[Juriwiki-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation of our 'MediaWiki' mark

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 10/31/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It was crystal clear to me the very first time I read it that the
> > company are just offering MediaWiki installs in their hosting plans,
> > which afaik they're perfectly entitled to do.
>
> Then you should read it again. It clearly says that they are launching
> Media
> Wiki <full stop>. They can't launch something that already exists.
>
> -- mav


C'mon, you're talking about the headline. If you read the actual text it
says that the software was "Created in 1995". Sure, they could add
"MediaWiki is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation", except
apparently it isn't. They could add "MediaWiki is software created by the
Wikimedia Foundation", except that the Wikimedia Foundation is only *one* of
the authors of the software (they certainly own the copyright on anything
done by the lead developer as part of his duties as an employee). They could
say that "The Wikimedia Foundation pays the main developer of MediaWiki", I
suppose, but this is kind of excessive. I mean, they should be more clear
about exactly what MediaWiki is, and I guess they could tweak the headline,
but it's not really the huge deal people are making it out to be.

Mav also said: "I suggested the name as a play on the foundation's name;
Wikimedia ->
MediaWiki." Now there's something I never knew. What was the software called
before it was called MediaWiki?

Rowan Collins said: "I know the two can be distinct, but since at no point
has copyright in
the software belonged even partially to the WMF" Actually, that's not true.
WMF currently owns the copyright on anything created by its employees as
part of their duties.