This make me a sad little facepalming unicorn. Apple has just slapped the open source home server project Amahi with a cease and desist letter about the project's use of the term 'app store' - stop using the term, or face Cupertino's army of lawyers. Note: Please help me find out what 'Mac App' is, a supposed Apple product from 1985 - the first citation of the term 'app' in the Oxford English Dictionary. Another note: Okay I should've guessed that publications from that time could still correct company's horrid camel case spelling without unleashing the wrath of fanboys - it's MacApp, not Mac App. Graçias, guys!
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Member since:2006-05-26
I'm sad to see you didn't read and comprehend what was stated in there in regards to the history and reason trademarks are what they are: they're that way for good reason, and like it or not, Apple is doing what they legally need to do, it's nothing personal, and if the tables were turned, the small entity/person would do the same thing, and needs to do the same thing. It's not being a "bully" to do what you are legally required to do: that's merely considered "business" and is a required action for protecting your business and rights. Whether or not the trademark for "App Store" is something you agree with as being valid means nothing: it's been granted to Apple, legally, as they filed for it and got it. It's been used in the past for a trademark, a couple times, by previous entities: they let it lapse. Thus, the government powers-that-be clearly decided it was suitable to trademark: once something is trademarked and registered, it's legally required for the owner to vigorously defend it, or they lose it. There is nothing related to size of entity on either end of the situation, either the one vigorously defending their mark, or the one that would use it when it's not theirs, in the same/too close line of business/services. Once again... this is business, and that's all it is, and this is how business has been legislated over a period exceeding our lifetimes that it must happen.
Member since:2011-01-28
JonathanBThompson,
"and like it or not, Apple is doing what they legally need to do, it's nothing personal, and if the tables were turned, the small entity/person would do the same thing, and needs to do the same thing."
I (we) understand trademarks more than you give us credit. This is an illegitimate generic trademark we're talking about here, not something referring specifically to apple products. Apple should not be entitled to generic english terms any more than anyone else is.
Apple has a history of trademark abuse - they really don't care about trademark law, they act as though they are above it. It's time someone put them in their place and judge them by the same rules as everyone else.
Edited 2011-06-23 04:27 UTC
Member since:2006-02-20
I think the point was that Apple doesn't really need the trademark in the first place, and other people using it is not going to make a difference to their sales. So if they chose not to defend it, even if it meant losing it, what would be the big deal?
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2011-01-28
JonathanBThompson,
"But this whole silly thread you blogged about is all about making fun of a huge corporation (Apple) putting the legal screws on some small OSS project. Therefore, because Apple is some huge company, you think that them doing this is somehow unfair and wrong, because of who/what they're going after legally...."
tl/dr
Maybe there's a point somewhere in there, however you are wrong that the criticism weighed against apple is due only to it's size. We are in fact judging apple by it's actions. This is but one incident for which apple is incurring a reputation as a corporate bully.