It is such a bad look for (members of) the Core team to file an application for a trademark of the Monero name. I hope we can receive some clarification about this.

name and logo*

If it is needed to protect against yet more assholes, I wonder if it'd be feasible to assign the trademark to something like the FSLC.

But yes, a US company stinks. Comes with double implicit baggage.

I'm sure thankful_for_today would've loved to have protected himself against assholes with a few trademarks

"I am personally dismayed that the Core team has taken this step" Isn't it a bit early to be dismayed already, knowing next to nothing yet about background, motivation, etc.?

no it's not. doing this without any public discussion/announcement is already a breach of trust.

IIRC they said years ago they tried (though failed at the time).

Due to yet other assholes named something similar making legal noises.

an eye for an eye keeps the eye doctor away sort of deal :-)

Yeah, ok, it's all your right to be dismayed. Even several times a day, if needed. And strongly, at times ...

rbrunner, as it is your right to not be. I did say "personally", right?

Agreed.

Maybe a public discussion would have been dangerous, giving people ideas who would try to preempt?

who would these people be, who could believably claim "ownership" over Monero's name and likeness?

I would speculate that for ever "Core flat-out breached our trust" I can come up with a story "That was kind of reasonable, given the circumstances". All speculation, of course.

It's not like after grabbing the tm they made anohter project called close to monero without warning people it's not the same.

They've been trustworthy so far AFAICT.

and while we're at it, who owns the trademark to the Bitcoin name and logo?

I can imagine Roger Ver trying to register them

You'd have better luck in a bitcoin channel.

it's a rhetorical question... I don't think there's an owner

BITCOIN’ is trademarked in the United Kingdom but is not currently trademarked anywhere else in the world. When news broke that BITCOIN was a registered trademark, it caused a huge debate. BITCOIN is trademarked in the United Kingdom until 22nd December 2027 (trademark number UK00003279106),

moneromooo: they wouldn't need to make another project. they could just push whatever changes they wanted to the existing one and let the rest of us pick a new name

They already can.

right. but without the protections afforded by a trademark.

That's such a realistic scenario, Core Team against rest of Monero devs, in a court, where, in the US?

Probably Twatter.

And Core Team wins, of course, because TM, and we are all in deep shit.

That's a win/win situation, right ? Whatever happens, monero wins.

But then maybe *I* won't receive my rightly-earned lambo, but Fluffypony and gang.

You'd receive your rightly-earned fluffypony ?

Anyway, being attentive is good, I am sure that issue by geonic will turn out a net positive for the project. Just not yet clear how.

Now that's a very well penned line.

aren't all issues full of possibilities when first opened? you have a fruitful imagination, it might even be the source for another fictional story.

maybe the scenario you described is worth exploring in a fictional format. surely the directors of that corporation contemplated being in a US court before they signed the papers to form it

You shall not pass (off)!

aw shit, now I want to watch '12 angry men' again

HAHAH

But yeah, company. Which means it ever goes bankrupt, its assets go to whatver asshole buys it for peanuts.

Companies are never to be trusted. For this reason and other.s

they tend to exploit the assets they acquire for financial gain... or just squat on them until an opportunity arises

but the Monero Distribution Corporation sounds so warm and fluffy, I'm sure they would never do that

the project and logo is released under an open source license, how does a trademark mean others can't use it anymore?

yeah, that's a good question. what's the benefit of a trademark if it does nothing to prevent others from using it? and is the trademark owner allowed to change the license?

I'm not a lawyer, but surely whoever filed those trademark applications consulted one. maybe they'll enlighten us.

Of course not.

Scratch that.

Owning the trademark offers no change to your ability to change the licence.

I'm just trying to figure out what the risk is, and how we wouldn't have the same risk if a malicious person instead of the core team would register a monero as a trademark.

AFAIK, same risk, except that the core team will have an easier time showing they're "legitimate".

It's both a plus and a minus, depending on whether you're on their side :)

Maybe it'd be possible to have that company issue some kind of binding waiver, though how to write it seems non trivial.

It's been done for patents by, IIRC, redhat.

so no benefit, except the bad optics of an entity seemingly in control of Monero's name and logo

You misunderstood, then.

The waiver is not "we waive all rights", more like "we'll only use defensively".

Basically, assert prior use of the mark if some jerk comes later and tries to prevent that use. But not try to prevent another's use.

wasn't referring to the waiver, but this "AFAIK, same risk, except that the core team will have an easier time showing they're "legitimate"."

I think the core team is more likely to be on our side than some random asshole wanting to annoy us.

fwiw, I prefer to look at it in terms of "for decentralization or not" rather than "for or against the core team"

You'd have to get the US congress to pass a law allowing decentralized registration first.

no argument about that, it's the lesser evil for sure. but do we want that dubious protection?

not registering a company and filing a trademark application is also a viable alternative

It's nice to have more tests, but the more you have, the more tme it takes to test the damn thing -_-

Especially whrn it's python, which takes an hour before it points out a fucking typo a compiler would have spotted from the start...

We need a company so that we can codesign the macOS GUI, that's the only way to get a developer account with Apple.

And the same applies for Windows cert from what I know.

we've had another company for that though, no? this one was only registered a year ago

strangle perl, not python

please refrain from strangling python

he-he

how to strangle python: nitter.net/closecalls7/status/1563495388304515073