Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Just because of cmdline use I sent my part :)

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

My bank account currently: $27.22 fml
(That's after getting paid, getting out of the red, and making some payments)

My shares coming, just delayed :(

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Be happy, I'm currently - €700 Red...

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

@Kangal, @HtheB

Please don't push it. If the time comes when payment is needed and something is missing others (including me) will take care of it.

Not meaning to sound arrogant or anything. But there are many things in life much more important than a trademark!

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Thought would abandon this thread, but seeing people chip in through tears and blood, there are better fights to fight, come on guys

MS, really? MS is currently spending quite a lot of effort to look open source friendly would be a shot in their own foot and from what I've heard they dropped Elop, so how?

The really really worst case scenario is we rename the URL. But that will not happen, even with half-drunk court assigned lawyer this will not happen. There are plenty of examples of domain squatters going around until this day, because they were there first. We are not even squatters, we have our product/project, we keep it alive, with unregistered trademark. No chance in hell that scenario would happen. Still no point in wasting money on dead platform. We could become talk.mer.org and remain happily after (maemo logo is again copyright issue, trademark has nothing to do with it).


We could invest that in Neo900 development and make that project bigger, less pricey, more inviting to new members (vote would be needed, if neo900 is not in maemo(tm) (<- we need to use that trademark guise, registration and abandonment = waste of money) spirit we can spend quarter of a million on something community decides, again, he got 250k just for website name he didn't use and had no business, totally different scenario.
Sounds like those insurance scams: we will protect you in case patent trolls turn to trademark trolling, just spend couple k with us and you have insurance.
Wiki page makes it pretty obvious that without actual enforcing and looking for offenders we might already be screwed. If the duck company from china comes to europe they will argue we did not do due diligence.

I applaud all your commitment to community, but before someone takes a loan to buy this 'really needed thing, because monsters', please don't, going to chip in a tenner later for the TM, just so you don't have to, really worst case scenario (again improbable if not impossible, find another such case, did webos got trademark mugged?) is we go from TMO to TMO with Mer replacing dead maemo

edit: to put it more in perspective, was there any example of trademark trolling, like Marvel (or DC? not sure) harassing adobe for Flash? Was there any fan-forum discussing flash (gordon) with flash in URL taken to court by adobe? Will that page listing winds also suffer from 'new maemo', they list harmattan and fremantle and gregale and... From wiki:
Bad faith is key, there is no way in hell anyone registering TM 'maemo' today can prove (even suggesting that seems silly) bad faith. Maemo is historical artifact by now, so sorry, not buying this 'we will get taken to court and will have to spend hundreds of thousands', beyond absurd. Why has noone registered C64 by now? Thousands of sites with c64 in the name and usage. Maemo will fall prey, come on

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

This is why I love this community :)

Well, I am voluntarily moderator, it's the least that I can do (at the moment).

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

added a bit under edit, srsly, how come noone registered c64 by now to collect that sweet sweet extortion money from all fan sites, there are 100s more than maemo, anyone?

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

I find it incredible...
really...
the importance of maintaining our home here some believe to be simply about maintaining the infrastructure or funding whatever...or stopping technoligical attacks on us here.
But the moment the potential for real legal trouble which can seriously cost us which could affordably be avoided...it's a waste of money?
Citing .."why would anyone bother with us?" wow ..that is a low estimation of our value in the greater scheme of things.

Also ...patent trolls becoming trademark trolls?...
they don't have to be the same beast...
and they aren't trademark trolls...they are proficient entities very accomplished at what they do...and they aren't trolls ...they're corporate sharks hunting ..this isn't fear mongering either...they've been doing it a long time and they don't just hunt smaller fish ..they hunt each other...

http://fashionista.com/2015/02/frenc...s-paris-france

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/new...pi4CLjIrjYwW0O

http://www.forbes.com/sites/montebur...-infringement/

these are just a couple big ones I remember...

Why would anyone bother with us?
think of every possible good thing about maemo and what it projects...represents...
and that there is a valuable marketable commodity which is completely.. understandably... covetable .
More so than a complete nonentity getting raked over the coals in a trademark infringement suit

These cases and many many more aren't fear mongering...
they are there in black and white..
.in print.
and most certainly should not be dismissed, waved away as not possible or probable or a waste of monies.
It has as much validity in the necessity of our security as anything else needing attention.

I am not bashing at any who do not wish to safeguard our brand.
Fact is...I respect any here for their decisions and reasons to fund whatever..and believe many things should get funded..

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Lets spend the money on re-registering amiga trademark, we can fund Nokia's comeback with all the money from amiga fan sites, if only someone can really show how that works instead of fud

ends: did you read those links? gucci vs guess lol, sky - our case, older than skydrive, skydrive trademark trolling lost, not sure what Nike and their slogan has to the discussion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com - 10 years in the making, even potus failed
vatican.org - not even god helps
Cool listing https://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Inter..._Domain_Names/

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Reading your words, it seems to be clear that you really think that a community like this could live forever without money because there is no need to pay for registrations, hosting, connectivity, energy and so on...

If next month someone will ask some donation for the energy bill, would you still call this action "scare with monsters"?

Then, remember we all know that the future is uncertain...but despite this, every volunteer here involved in maintenance tasks of any level tries to keep things running trying to predict some of tomorrow's problems.
No one wants scare with this.
But we should reflect about what could happen since we have no hidden weapons under the hood.

If you think that a TM is not a good reason for a donation, feel free to give something for whatever you like of this community that is not receiving money since a lot of time.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

xes: it is more I expect more discussion, trademark made sense for Nokia with a product to sell and official services to provide to it, so no hacker would create a maemo.com website with malware, we have no use for it. There are plenty good reasons to collect money, but if we sheepishly fund unnecessary things, at some point people will either get tired or run out of money. When is meego up for renewal, we have meego subforum, should we retrademark that too? Lets hear the arguments for it. C64/amiga/atari forums somehow live on without any trademarks and costs from those. Why would we need them?

edit: and to answer your question: energy/hosting/connectivity - are all good reasons to collect money and will happily contribute to that and advise others to do it, just trademark is a legacy 'gift' from dead product, had sense in different context when it was commercial, not community as it currently is based

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

@szopin
I don't have any direct legal experience concerning TM conflicts and related domains actions.
If you have a direct experience with this, and you can grant that no one can ask us to change name and domain or close any kind of activity, feel free to contribute here any reference explaining that position.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Not a lawyer, just woody and endsormeans bring up examples from patent cases, we have tons of dead trademarks (amiga, atari, c64, zx spectrum... you name it) and communities that have grown around them and not a single case of problems coming to life because a community of enthusiasts is using a trademark that was re-registered/repurposed. Why is that? By the logic of people who bring up the patent-harassment all these sites would have long ago been forced to change their URLs and stop using the names. Is it because it is impossible by law? Or is it because you spend first 2k euro and have no return guaranteed as we can change to talk.mer.org and show them middle finger in worst case scenario, so who would invest in that?

and btw we are dwarfed by the amount of c64/amiga fan-sites alone, so much more place for 'free money' if that would actually work

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Oh, thanks.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

You're welcome, haven't seen a lawyer in this thread so far, anyone can rebutt argument why amiga etc had no such FUD (literally fear, uncertainty and doubt - monsters guise!!! fear them, they could, maybe, possibly do something) and the communities work without any such payments?

in google:
c64 - 7,700,000
amiga - 99,400,000
atari - 30,400,000
webos - 14,300,000
maemo - 3,730,000
tizen - 2,910,000
zx spectrum - 1,830,000

We are higher than samsung at least (though their TM is probably still active) and zx spectrum (probably micro b too), but if TM trolling websites was profitable amiga is the likely winner of attention

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

I donated via PayPal -- I know it's horrid but my stupid French bank wants me to fax them a signed form just so I can add a non-French SEPA account for a transfer and that's just too much of a pain.

:(

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

There goes "our" "Europe". Not even this we can get right..

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Most, if not all of those (with the exception of Maemo) still have active trademarks and some company still sells products under those names.

This community has already seen first hand what happens when you let a registered trademark expire. It would be naive to think that no one would be interested in abusing the Maemo name in this manner.

I'm in two minds about whether I personally want to help save the Maemo trademark. I kind of agree with you that it's not the end of the world if we have to go by another name. That coupled with my current financial situation means that I am unlikely to make a donation.

Nevertheless, I fully side with those who do want to save the Maemo trademark. People have donated specifically for this cause and therefore that money should go directly to renewing the trademarks, not on infrastructure or anything else that you have suggested.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Meego is still active and registered to the linux foundation (expires 2020: https://oami.europa.eu/eSearch/#deta...arks/008859803 ), btw maemo is listed as still owned by Nokia:
https://oami.europa.eu/eSearch/#deta...arks/004218137
('c64' and 'zx spectrum' (and 'micro b') are free for trolls to take, 'commodore' actually isn't and they had a lawsuit in 2012, thought for a moment it was TM troll based on their website: http://commodorecorp.com/ but that is all that is left from that, ouch, oh they also prevented some guy's kickstarter from producing commodore 64 molds, but I guess that was a commercial product), but yeah, there's no guarantee the TM won't be re-registered by someone looking to troll Nokia or MS and they might try to go after the url

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

So for people who like to transfer to a sepa bank account they could use xendpay. This company has local bank accounts where you transfer the money and they do the rest. For me it is the cheapest to transfer money world wide but it could take 5-7 days because of two bank transfers. I made only good experience and made around 40 transfers.

Moderators please feel free to delete this post if it is to much advertising.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Nobody is saying we should renew trademarks for everything on the planet. The only things being discussed are the existing TM rights transferred to us from Nokia, and if/how we should handle renewing them.

To be 100% clear, I'm not asking anyone to take out loans to do this. If you're choosing between paying your rent or chipping in for TM renewal, you need to stop and get your life in order. Nobody is going to die or go homeless if this doesn't get renewed. I clearly said, if we can get the renewals funded in time, it seems like a reasonable thing to do to help protect the community. If we can't, it's simply a risk that we'll have to take.

Your claim that people are "fear mongering" to take money from "broke" people here and "blow it on lawyers" is frankly insulting. As if we have nothing better to do with our time then beg for money so we can just "throw it away". How would than benefit anyone involved? What would the motivation be for anyone to do that?

I also love how you state you're not a lawyer, but then insist there's "no way we could lose a case", where one brought against us down the road.

Since you seem to have missed the point: I'm not talking about "losing" a case. I'm talking about the price tag involved in DEFENDING our rights to keep the domain and/or our existing look/branding IF we are sued later. Having a current registration turns that defense from being a case where we'd have to hire a lawyer, to a case most lawyers would take on for "free".

Have you ever been in a court case involving a large company? I have, and I can tell you they're not cheep. Even after "winning" in court, the appeals and collection process could drag on for years. I've seen profitable companies, with much deeper pockets than this community, go bankrupt from the cost of legal representation, even after "winning" their case in court.

There are several examples of people winning cases, and going bankrupt from legal expenses. Even small companies, dealing with TM. And even if you 'win", you may not always get the award granted by the court to pay your fees. And least one thinks this is just a US issue, even European countries have this issue.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Thanks, not sure how insulted you feel if this was from the start paraded as one of those infra funding efforts, while as you admit it is not a death or life matter, think about the users who posted 'am in shitty financial situation, but still chipped in' maybe some perspective is in order (and transparency of risks vs gains)

edit: btw, do you have a single TM case against a community or forum? commercial products: YES, resounding YES, this is what TM is for. But bringing those when our situation is totally different??? Why even bother? (as mentioned earlier, WORST case scenario is we go to talk.mer.org (unless mer TM is already in use, haven't checked), so no millions we need to spend later on lawyers, even in worst case scenario, unlike the guy who owes 800 bucks for taking police to the court)

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

THIS is what it's all about. It is not about stopping the Chinese duck company.
Since we can't afford and therefore want to avoid any lawyers or legal disputes, this is our best insurance. Proud comes gratis...

szopin, got your point, thanks.
Frankly, to me, you're a pita in the community topics... Move on if you don't like the idea, go donate to "the user who posted 'am in shitty financial situation'" instead and feel good about it. But if Woody thinks donating 200,- € for TM is the right thing - isn't that honorable too?

Here's something really worth complaining about... ;)

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

A quote to live by

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Here's the donation state as of today:

Code:

---

mysql>
mysql> select date, account, total_amount, currency from all_donations order by date;
+------------+---------------+--------------+----------+
| date      | account      | total_amount | currency |
+------------+---------------+--------------+----------+
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        |        9.46 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        |          10 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        |          10 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        |          15 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-01 | Deutsche Bank |        26.82 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-02 | Deutsche Bank |          100 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-02 | PayPal        |        47.05 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-02 | PayPal        |        19.27 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-03 | PayPal        |          25 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-03 | Deutsche Bank |          100 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-03 | Deutsche Bank |          50 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-04 | PayPal        |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-05 | PayPal        |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-06 | PayPal        |          150 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-06 | Deutsche Bank |          50 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-07 | PayPal        |          25 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-07 | PayPal        |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-08 | PayPal        |          20 | CAD      |
| 2015-07-08 | PayPal        |        95.9 | GBP      |
| 2015-07-08 | Deutsche Bank |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-08 | Deutsche Bank |          200 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-10 | Deutsche Bank |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-10 | Deutsche Bank |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-10 | PayPal        |        40.49 | PLN      |
| 2015-07-10 | PayPal        |          40 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-13 | PayPal        |          30 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-13 | Deutsche Bank |          20 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-15 | Deutsche Bank |          100 | EUR      |
| 2015-07-16 | Deutsche Bank |          20 | EUR      |
+------------+---------------+--------------+----------+
29 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select sum(total_amount * exchange_rate) as calculated from all_donations;
+--------------------+
| calculated        |
+--------------------+
| 1321.0700000021802 |
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

---

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

You know what? You are right. Don't. In fact, what are you doing here at all? On a dead platform's discussion forum, that is? The platform that you consider alive and that you care about has its own forum, does it not?

As far as I am concerned, Maemo is very much alive. More so than e.g. Sailfish, which may have looked promising two years ago but has so far failed to deliver on that promise.

I care about Maemo and this community. Which is why I put my money where my mouth is, within my meagre limits, and I will put more when I get paid in August. If you do not feel like it, fine. No one is forcing you. Howgh!

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

That isn't quite true. Atari for instance, is a currently owned trademark, and that company *did* go after several sites and other IP that they own and ask them to be shutdown or renamed.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/a...-has-left.aspx

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/18/824...-4-jeff-minter

So, it is not a far-fetched scenario that a presumably long-dead brand sold to a new owner decides to exert its trademarks.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Just a bump.
Current status is below 1400€.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

ähhh, have I missed something? I thought we nee 900€, which we already have.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Make that 2.120 €.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Hello all,

information for bank transfer is a bit incomplete, would be great if information is updated.

For ie. my ebank refused payment with just receiver and account info, I had to specify address, city, purpose. Finally got this info from aplication form :)

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Oh, yes. Now as you remind us, I do remember vaguely about such totally nonsense info in the bank forms when transferring from/to other countries (even in EU or € zone). But it is only a few banks acting so (as they will never ever check that info)
So if you are the only one reporting, it looks like we did not receive much from outside countries via bank transfer? (or those used a bank who did not need that info?)

Either way, we still need some more .....
Thank you.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

@peterleinchen, ALL banks in the UK require such ridiculous amount of detail. I once lost a good deal on an N9 someone was selling in this forum because he would not accept PayPal an my bank required all sorts of details down to the shoe size (bank name, bank address, but also the account owner's name and address, you name it). He was not prepared to share that level of details and sold the phone to someone else.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Same also with my Finnish (well, actually now Danish) bank: they do require the details indicated above.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Paypal is less for me to deasl with than my country's banks ...
Still ...we need maemo bitcoins ...more and more I see...

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Well join the EURO :)

My experience is limited to Spain, Austria, Netherlands and Germany. I've never had to give any address. The (recipient's) name is only used for cross checking in case somebody fvcks up.

I'm a big fan of IBAN because of this. But maybe I'm just lucky with my banks. Note that even now banks can still charge a fee for *receiving* a transfer. This is allowed, as long as they charge the same fee for in-land transfers. I've only experienced that with Spanish banks. No wonder they needed to be saved, the a**holes (and yes, I closed my account there as matter of principle).

Hopefully the EU will fix this someday (at least within the EU/EURO).

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Oh, and just to add re. Paypal:

The other day I received a gift prepaid credit card, so I thought, heck, I'll join paypal and use that card to load up my account so I don't have to give them access to my real account.

No dice. Whatever you do paypal needs your bank account and your shoe size. This was the reason I quit after being signed up for a week or so in 2010 and then again a couple of weeks ago (this time my account lived for about 2 hours).

I hereby officially confirm that I will never use paypal. If a donation depends on it then I'm sorry.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

I edited the first posting and added address that should be acceptable for all bank transfers.

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Not sure how useful this would be, but as an alternative to Paypal and direct-bank transfers, I'm happy to help set up a donation micro-site for Maemo using Stripe as the payment processor - if that would help - I can just take my existing personal donation page [1] and adapt it for Maemo?

I just checked for Germany (I'm assuming that's where the Maemo back account is?) and Stripe charge 2.9% + 30c per transaction - not sure if that's acceptable or a show-stopper?

Of course this could just complicate things, so feel free to tell me so!

1: Example donation page

Re: [Announcement] Fundraiser for "Maemo" Trademark registration
 

Here's the donation state as of today:

Code:

---

mysql>
mysql> select date, account, format(total_amount, 2) as donation, currency, format(total_amount*exchange_rate, 2) as "sum in EUR" from all_donations order by date;
+------------+---------------+----------+----------+------------+
| date      | account      | donation | currency | sum in EUR |
+------------+---------------+----------+----------+------------+
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        | 9.46    | EUR      | 9.46      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        | 10.00    | EUR      | 10.00      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        | 10.00    | EUR      | 10.00      |
| 2015-07-01 | PayPal        | 15.00    | EUR      | 15.00      |
| 2015-07-01 | Deutsche Bank | 26.82    | EUR      | 26.82      |
| 2015-07-02 | Deutsche Bank | 100.00  | EUR      | 100.00    |
| 2015-07-02 | PayPal        | 47.05    | EUR      | 47.05      |
| 2015-07-02 | PayPal        | 19.27    | EUR      | 19.27      |
| 2015-07-03 | PayPal        | 25.00    | EUR      | 25.00      |
| 2015-07-03 | Deutsche Bank | 100.00  | EUR      | 100.00    |
| 2015-07-03 | Deutsche Bank | 50.00    | EUR      | 50.00      |
| 2015-07-04 | PayPal        | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-05 | PayPal        | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-06 | Deutsche Bank | 50.00    | EUR      | 50.00      |
| 2015-07-06 | PayPal        | 150.00  | EUR      | 150.00    |
| 2015-07-07 | PayPal        | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-07 | PayPal        | 25.00    | EUR      | 25.00      |
| 2015-07-08 | Deutsche Bank | 200.00  | EUR      | 200.00    |
| 2015-07-08 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-08 | PayPal        | 95.90    | GBP      | 130.15    |
| 2015-07-08 | PayPal        | 20.00    | CAD      | 13.89      |
| 2015-07-10 | PayPal        | 40.00    | EUR      | 40.00      |
| 2015-07-10 | PayPal        | 40.49    | PLN      | 9.43      |
| 2015-07-10 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-10 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-13 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-13 | PayPal        | 30.00    | EUR      | 30.00      |
| 2015-07-15 | Deutsche Bank | 100.00  | EUR      | 100.00    |
| 2015-07-16 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-17 | PayPal        | 15.00    | EUR      | 15.00      |
| 2015-07-17 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-23 | Deutsche Bank | 20.00    | EUR      | 20.00      |
| 2015-07-24 | PayPal        | 141.65  | NOK      | 15.35      |
+------------+---------------+----------+----------+------------+
33 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select format(sum(total_amount * exchange_rate), 2) as totals from all_donations;+----------+
| totals  |
+----------+
| 1,391.42 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

---