Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
I am sorry to completely disagree :
Fastfission wrote:
Is the "many people" really very many in a legal sense? I don't know about these things at all but I imagine the vast, vast majority of people even on the internet much less in the world much less in the United States have no idea what Wikimania is, even if they may possibly have heard of Wikipedia.
Well actually there are enough people who know about wikimania to try to register the .eu domain name. Plus if they tried to register the .eu domain name, that also mean they begun registering the trademark somehow since this is a necessary step to get the .eu So basically, people already use it for means that are contrary to our objectives and our image. Please don't answer me it's no big deal. Because I am sorry, but it's very big deal.
If it's such a big deal now, why was it not a big deal when we first began using the name? Were there other important domain names that were neglected?
At least it means that you really would have to re-think completely about our strategy... when some book publisher will begin editing "wikimania books" or "wikimania tshirts" and will try to shut us down because of trademark law... what will you say ?
And what will be the effects of having the proper US registrations? ... or have these been neglected too?
And since our next wikimania will be at Harvard Law School... what will you do when the WMF will have to explain it was not even able to secure the domain name of its main public event?
Harvard is still in the United States. Why should the .eu domain or European trademarks affect that. It may be a factor for the next time that the conference is in an EU country, but not for this one. That gives us more time to sort it out.
I don't want to say that it's not possible to keep the name wikimania... but pretending that it's no big deal is not realistic!
If there's still any reasonable possibility at all, why should we be so willing to give up before the battle even starts.
As an aside, wikimania.org vs. wikimania2006.org -- if someone is looking for our Wikimania, they will see that they have the wrong site, plop what they want into google, and immediately find the correct site. That's how I cope with typosquatting and things of that nature, and a lot of other sites work that way.
And please, explaining that you "cope" with typosquatting is nonsense. We're talking about a manifestation that will take place at Harvard Law School and that is likely to be our main event for the year to come. Many people will come to know us through this, and many more people are going to judge us through this.
Including over our willingness to take a stand for something.
So if you want to keep the wikimania name, do it but give me solutions for these people !
That really depends on how far they have gone, and why they are doing it. I understand that it may be a few days before that can be answered. Clearly our objections should be formally recorded.including our history of using the name.
And explain me why not simply call it "wikiconf", "wikitruc", "wikimeeting" or "wikiwhatever". Then, we could make a proper registration on the tm and the domain names so that we will be able to secure and keep it safe so that the community can go on using it for years?
There are obviously some who would find that more convenient.
Because that's the thing : if we fuck up with this, it's the community we're building everyday that will get fucked up with someone who will own the trademark and the domain names of the work of this community.
It's our job to make sure that this name will stay available forever for the community and that no one will ever try to make it his own.
So come on... don't explain me that people will simply use google to find the good wikimania website ! Even local French Linux Groups are better organized than this !
This last part seems more like dramatic flourish.
Ec