you bought the Head First books you intended to buy? Again, in part, thanks to trademarks.)
In this case, as I understand it, O'Reilly and CMP have filed for a service mark (like a trademark but for a service) on the phrase "Web 2.0 Conference". Again, this means that no other group can use this phrase to refer to an event without permission and noting that O'Reilly and CMP have registered the service mark.
The point is to protect a business investment, yes, but also to protect customers.
The insidious thing about a trademark is that the holder must be diligent to protect its uses to prevent genericity. That is, if you don't work with the honest groups to make sure that they note that the trade or service mark is a registered trade or service mark and if you don't use appropriate legal action against dishonest groups, you lose your right to the mark. You really can't hide the fact of a trademark and you can't enforce it selectively, at least if you want to keep it.
Now reasonable people may disagree about the value and necessity of trade and service marks, and that's a reasonable debate. However, excoriating a company for having a trade or service mark as if that were a serious betrayal of some nebulous definition of a community seems to betray a deep misunderstanding of trademarks and a scary sense of blind mob justice.
Thank you! This is the one of the few comments I've read anywhere today that shows an understanding of the purpose of service and trade marks.
A cease and desist letter, however unpleasant, is not a lawsuit. Sending a cease and desist letter to an organization who appears to be using a service or trade mark within its registered context without permission is part of holding and defending a service or trade mark.
Obviously it's a lot nicer to say that legitimate groups, organized for the public interest, can use the mark with proper permissions and notifications. Reviewing each and every occurrence or near occurrence of the mark for respectable use and appropriate notification is a lot of tedious work, though, so it doesn't surprise me that an attorney would send a letter first. That doesn't make it kind or right; just understandable.