The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
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Re: "Social Contract" [anti-trust]

dwarf@polaris.net (Dale Scheetz)  wrote on 27.06.97 in <Pine.LNX.3.95.970627121254.21670B-100000@dwarf.polaris.net>:

> On Thu, 26 Jun 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
> > From: Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>
> > > The use of Debian as a starting
> > > oint for other distributions is only useful if the other distribution
> > > can dvertise that it is using Debian.
> >
> > My intent so far has been to restrict the words "Official" and "Debian"
> > together in a product name to be used only for exactly that data which
> > Debian releases as its official CD set, and only for the complete set,
> > not for the binary CD without source.
>
> Then we should probably trademark "Official Debian".

Naw. Trademark Debian. Official Debian is a specific usage of Debian. So  
are all the other uses discussed here.

> > In addition, I would restrict the use of the "Debian" trademark in
> > certain malice-aforethought situations such as insertion of viruses,
> > time-bombs, deliberate damage to the system with intent to defame,
> > etc. It's a lot easier to get damages for a trademark violation than
> > it is for libelous action.
> >
> The problem is that what your intended use of the trademark is selective,
> that is, you would not apply the trademark restrictions in every case
> where the law would apply. The courts do not support "selective
> enforcement". In fact I think there is something in the constitution about
> the "uniform application" of the law. (equal justice?)

Huh? Where do you get that?

No, we simply give explicit permissions (the kind without needing written  
permission, preferrably) to some uses. All others are automatically  
illegal.

As to enforcement, we can provide an address where to report any misuse,  
and then we can determine if it really is misuse, and then we can tell  
them not to do it, and if that's still not enough, then we can sic the  
lawyers on them.

Actually, that's pretty much standard practice wrt trademarks as I  
understand it (remember, IANAL).

> While I agree that we need to protect the name, I'm just not sure that a
> trademark is the way to do it.

I'm not sure there actually is any other way. A trademark is what you use  
to protect names, just like a copyright is what you use to protect  
contents.

And I've never heard anyone (except you, that is) claim that you need to  
disallow anything that the law does not already allow. We just need to  
make clear what we allow.

Just because the law allows you to keep everybody out of your house  
(unless a judge says otherwise), does not mean that you have to actually  
keep everybody out just to keep your house.

The usual cause for losing trademark protection is not going after people  
who use it in a way you have not allowed, even after learning about it.  
Solution: explicitely allow everything you don't want to go after people  
for.

MfG Kai


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