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From: Jonathan Porta <rurd4me@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:54:04 -0700
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 <CAAaQNX-XdL4ByTKaoUOROsuafGQsK3pJCezvCOQRFXL7_giLvg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Couchbase trademark issues
To: dev@couchdb.apache.org
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I know that I am new around here, but, I will still hand out my
opinion, which is not legal advice. :)

CouchDB is a brand, just like Apple, Google and countless others.  If
you a person is involved with the project, it is likely that the
branding is not going to strongly influence their decisions to use or
not use the product.

If, however, a person lacks any pre-existing relationship with a
brand, that individual is going to be greatly influenced by the
presence of similar/confusing brands in the marketplace.  Arguably,
this causes immeasurable harm to a brand's image as well as it's
adoption in the community.

Great software like CouchDB exists to be shared and adopted by others.
 Anything that, intentionally or unintentionally, limits those
abilities is quite harmful to the project.

It seems like Couchbase is eliminating some of the confusion by
consolidating their product line.  I would be interested to see what
legal has to say about it.  It would also be a good idea to see what
can be done in conjunction with Couchbase to help eliminate these
issues.  They publicly acknowledged the confusion [1], so, they may be
willing to work on a solution.

[1] http://blog.couchbase.com/couchbase-2011-year-review

Jonathan Porta

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 10:54 AM, Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan@ochtman.nl>wrote:
>
>> +1, but we/you should probably try to be non-confrontational about it.
>>
>
> Just to clarify, based on this, and some off-list feedback. I'm not asking
> for legal advice, that's what the legal list is for. They very well may
> turn around and say that we have not a leg to stand on.
>
> I was asking what other people feel about the issue at hand. There is
> obviously an issue. But how important is it and what should we do about it?
> Is it a short-term problem? If that's the case, community and good-will
> might be our tool. Or is it a long-term problem? In which case, we might
> want to consider other, more direct, measures.