[kevingadd]

Did Microsoft ever go in hard on trademark enforcement like Apple has always done with its logo and brand? I guess it's unavoidable to a degree given how generic the 'Apple' name and associated iconography are, but I'm having trouble thinking of MS equivalents other than the 'mike rowe' stuff.

[Zenst]

Maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com....

[diego_moita]

The toolkit wxWidgets[0] was previously called wxWindows. Microsoft bribed them to change name. Ironically that's what sustained the project for a long time.

[0] http://wxwidgets.org/

[VZ]

Wow, you have some interesting sources (care to share them?). Microsoft _forced_ us to change the name, threatening unspecified but dire legal consequences if we didn't. They have never sustained anything at all.

[diego_moita]

> you have some interesting sources (care to share them?)

The wxWidgets site explains what I wrote: https://wxwidgets.org/about/name-change/

It doesn't say anything about _forced_ and does mention explicitly a financial compensation used to sustain the project.

[VZ]

I've completely forgotten about this page of the site, but it's nothing but polite fiction. We didn't really have any choice in the matter, it was that or be dragged in court by Microsoft lawyers and after spending some of my own money (and I was a student back then, so it wasn't a small amount for me) on a consultation, I was told in no uncertain terms that this wouldn't result in a good outcome irrespectively of whether we could use "wxWindows" as the name or not.

As for "modest financial compensation", it was really modest and was meant to compensate for registrar fees/changing hosting/stuff like that. It was a couple of thousands at most, I think, nowhere near enough to sustain anything for any period of time.

[hluska]

Good reply!! :)

[hluska]

You could have made this exact point in a far more friendly way and earned friends/supporters. This type of reply merely makes me want to avoid everything you’re involved in.

[VZ]

Sorry, but it was really surprising to see such an account of events. Just in case it's not obvious, and I realize that not everybody had a chance to be confronted by a giant corporation legal department in their lives, this was a rather traumatic experience and the original comment looked like revisionist history to me.

But yes, sure, I should have just let it pass instead of getting riled by someone being wrong on the Internet...

[hluska]

Honestly friend, when your own site was the original source, I think you’ve either got to change the site or accept that others will use it as a source. It’s not so much about us being ignorant as it is about us acting in good faith and trusting authoritative sources. When we can’t trust authoritative sources without being called out, the whole trust based nature of the web suffers.

I have a good sense of how traumatic that was. Hell, a previous bit of my hacktivism raised the ire of my city and lead to threats to throw one of my closest people in jail. So, I understand the feeling of trauma. If you ever need to talk about how trauma lingers, my email is on my profile. Please use it if you’d like to talk about shit with zero judgment.