grokys · September 22, 2015 22:01
diff --git a/foo.txt b/foo.txt
 Caveat all this with two important things. 1) I’m not a lawyer and 2) I get paid by Microsoft and therefore by definition suck at naming things ;-)
 
 Folks that are supported by the .NET Foundation do indeed get to have conversations with real lawyers if need be (including access to trademark specialists etc). We have access to some amazing folks that I actually even like to hang out with for beers (high praise indeed when talking about a lawyer!!)  Those folks could definitely advise you on the intricacies of the UK trademark and how applicable it may or may not be based on the area if ICI where ever to notice and come ask you to change.
 
 However, this one reminds me a lot of a project I used to be involved in that was called Mylar but became Mylyn because of similar trademark issues (http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/rename.php).  My personal advice as an engineer trying to get work done is to avoid such arguments as much as is easily possible. If Plexiglas takes off (which would be awesome) then it would be a real shame to have to rename after lots of people have heard about the project and have to re-earn all that Google juice etc. It might make sense to go with a non-trademarked name that had similar connotations now rather than risk refactoring later. ICI have a lot of brands and so the odds of them noticing and asking you to change are non-trivial.
 
 FYI, the way I’ve seen those types of things play out in the past is:
 
 1.       Team use name for years without even realizing and the trademark holder not noticing. Sometimes they never notice.

 2.       Trademark holder notices. At this point, the common view is that they have to act to defend their name or they risk being able to use it. (No idea if that is actually true or not, it’s just what people who like to watch Perry Mason say when they are being armchair trademark attorneys – probably a gross simplification at least but let’s go with it for now as they key is that the company in question is usually not deliberately being evil, they are just trying to protect their assets and stop their customers getting confused)

 3.       Team gets a nice letter from someone asking if they wouldn’t mind changing the name to avoid confusion. People usually do that as most people are generally nice and don’t want to confuse people and they don’t want and hassle, but sometimes they ignore it or dispute in in which case:

 4.       Team get a nasty letter that get progressively more aggressive and start involving more people. Lawyers are good at bullying so they try that first as it’s cheap. This is where is can get very ugly as an individual – always better having a lawyer to open the mail on those types of letters at this point otherwise you just loose unnecessary sleep for no good reason. Usually at this point your lawyers helps you weigh up the pros and cons of going further and decide it’s cheaper just to change your name. But sometimes you decide to fight:

 5.       They end up taking legal action in some part of the world usually the place most convenient to the person complaining

 6.       Both sides settle and either the name is changed, some money changes hands or you agree to a defined boundary. Usually a combination of those. Or in very rare cases a judge somewhere tells one of you to change the name or sets boundaries for you if you cannot agree.

 
 The advantage of being in a foundation like the .NET Foundation (but really most software foundations have legal services of some kind) is that it gives the project some protection from random and spurious lawsuits or stealing stuff from the community but also by following the framework from the foundation you usually avoid going places that are likely to get complicated. But in the case of something like this it’s highly likely if they ever complained then you would probably just change your project name because you are also a nice person and want to focus your efforts on using your spare time to get your project out the door.
 
 So really it’s a refactoring question. Do you want to refactor early before it’s an issue (i.e. change the name now before anyone complains) or take on the technical debt and refactor it if and when it becomes an issue which might well never happen.   Typical advice from the foundation would be to avoid known trademarked names and also to check if the name collides with other open source projects that might cause confusion. We also like to make sure the project knows what similar OSS projects exist around that space (if any) and have a clear understanding about what it is makes theirs different.
 
 Sorry that was a long-winded answer – hope it helps. But basically it’s your project so do what you want for now, but if you are starting to worry then the easiest way to get rid of that niggle of concern is to change you name to something else you like but equally at the moment doesn’t sound like you need rush in to it so pick a name that you can live with.
 
 Many thanks,
 
 Martin.
	Caveat all this with two important things. 1) I’m not a lawyer and 2) I get paid by Microsoft and therefore by definition suck at naming things ;-)

	Folks that are supported by the .NET Foundation do indeed get to have conversations with real lawyers if need be (including access to trademark specialists etc). We have access to some amazing folks that I actually even like to hang out with for beers (high praise indeed when talking about a lawyer!!) Those folks could definitely advise you on the intricacies of the UK trademark and how applicable it may or may not be based on the area if ICI where ever to notice and come ask you to change.

	However, this one reminds me a lot of a project I used to be involved in that was called Mylar but became Mylyn because of similar trademark issues (http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/rename.php). My personal advice as an engineer trying to get work done is to avoid such arguments as much as is easily possible. If Plexiglas takes off (which would be awesome) then it would be a real shame to have to rename after lots of people have heard about the project and have to re-earn all that Google juice etc. It might make sense to go with a non-trademarked name that had similar connotations now rather than risk refactoring later. ICI have a lot of brands and so the odds of them noticing and asking you to change are non-trivial.

	FYI, the way I’ve seen those types of things play out in the past is:

	1. Team use name for years without even realizing and the trademark holder not noticing. Sometimes they never notice.

	2. Trademark holder notices. At this point, the common view is that they have to act to defend their name or they risk being able to use it. (No idea if that is actually true or not, it’s just what people who like to watch Perry Mason say when they are being armchair trademark attorneys – probably a gross simplification at least but let’s go with it for now as they key is that the company in question is usually not deliberately being evil, they are just trying to protect their assets and stop their customers getting confused)

	3. Team gets a nice letter from someone asking if they wouldn’t mind changing the name to avoid confusion. People usually do that as most people are generally nice and don’t want to confuse people and they don’t want and hassle, but sometimes they ignore it or dispute in in which case:

	4. Team get a nasty letter that get progressively more aggressive and start involving more people. Lawyers are good at bullying so they try that first as it’s cheap. This is where is can get very ugly as an individual – always better having a lawyer to open the mail on those types of letters at this point otherwise you just loose unnecessary sleep for no good reason. Usually at this point your lawyers helps you weigh up the pros and cons of going further and decide it’s cheaper just to change your name. But sometimes you decide to fight:

	5. They end up taking legal action in some part of the world usually the place most convenient to the person complaining

	6. Both sides settle and either the name is changed, some money changes hands or you agree to a defined boundary. Usually a combination of those. Or in very rare cases a judge somewhere tells one of you to change the name or sets boundaries for you if you cannot agree.


	The advantage of being in a foundation like the .NET Foundation (but really most software foundations have legal services of some kind) is that it gives the project some protection from random and spurious lawsuits or stealing stuff from the community but also by following the framework from the foundation you usually avoid going places that are likely to get complicated. But in the case of something like this it’s highly likely if they ever complained then you would probably just change your project name because you are also a nice person and want to focus your efforts on using your spare time to get your project out the door.

	So really it’s a refactoring question. Do you want to refactor early before it’s an issue (i.e. change the name now before anyone complains) or take on the technical debt and refactor it if and when it becomes an issue which might well never happen. Typical advice from the foundation would be to avoid known trademarked names and also to check if the name collides with other open source projects that might cause confusion. We also like to make sure the project knows what similar OSS projects exist around that space (if any) and have a clear understanding about what it is makes theirs different.

	Sorry that was a long-winded answer – hope it helps. But basically it’s your project so do what you want for now, but if you are starting to worry then the easiest way to get rid of that niggle of concern is to change you name to something else you like but equally at the moment doesn’t sound like you need rush in to it so pick a name that you can live with.

	Many thanks,

	Martin.