Never ever use word BitKeeper if Larry does not like you

Pavel Machek
2003-03-14T10:40:46Z

Hi!

Never ever use word KitBeeper, Larry thinks he owns the world.

The page originally said "Goal of this project is to create version
managment system compatible with <prohibited word>".

Pavel

PS: I know forwarding personal message to the mailing list is not
polite, but this is more of legal threat than personal message...

PPS: About Toyota: I may not be able to call my company Toyota (if you
have registered trademark in czech republic, which I doubt), but I'm
sure able to say that my car contains same engine as Toyota
1234cdt. And as you named directory in the repository BitKeeper,
there's no chance not to mention it.

----- Forwarded message from Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> -----

Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 20:21:54 -0800
From: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
To: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
Cc: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i

> Sorry, but I'm doing this on my own, this has nothing to do with SuSE.

That's fine, I've taken it up with the sourceforge people. What you
are doing is a violation of their terms of use and they'll get you
to fix it, I don't care who fixes it, I want absolutely no reference
to anything which can connect that work with BitKeeper. That's well
with in our legal rights.

As for it being on your own time, let's see if SuSE wants the negative
publicity. I'm quite willing to make a stink, you've annoyed me and
I've put up with as much as I'm going to.

> I believe the wording above is okay; if you miss "BitKeeper is
> trademark of BitMover" notice, I guess you can have that too. If you
> want your lawyer to call me, my cellphone is +XXXXXXXXXXXX; if you
> want to suggest alternate wording, just do that. But I believe saying
> "compatible with (something)" is okay, and I can allways just misspell
> it.

No, you can't. Check into the case law. If there is any way to connect
it to our product, it is within our rights to protect our brand. You
can't call your new car company Toyotaa either, Toyota can sue and will
if they think it infringes on their brand.

You are quite welcome to write your own SCM. You may not take advantage
of our work, check into the law.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm

----- End forwarded message -----

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