[HN Gopher] Trademark Actions Against the PostgreSQL Community
___________________________________________________________________
Trademark Actions Against the PostgreSQL Community
Author : alch-
Score : 242 points
Date : 2021-09-13 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.postgresql.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.postgresql.org)
| foobarbazetc wrote:
| There's literally no way any of the filed trademarks will be
| granted if the core team files opposition.
|
| Don't waste your time "negotiating".
| foobarbazetc wrote:
| Also, the core team should use their Canadian (or whichever
| country they have earliest file date in) to file for a
| WIPO/Madrid mark.
| ryanisnan wrote:
| I hope you're right. This fella seems a bit like a trademark
| troll.
| remram wrote:
| Why does this happen? What's the point of trademarks existing at
| all, if you have to fight for it every time someone makes a claim
| to it? What's the point of registration if the same trademark
| will be awarded again without regard to existing trademarks in
| the same region?
| jpalomaki wrote:
| In general you are responsible for defending your trademarks
| and taking action if they are violated.
|
| In non-obvious cases this makes perfect sense. There's plenty
| of abandoned trademarks. This system means that you can't just
| take old and forgotten trademark and start suddenly demanding
| money from companies that (unknowingly) infringe it.
|
| I believe this is also the reason why big name brands sometimes
| go after individuals for trademark violations.
| remram wrote:
| It looks like a trademark has already registered in Spain to
| that different organization, even though there were existing
| trademark registrations and an organization (PGCAC) actively
| looking to defend it.
|
| Unless the PGCAC majorly messed up some process or didn't
| respond in time to inquiries from Spain officials, it looks
| to me like the system (at least in Spain?) does not work.
| robocat wrote:
| Here is the full response from Alvaro Hernandez at Fundacion
| PostgreSQL:
|
| https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-post...
|
| as referred to by Alvaro's (hn user ahachete's) comment
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514523
|
| I am repeating the link because ahachete was getting downvoted
| here and he also started a new thread instead of continuing this
| one.
| ahachete wrote:
| My bad. Thanks.
| [deleted]
| matsemann wrote:
| What's the end game of the Spanish org? What are they trying to
| achieve with this?
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Getting a foothold. Spain doesn't operate on the same level as
| other European countries when it comes to some things, banking
| and trademarks would be two good examples of this.
| happy_path wrote:
| I'm afraid that It's just a guy with grandeur delusions.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Perhaps for legal reasons it is important to show willingness to
| negotiate .. but really, a land-grab like this gets "we hope we
| can be friends" response ?
|
| "The PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC still hope for an amicable
| resolution" ..
| clra wrote:
| It's worth noting that (from the article) the offender in this
| case isn't some gigantic organization like Amazon -- it's
| basically one guy, and one who considers himself to be a member
| in good standing whose part of the Postgres community.
|
| I'd hazard a guess that by taking this public, the Postgres
| team is trying to create some pressure on him through public
| opinion in the hope that he sees reason and it doesn't have to
| become a long and arduous legal battle which benefits no one.
|
| And it really shouldn't have to. It's not clear what Alvaro's
| actual motives are in trying to usurp the Postgres trademark --
| it _could_ be some cynical profiteering thing, but hopefully it
| was just some momentary hubris that can still be walked back
| and resolved amicably.
| eloff wrote:
| Yeah, I'm guessing this is just an ego thing that got out of
| hand. Hopefully he comes around before both sides waste a lot
| of resources in court.
| beckler wrote:
| Getting some arduino.cc vs arduino.org vibes here.
| price wrote:
| That's not an offer to give ground to them in any material way.
| The next sentence says "the PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC will
| pursue all options until" the land-grabbing group surrenders
| all their land-grab claims.
|
| That's just saying: we hope they'll recognize that what they're
| doing doesn't make any sense, and give it up rather than pursue
| a fight all the way through the legal process.
| lm2s wrote:
| I think it just means "outside of court".
| Loic wrote:
| It shows the benevolence of the PostgreSQL Community(TM) ;-)
|
| I think this is the _morally_ right way to handle the issue.
| This way they also accumulate good-will if they need to take
| stronger legal actions. I like it.
| tempest_ wrote:
| _In the spirit of the open source movement, the PostgreSQL
| community has always tried to operate transparently and fairly,
| and provide resources for people to adopt, use, and promote
| PostgreSQL. We continuously look to improve and are very much
| open to feedback (look no further than the discussions on our
| mailing lists)!_
|
| Perhaps I am just a little too young but I do find the use of
| mailing lists in some of the older open source projects to be a
| bit cumbersome in 2021. I know there are advantages to them and
| their semi decentralized nature is a feature but I sure do find
| them difficult to interact with.
|
| Regardless of the above I do hope they come to a amicable
| solution and it is interesting to me to find that Postgres trade
| marks are held by a Canadian entity.
| anonymousisme wrote:
| Linux has had the LKML for almost three decades. It still works
| well for them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_mailing_list
| staticassertion wrote:
| Does it? I find it really cumbersome. We were just
| interacting with it the other day and found it annoyingly
| baroque. There's a lot of assumed knowledge and I've read a
| fair bit of documentation and have been following Kernel
| development since before my career.
|
| It "works" for the people who it works for and that's it.
| emeraldd wrote:
| Ok, what would you suggest in it's place?
| staticassertion wrote:
| I don't have to suggest anything in its place. I'm just
| relaying that I've actually interacted with it for years
| and have found it cumbersome, and I don't think it's fair
| to say that it's "worked" as if it hasn't made first-
| contributions significantly harder for a lot of people.
|
| At this point I might suggest Gitlab, but I don't really
| feel like having a back and forth about what may or may
| not be ideal about that.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I don't participate in any mailing lists since at least 2008
| and I'm pretty sophisticated. What constitutes "works" is
| that they (Linux Kernel working group) have a very primitive
| forum (mailing list) wherein there is no recognized pressure
| to change. People still use HAM radio because they "work" but
| that's not the optimal way to collaborate.
|
| Give it a few more decades.
| anonymousisme wrote:
| I've used the LKML to contribute changes, and I'm also an
| amateur radio operator. I guess that makes me a fossil.
| mjw1007 wrote:
| It's a shame the PostgreSQL lists dropped off Gmane. That used
| to be a decent way to read them.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Cumbersone in what way?
| gaudat wrote:
| Worse UX to this generation of developers than say Discord or
| other IMs I guess.
| tempest_ wrote:
| I don't think discord or slack is a great alternative as it
| is very ephemeral (and not really open source /
| decentralized) but I do think interacting with a mailing
| list is worse than a threaded forum type layout.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| Discord is amazing, especially with the advanced search
| features, and now threads. An open source alternative to
| discord like the one featured on ShowHN recently would be
| ideal.
| wbl wrote:
| Email has had threading since before I was born.
| munk-a wrote:
| Email has never had explicit threading - email has a
| bunch of usage habits that many clients interpret as
| attempted threading (which often results in threads of
| steam receipts in my gmail webview FYI).
|
| There are a number of clients that are particularly good
| at respecting the specific approaches to threading used
| by mailing lists and that come with a plethora of
| powerful keyboard interactions to make browsing a whole
| bunch of emails trivial. But newer devs may be quite
| unfamiliar with those options and I don't think it's
| particularly easy information to learn... especially if
| your webmail has "just worked" for most other uses.
| staticassertion wrote:
| You've been downvoted but I believe your post is
| accurate. At least with regards to IMAP and any RFCs I've
| read myself, though I'm open to hearing from others. Much
| of email is absolutely implemented in client-side 'de-
| facto' ways.
|
| edit: I see now in the RFC that there is a description.
| euank wrote:
| > Email has never had explicit threading
|
| The "In-Reply-To" header is described in rfc2822. It is
| an explicit header in the RFC that is how you create
| threads.
|
| Every mail client I've used correctly understands how to
| thread reply-chains using In-Reply-To.
|
| The thing you're talking about, steam receipts grouping,
| is not a feature of email, but a specific feature of
| gmail's web view which is not mandated by any RFC and
| indeed is not explicit threading...
|
| But there is a real way to thread which is defined in the
| RFC, and if you use a reasonable email client (aka not
| gmail), every mailing list's threading will work for you.
| [deleted]
| elzbardico wrote:
| Let me say that I am honestly curious too.
| tempest_ wrote:
| Perhaps I am alone is this (based on the votes) but when I go
| to https://www.postgresql.org/list/ it requires a great deal
| of clicking to drill down and lets say I eventually end up
| some where like https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-
| general/2021-09/ I am greeted with a lot "Re:" "No subject"
| etc.
|
| Perhaps what is comes down to is I am trying to interact with
| a mailing list using a browser which is perhaps unfair. I
| would say that discovering what is being talked about and the
| barriers to entry for subscribing/unsubscribing provide way
| more friction then, lets say a subreddit or even a more
| classical forum layout.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| So the downvotes on your perfectly legitimate comment are
| absurd, but here we are.
|
| To get technical, the problem that you're having isn't that
| interacting with mailing lists is cumbersome, but rather,
| interacting with mailing list _archives_ is cumbersome. You
| 're not wrong. Web interfaces for mailing list archives
| haven't really changed in yonks, and there's little
| incentive to do so. The only people who use the archives
| are the people who explicitly do not interact with the list
| itself.
|
| The people who actually use mailing lists, are members of
| the list itself, and receive the messages in their mailbox.
| From that point onwards, their interaction with the mailing
| list is only as cumbersome as their Mail User Agent (email
| client, MUA). Using a decent MUA that supports threading is
| step one to having an enjoyable experience with a mailing
| list.
|
| Unfortunately, in 2021, we've regressed from a world where
| we have depth of options where it comes to MUAs, to where
| we are now where the vast majority use webmail solutions
| exclusively. Webmail has definitely improved since the 90s
| and 00s, but unfortunately not every feature has come along
| for the ride, making that also tricky.
|
| As far as the barriers to entry go, thats subjective.
| Subscribing to a subreddit requires creating a reddit
| account. Subscribing to most forums requires signing up
| with an email address, password, possibly username as well,
| along with other biographical details (optional in some
| cases), and validating your email is real. Subscribing to a
| mailing list requires signing up with an email address and
| validating your email is real.
|
| Anything you're not used to using, is always going to feel
| more cumbersome. If "happy mailman day" doesn't mean
| anything to you, you probably haven't had much experience
| with mailing lists (or have, but much more recent).
| tempest_ wrote:
| That feels like a totally fair assessment.
|
| I guess I would say that mailing lists favor producers
| over consumers.
|
| Often when I am looking at a mailing list it is for the
| same reason I am poking through a GitHub issue. I am
| looking for someone who had a similar problem and maybe
| someone else had a solution.
|
| Thus I think I am largely a consumer.
|
| As a consumer I dont often think, let me go to my email
| client. My email client is where I get bills and
| notifications and some personal correspondence. It is
| definitely not where I go when I am looking to consume.
|
| I would disagree that it is as easy as just signing up
| with an email. I have to set up filters etc and shift to
| an entirely different client after I sign up the entering
| an email address is just the first step.
|
| I feel that for people who are core developers email
| lists are probably great. They are essentially looking to
| communicate with only a few people and the topics are
| quite specific. Where they fail me is they make it harder
| to convert a consumer to a producer. For all the problems
| I have with OSS's seemingly centralization on Github I am
| far more likely to drop into some random Github issue
| than I am to join a mailing list.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I guess I would say that mailing lists favor producers
| over consumers.
|
| It favors insiders and temporal information, but there's
| no bias on the producers vs. consumers dimension.
| Unfortunately, you are an outsider trying to access old
| information, so you are severely disfavored here. A
| subredit is slightly less biased against outsiders but is
| much more heavily biased against old information.
|
| If you can structure your information it is almost always
| better in another format, but there is always something
| that can't.
| dr_zoidberg wrote:
| How about an interface like GitHub issues? Do you feel
| that strikes a balance between consumers/producers for
| this kind of discussions?
|
| Edit: I think you updated your comment while I replied
| (or maybe I just hit reply without seing the last part of
| your comment). I see now that you've mentioned GitHub
| issues, which is a kind of interface that I've seen get a
| better balance, but I'm not sure how it stands from a
| producor pov against a mailing list (decentralization is
| obviously lacking on them).
| yxhuvud wrote:
| GH issues does not fan out into contextual threads. That
| makes it a nonstarter.
| cobertos wrote:
| Is there a good primer on how exactly to even use a
| mailing list in an efficient way? I always thought the
| entry point was through the archives, but I guess that's
| not correct?
| mbreese wrote:
| I think you're missing the major aspect of mailing lists
| that is why they are used for projects like Postgres or
| Linux: transparency. (at least when the lists are also
| archived, which is a different issue).
|
| Mailing lists lets the future user see the decision
| making process unfold throughout a thread. These
| interactions can be archived and searched. Most users
| don't interact with these mailing lists in realtime
| through an MUA. They search an archive to find the
| appropriate thread. And critically -- anyone on the list
| can build the archive. It doesn't require any special
| infrastructure on behalf of the list owners.
|
| It can be cumbersome, but it's also robust. Imagine if
| the history was only present in bugzilla, Jira, GitHub
| issues, or a forum? Bug trackers aren't always the best
| way to work through a brand-new API design. Email back
| and forth with collaborators on the other hand...
|
| Also -- mailing list archives are also ridiculously easy
| to index in a search engine. Data stored in bug trackers
| aren't always as simple...
| spinax wrote:
| This group attempted to register the trademark by extension to
| the USPTO and was denied for several reasons. Reason #2 for the
| denial was "Likelihood of Confusion" and points at the existing
| PostgreSQL trademark on file.
|
| https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM....
| -> Real-time Status and then -> Documents -> United States of
| America -> (PDF link)
| https://madrid.wipo.int/documentaccess/documentAccess?docid=...
| kylecordes wrote:
| I wonder why the pre-existing core PostgreSQL organization (not
| super-clear to me which this is) did already have these
| trademarks in the top handful of countries/jurisdictions. Rather
| than wait for someone else to try and then get in a potentially
| expensive fight. PostgreSQL has been around for 25 years, there
| has been ample time to figure that out, right?
| Macha wrote:
| Sounds like in the US at least they _do_ have trademarks, the
| other organisations filing was declined by the PTO because of
| the existing mark, see the documents linked in this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513942
| throwthere wrote:
| Alvaro Hernandez here apparently runs a PostgreSQL consulting
| firm [1] and controls "Fundacion PostgreSQL." Would Fundacion
| PostgreSQL have the power to grant exclusive use of the trademark
| to the consulting firm?
|
| [1] https://ongres.com/about-us/#team
| ahachete wrote:
| Fundacion PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit
| organization not tied to any company or any other institution.
| Its governing board cannot have more than 40% members of the
| same company. Please go to https://postgresql.fund/ and read
| the Statutes.
|
| Actually, a "Fundacion" in Spain is an entity specially
| scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice, and could never to
| anything like this. It is meant to be for the public good.
|
| Besides, this very same question could have been applied to the
| Core Team members that are employees of EDB and/or Crunchy, two
| entities that control the majority of Core. And Core is not
| even a non-profit, it's nothing (there's no legal entity
| behind). Or the PostgreSQL Association of Canada, which is an
| association which could definitely grant exclusive trademark
| use to a given entity, as it is not scrutinized by a country's
| Ministry, as a Fundacion in Spain is.
| lol768 wrote:
| Can you please make your affiliation with Fundacion
| PostgreSQL clear in both your bio and a disclaimer in the
| comments you write here? Thanks.
| ahachete wrote:
| Sure. Fundacion PostgreSQL co-founder and current
| President.
| petergeoghegan wrote:
| > Fundacion PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit
| organization not tied to any company or any other
| institution.
|
| What about private individuals? Specifically, you?
|
| Quoting the charter here:
| https://postgresql.fund/documents/Fundacion_PostgreSQL-
| Statu...:
|
| """ Article 13. Honorary Members. ... 2. The Founder, Mr.
| Alvaro Carlos Hernandez Tortosa, is Honorary Life Member as
| the Honorary President of the Foundation, appointment that is
| not incompatible with any other post at the Foundation or the
| Patronage. He can assist the Patronage acts with voice. He
| doesn't have the right to vote, unless his status of elected
| or founding Member of the Patronage applies. """
|
| It goes on to say:
|
| """ Article 15. Duties of the Patronage. During its
| performance, the Patronage must comply with the required
| under current legislation and the willingness of the Founder
| expressed in this Statutes. """
|
| I have to admit that this document is above my reading
| comprehension level. What does this actually mean?
| ahachete wrote:
| In Spain, a Foundation is a very strong legal entity
| scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice. This means, among
| other things, that:
|
| * Every action of its board is supervised by the Ministry
| of Justice. * No action or change to the status can go
| against the initial will (which is part of the Estatutes,
| in particular Articles 3 and 4). Even if anyone would try
| to change them, they could only be done in a way that
| respects them. This is what is called "the founder's will".
|
| So it's a very protective non-profit, which always needs to
| serve the public good and the founder's wills, which are
| Articles 3 and 4. And there's even public supervision for
| this.
|
| We believed this form of a non-profit is much stronger and
| better to protect a Community like Postgres from potential
| rogue actors.
|
| As an aside, we contemplate honorary (non-voting) members.
| We believe is a good thing. I'd also propose the same for
| Core --I believe at least Bruce Momjian should be named as
| such.
| petergeoghegan wrote:
| > This is what is called "the founder's will".
|
| Just to be clear: you're saying that "the founder's will"
| should _not_ be interpreted as meaning "what Alvaro
| Carlos Hernandez Tortosa [the founder for life] decides"?
| ahachete wrote:
| No, the Founder's are the Founding members (5).
|
| In any case, read the will: Article's 3 and 4. Do you
| disagree with them? Do you think they are bad for
| Postgres, or good?
|
| Do you support that will?
|
| Because if so, this will is a powerful asset of this NPO,
| as it cannot be (significantly) changed. However, Core's
| will, as well as PEU and PAC's will, could be changed in
| a way that would go against Postgres.
| jarcane wrote:
| > _In Spain, a Foundation is a very strong legal entity
| scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice._
|
| And US corporations are also "legal entities scrutinized
| by" the DOJ and the SEC.
|
| Look how well that works. The fact that people can sue
| you if they have enough money does not really make this
| any more trustworthy than anything else.
|
| It feels an awful lot like you are throwing around terms
| like a smokescreen and hoping people don't understand
| Spanish law well enough to confront you about it.
| petergeoghegan wrote:
| > No, the Founder's are the Founding members (5).
|
| The document says:
|
| "The Founder [singular], Mr. Alvaro Carlos Hernandez
| Tortosa, is Honorary Life Member..."
|
| It goes on to say:
|
| "...the willingness of the Founder [singular] expressed
| in this Statutes"
|
| See why I'm connecting the two sentences?
|
| Don't you think that this choice of words is, at the very
| least, confusing? Maybe you should issue a clarification
| on your blog. Perhaps it's all just a misunderstanding.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| Please don't pretend you're not doing this in bad faith.
| Trying to make the existing Postgres team look like the bad
| guys is embarrassing. You're doing this for your own profit,
| that much is clear.
| mattashii wrote:
| > Fundacion PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit
| organization not tied to any company or any other
| institution.
|
| I think that it is highly dubious that a foundation that
| claims to be independent (from the PostgreSQL project, I
| suppose), with no ties to any other PostgreSQL community
| foundations and/or associations ("company or institution"),
| claims "PostgreSQL" or derivatives of the brand as its
| trademark.
|
| I could not find any reason to believe that the organization
| behind postgresql.fund is in any way affiliated with the
| PostgreSQL project, as I could not find it mentioned on any
| of the official affiliations pages (has no mailing list,
| events, IRC, LUG mention, nor a link in the international
| sites section). I repeat, I believe that postgresql.fund
| claiming ownership of the PostgreSQL brand (or basic
| derivatives thereof) in any category is highly dubious.
| rhaas wrote:
| The only name I can find on the "Fundacion PostgreSQL" web
| site is yours. The PostgreSQL core team membership is listed
| on postgresql.org and includes 7 members from 4 different
| companies. I agree that perhaps the PostgreSQL core team
| could and should have more diversity than it does, and not
| just in terms of who employs them ... but an organization
| with only one publicly-disclosed member is not somehow
| better.
| ahachete wrote:
| I agree that we need to enhance the website and give more
| visibility to the people behind the foundation. We will do
| so shortly.
|
| Yet this is public (as in the public registries).
|
| Please contact us if you want further information.
| Jare wrote:
| Just post the list here to get the ball rolling?
| ahachete wrote:
| Ruben J. Bravo, Manuel Argiz, Cesar Calvo Pinilla,
| Alberto Picon and myself.
| rhaas wrote:
| I have been a PostgreSQL hacker since 2008 and a
| PostgreSQL user for many years before that. The first
| mention of my name in the PostgreSQL commit log is in
| 2003, and the first version of PostgreSQL that I used was
| 7.something; it couldn't drop columns yet.
|
| Now that doesn't mean that I know every person who does
| good work on behalf of PostgreSQL, but it does mean that
| I expect to recognize the names of most people who have
| been involved in the project to a significant degree. And
| the only one of those names I recognize is yours.
|
| I tried a quick Google search of each name with
| "site:postgresql.org" and the only one of those names
| that gets any hits is, again, yours. That means that, as
| far as Google knows, not a single one of those people has
| posted even a single message to any PostgreSQL mailing
| list ever. Needless to say, that's not close to true for
| any current member of the PostgreSQL core team, or a vast
| number of people who are not on the core team but who are
| involved in the project to greater or lesser extents.
|
| It is true that the PostgreSQL community is distributed,
| and not everything happens or is required to happen on
| postgresql.org. But I think it is nevertheless extremely
| difficult to argue that a group of people who have never
| posted there even once are a more legitimate group to be
| in charge of PostgreSQL's trademarks than the PostgreSQL
| core team.
| ahachete wrote:
| Postgres is not only about code. It's a Community.
| Contributions are more than code.
|
| We value team membership by their abilities, and values.
| Those may prove better at building Community that C
| programming ability.
|
| Yet you are wrong when you state that Core Team holds
| trademarks. Core is not even a legal entity (the main
| mistake that I've been voicing for years; it should).
|
| Instead, there's a "loosely associated" association in
| Canada (PAC), with a governing board as opaque as Core,
| that holds the trademarks. Let's even assume this is OK.
|
| But then, PEU (https://www.postgresql.eu/) also holds
| trademarks! Why? Is PEU an "official" association in any
| way? (if so, there should be a process and rules to
| become official, but there aren't).
|
| So if Core (read: PAC) is the only one who should hold
| the trademarks, why is not Core/PAC also suing and
| publicly bashing against PEU? What makes PEU special?
| What makes _legally_ PEU different from other Postgres
| NPOs?
|
| I've been asking this question for years, including many
| times during this "debate" with Core/PEU/PAC about the
| trademarks. No answer.
| mattashii wrote:
| > (if so, there should be a process and rules to become
| official, but there aren't)
|
| I'm not 100% sure, but you seem to be looking for
| https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/npos/ ?
|
| Those organizations are then in turn listed at
| https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/
| ahachete wrote:
| No, I mean the "rules" that would enable a NPO to be able
| to hold IP for the project. There are no rules for that,
| yet PostgreSQL Europe holds trademarks and domain names
| for the PostgreSQL project.
|
| And nobody has asked them, neither sued them, for this.
| Indeed, PostgreSQL Europe joined together with Canada to
| sue Fundacion.
|
| But PostgreSQL Europe is no different from Fundacion:
| just a Postgres NPO.
| clra wrote:
| Just to play devil's advocate -- OOC, what do you think the end
| game for Alvaro would be under this scenario?
|
| Under the most cynical interpretation, I guess he'd convert
| Ongres from a Postgres consultancy to a trademark troll and sue
| other companies who try to use "Postgres"? Maybe, but that's a
| pretty serious professional change, and seems a little
| unlikely, especially given that's a considerable chance that he
| loses the trademark again if it does end up in court.
|
| For my money, the most likely explanation is that it was a land
| grab move for prestige purposes that went too far. (And one
| which may backfire as Google ties this press release to his
| name.)
| shkkmo wrote:
| I get the impression that Alvaro has issues with the
| governance of the core team and PGCAC and thus wanted
| trademarks to protect his consultancy that were under the
| control of his non-profit which he believes has stricter
| governance. He also seems to be interested in leveraging the
| trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and
| PGCAC.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Trademark trolling is specifically the use case for this. Sue
| every sub $300k/yr company than mentions that they use
| PostgreSQL in their stack. They won't have the funds to
| defend themselves, he makes off with $10k-$30k in settlements
| and goes on to the next one until a court stops him.
| lobo_tuerto wrote:
| Looks like he likes to write articles and has been featured by
| some Postgres related Twitter accounts like PostgresWeekly
| (https://twitter.com/PostgresWeekly).
|
| This is the guy in question: https://twitter.com/ahachete
| mjw1007 wrote:
| Are OnGres or Alvaro Hernandez active in PostgreSQL development,
| or otherwise active in the community?
|
| Or have they appeared out of nowhere?
| vickychijwani wrote:
| I believe this is their HN profile, see for yourself (as
| indicated by comments from them in this thread):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ahachete
|
| Personally I'm interested in hearing more from them, as they
| don't fit the "trademark troll" description that commenters
| seem to be taking for granted here. Seeing some interesting
| discussion dynamics at play.
| ahachete wrote:
| I hope this clarifies our point:
| https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-
| post...
| shkkmo wrote:
| It seems like an necessarily combative headline that
| conflates your relatively unknown non-profit with the whole
| community.
|
| If your goal is genuinely to improve the legal and
| governence situation of the postgres community, this seems
| to be am extremely poor way of doing that.
| mbreese wrote:
| At the same time though, they aren't playing the role of good
| community citizen either. It's really confusing to see what
| the motivations are here.
|
| Why openly antagonize a community that you claim to be a part
| of and represent? I hope there is more to it, but otherwise,
| this just seems like a stunt.
|
| Surely @ahachete must realize that the Postgres Core team
| must defend their trademarks (otherwise they can be lost or
| lose protection). And either way, I just don't see the
| endgame here.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Feels a lot like the Freenode story. Still not sure what
| the endgame is/was there either, but the outcome certainly
| wasn't great for the community.
| mbreese wrote:
| I had the same thought. I don't think it's exactly the
| same story, but I think that it has the potential in the
| future. Even assuming the current parties are all
| operating with good intentions, if Postgres (proper)
| doesn't defend their trademarks, there is potential for
| risk in the future.
|
| What happens if Fundacion goes bankrupt and the assets
| (trademarks) get bought? What if they are bought by a
| non-benevolent company? Then we have the potential for
| Freenode all over again.
| xaviersierra wrote:
| In the case of Spain, if a foundation bankrupts their
| assets can only be transferred to another non profit
| organization. It's against the Spanish law for a company
| to buy a assets of a foundation
| vickychijwani wrote:
| Yes I'm a bit confused about their motivations too. Sharing
| what I've pieced together so far (and trying to approach
| this from a good-faith perspective):
|
| My understanding so far is that they run a Postgres
| consulting firm [1], and it appears they took the liberty
| of registering a Postgres trademark for the class of
| "professional services" in order to (I presume) protect
| fair use by their firm and (they claim in their response)
| by others in the Postgres community.
|
| Some of this is admittedly speculation on my part, and I'm
| trying to take a charitable view of their actions to try to
| understand why a community member would do this.
|
| That said I have no opinion on whether this action is net
| good for the community, and I'm not a Postgres user so I
| have no horse in this race. It's just the social dynamics
| of this situation that are interesting to me.
|
| [1]: https://ongres.com/about-us/#team
| ahachete wrote:
| Actually, IMHO, it's the Core team + PAC + PEU who have
| acted in bad faith.
|
| As the post states, with dates, there has never been any
| communication from them to discuss this matter. Only
| through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-
| time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were
| banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even
| with laywers present.
|
| There was no need to make all this public. This clearly
| hurts the Community.
|
| As the post says, there's no explanation to why PEU, who
| is as legit as any other non-profit Postgres association,
| including Fundacion PostgreSQL, can hold trademarks and
| not being sued and publicly bashed.
|
| If PEU can hold trademarks, why can't Fundacion?
| Conversely: if there should be one trademark holder (and
| we agree, read the proposal we submitted to them which
| got no reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more
| solid grounds than current Core's Group (which has no
| legal entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque
| association too.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> Only through laywers_
|
| Of course they will only talk via lawyers! That's what
| they have to do to make sure that all communication is
| clear, documented, and not misinterpreted (by either
| party). Once the problem escalates to be a legal dispute,
| this is the only way communication can happen.
|
| And as soon as this escalates to a lawsuit, the existence
| of the dispute will be public.
|
| _> If PEU can hold trademarks, why can't Fundacion?_
|
| No one is saying that they/you can't hold trademarks. You
| just can't register ones that would be confusing to the
| public (which is the purpose of trademarks -- to avoid
| public confusion). And honestly, even the domain name
| postgr.es is confusing.
|
| From the PostgreSQL EU website (as linked by you), these
| are their specific trademarks:
|
| _PGConf, PGDay, Postgres Conference, PostgreSQL
| Conference_
|
| These don't seem to be confusing about what the database
| itself is called, or how the project is managed. Trying
| to trademark "PostgreSQL" and "PostgreSQL Community" is
| way too confusing with respect to the primary project.
| You're basically trying to take over the global naming
| rights for the entire project. Whatever the relationship
| is between Postgres Core and PostgreSQL EU (and it is a
| bit opaque), that's not for you to judge and it has no
| bearing on what rights you feel Fundacion has to the
| trademark "Postgres" or "PostgreSQL".
|
| One reason why you're getting slammed so hard on this is
| that these have been hard learned lessons in the FOSS
| community over the past few decades. Trademarks are one
| of the few FOSS-compatible ways to protect projects,
| names, and publicity -- especially against commercial
| entities that may not have the best intentions. They must
| be defended in order to protect these projects.
|
| And I'm sorry, but the global stability of the Postgres
| project is far more important than whatever good
| intentions you had.
| ahachete wrote:
| > Once the problem escalates to be a legal dispute, this
| is the only way communication can happen.
|
| But there hasn't been any other previous communication.
| Our first notice from them, as detailed in the post, was
| from their lawyers.
|
| So there has been no attempt on their side to come to
| even an amicable conversation. I offered that --but was
| denied.
|
| > And honestly, even the domain name postgr.es is
| confusing.
|
| That domain is held by PostreSQL Europe. So according to
| your argument, they shouldn't hold it.
|
| > From the PostgreSQL EU website (as linked by you),
| these are their specific trademarks:
|
| That they are more or less confusing is something I may
| agree with. But I don't see why it may change the subject
| matter: if the agreement would be that only a single
| entity would hold them, so be it. PEU can't definitely do
| that, under no circumstance.
|
| "Funnily" enough, PEU is also one of the entities suing
| Fundacion in the courts. Indeed, on the very first
| letter, as our post mentions, they are presented with PAC
| as if they were part of the same: "in representation of
| both the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada and
| PostgreSQL Europe ("individually and collectively")".
|
| So your argument that PEU's are not confusing is not what
| is at stakes here. It is that two entities, unrelated and
| separated, want to be the steward of the trademarks in
| Postgres. And if a third one tries to help, covering some
| observed gaps, it is sued by both. That is potentially
| collusion.
|
| > And I'm sorry, but the global stability of the Postgres
| project is far more important than whatever good
| intentions you had.
|
| I agree. But then why
| https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/trademark-actions-
| agai... is posted publicly? If the matter is in the
| courts (as it is), why is it needed to bring it publicly?
| We're happy to defend ourselves in private and in the
| public if needed, but I don't see what they win by this,
| and I see how it goes against the whole Community.
|
| I'm sure you have read in our post that "The PostgreSQL
| Association of Canada; Postgres Europe; and Fundacion
| PostgreSQL will transfer, permanently and irrevocably,
| all domain names, trademarks and other IP assets to the
| new NPO. New, clear and non discretionary rules will be
| established to allow fair use of the PostgreSQL
| trademarks by any stakeholder.". So it's not that we're
| unwilling to transfer the trademarks to the "Community".
| It's just that we disagree what the governing bodies of
| that community should be, believing that the current ones
| are a great liability and need urgent reform.
|
| Of course, they don't want reform, so they chose to bash
| us publicly when the matter is in the courts. Who's
| harming the Community then? Are the trademarks currently
| registered by Fundacion not offered to the public, with
| indeed less restrictions than PAC and PEU's?
| (https://postgresql.fund/trademarks).
| petergeoghegan wrote:
| > The PostgreSQL Association of Canada; Postgres Europe;
| and Fundacion PostgreSQL will transfer...
|
| The first two organizations are almost the same thing as
| the core team, for all practical purposes (unless you're
| a lawyer, say). There is very significant overlap in
| membership. A cosy arrangement, certainly. I imagine that
| this structure was based on certain practical
| considerations. Legal advice about IP and whatnot.
|
| I have been working on Postgres (primarily as a Postgres
| backend hacker) for over a decade now. The people from
| the first two groups are friends and colleagues. There
| _are_ problems, but on the whole these people have a
| significant amount of moral authority for good reasons.
| They have at least gotten us this far.
|
| The idea that one of the first two organizations from
| your list are at risk of going rogue is _beyond_
| ludicrous. There are certainly legitimate criticisms that
| one could make about the project 's governance, but this
| isn't one of them.
|
| > It's just that we disagree what the governing bodies of
| that community should be, believing that the current ones
| are a great liability and need urgent reform.
|
| This is not reform. This is a clumsily executed power
| grab.
| ahachete wrote:
| > The first two organizations are almost the same thing
| as the core team, for all practical purposes (unless
| you're a lawyer, say). There is very significant overlap
| in membership. A cosy arrangement, certainly. I imagine
| that this structure was based on certain practical
| considerations. Legal advice about IP and whatnot.
|
| You acknowledge, yet fail to see the problem. That these
| two entities overlap so much is a very bad thing, and
| definitely a liability if things turn bad from a legal
| perspective.
|
| This is one of the issues I have been calling for reform
| for many years. I understand how things evolve; but when
| problems are recognized, then it's time to fix them.
|
| If we all agree (we do!) that a single entity should have
| all the IP for the project, that's what needs to be.
| "cosy" is not a valid reason for keeping the current
| status quo.
|
| Actually, if you read the terms how our proposal to Core,
| we're ready to hand the trademarks if a not "cosy", but a
| solid, legal structure is established. Which doesn't
| exist today. And we consider this puts the project at
| risk.
| kbenson wrote:
| > As the post states, with dates, there has never been
| any communication from them to discuss this matter. Only
| through laywers, since day 0. Even some of them, long-
| time personal friends of mine, where shut of and were
| banned to communicate even at a personal level. Not even
| with laywers present.
|
| That's sort of a nonsensical take. Of course people with
| any sort of connection to the other side would be advised
| not to speak to you without a lawyer, and not to speak
| _with_ a lawyer if they had nothing legally relevant to
| add. Your actions with regard to copyright were legal in
| nature, you should expect a legal response.
|
| I think the very valid question in this is were you
| contacted in 2020 and told to cease and desist using a
| legal trademark by the current owners, and did you fail
| to do so? If that's true, I'm not sure what defense you
| have. As I see it, the only responsible action at that
| time if you really care about the issues you raise would
| be to cease and desist and open an dialogue that is not
| subject to legal proceedings and their need to defend
| their copyright lest they lose it.
|
| > there should be one trademark holder (and we agree,
| read the proposal we submitted to them which got no
| reply!) then it should be a legal entity with more solid
| grounds than current Core's Group (which has no legal
| entity behind) or PAC, which is a quite opaque
| association too.
|
| That's not for you to decide. The correct way to go about
| that is not to make the holding entity and then try to
| surreptitiously acquire the trademark, but to have
| approached the community first. Did you approach the
| community prior to attempting to take over an aspect of
| their management and holdings, or not? If you did, what
| was the response?
| ahachete wrote:
| > The correct way to go about that is not to make the
| holding entity and then try to surreptitiously acquire
| the trademark, but to have approached the community
| first. Did you approach the community prior to attempting
| to take over an aspect of their management and holdings,
| or not? If you did, what was the response?
|
| Yes, this is the case. Indeed, many times. I have
| personally voiced many concerns about different aspects
| of the governance and workings of the Community. And in
| 2019 a very clear and significant case was raised when
| some dispute over IP (a domain name) surfaced. In this
| case, we declined used of the domain name following
| Core's request, but raised --again-- concerns over the
| governance of Postgres.
|
| The answer to all of these requests? Outright denial.
| Silence. Nada. There is no willing to change anything.
| Also one year later I voiced some of these concerns
| publicly (https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-
| modernize-postgre...). Same outcome.
|
| So yes, I have at a personal level and we have at the
| Foundation level tried everything we believed could be
| done. And we perceived trademarks are more at risk with
| PAC and PEU than us, and we saw that some were not
| registered, so we proceeded to protect them and offer
| them openly to the Postgres Community
| (https://postgresql.fund/trademarks).
|
| And as stated publicly, we're ready to transfer them to a
| single entity. It just can't be the current ones.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Fundacion PostgreSQL is a relatively new non-profit that has
| run two conferences in Ibiza (in 2019 and 2020) and is planning
| a third in 2022.
|
| The only organizers listed for conferences are all members of
| Alvaro's OnGres consulting company. There don't appear to be
| any details on the number of attendees or on who gave what
| talks.
| ahachete wrote:
| Leaving aside considerations about my person, here's Fundacion
| PostgreSQL's response and HN discussion thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514422
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
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