[gav]

The reason is that people are mad at you is that you took something that was an impromptu community thing and trademarked it[1], then seemingly ask a lot of money for sponsorship. Given that the site exists for promotion only, people are going to think you've co-opted the ideas of others to make a lot of money for yourself.

The "right" way to have done this would be to form a non-profit and then be accountable for the money raised, however I don't really see the need for raising money where the only cost is a simple website. The commercialization is what leaves a bad taste.

[1] http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:dn...

[pinwale]

I'm really sorry about everything, but I do want to say the virtually all of the work and promotion was done by me and my friend in the beginning three years ago. (I'm hesitant to bring my friend's name in this thread even though he is an awesome designer/dev who just graduated from highschool and deserves to be recognized. Email me if you like his stuff!)

I learned my lesson. I don't know too much about legal stuff so I'll look into making non-profit. I didn't want to ask for money from people and companies were asking for sponsor World Backup Day. I thought was a nice gesture. Last year, I had a link to bone marrow registry and even had tied the message of being a "backup for a human" to get people to sign up for the registry. I wanted to do something this year, but we ran out of time to settle & create graphics for another cause.

I just wanted it to be a happy and helpful event before April Fool's Day. That is all.