Re: opie trademark

Erik Hovland wrote:
> If you want to go through the work of getting the Opie development
> community together and arranging getting permission to use the Opie
> trademark, I consider that a reasonable step forward in using it.

In Lorn's defence, he did in fact ask on the Opie list first, and IIRC not
only did nobody object, several people piped up and said they approved. If
further clarification is needed we should consult the archives. If you ask
me, in the case of Opie which is a project in need of new directions and
ideas, he did pretty much all that he was obliged to do given that he is a
long time member of the Opie team.

Clearly someone needs to define a new direction for Opie's future. Qt4 is
the obvious choice, and basing work on that done by Trolltech is certainly
in Opie's tradition and will bring results much faster than any other
solution. OK, perhaps a different name might be a little less confusing
for users, but if Lorn still wishes to use the same name a simple
clarification on the OpieII website stating that OpieII is a new
experimental/development branch of Opie would be enough, IMO. On the other
hand, as I have stated previously I still see a lot of value in developing
the original Opie code base further since it is already in a fairly good
state and offers a capable alternative platform to Windows CE/PocketPC on
the same devices. I think we can comfortably do both things at once.

I have previously stayed silent on this issue, but I have to say that I am
dismayed by the recent turn of events at handhelds.org regardless of their
cause. Bringing trademarks into the matter has been hugely divisive. I can
see both points of view, but it seems to me that in the Opie situation if
any comparison is to be made, Lorn is much more in the right than George
is. However, the rest of the Opie community needs to speak up, since it is
the community that should surely decide on the issue, and IMO that
includes people who have previously been contributors to Opie as well as
currently active contributors, since the former group has significant
investment in the project regardless of what they are doing now.

Cheers,
Paul
Received on Wed May 30 2007 - 17:05:05 EDT