7 ms·

Trademark Actions Against the PostgreSQL Community

283 points by alch- 5y ago

mistrial9 5y ago
Perhaps for legal reasons it is important to show willingness to negotiate .. but really, a land-grab like this gets "we hope we can be friends" response ? "The PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC still hope for an amicable resolution" ..
- lm2s 5y ago
  I think it just means "outside of court".
- Loic 5y ago
  It shows the benevolence of the PostgreSQL Community(TM) ;-) I think this is the morally right way to handle the issue. This way they also accumulate good-will if they need to take stronger legal actions. I like it.
- clra 5y ago
  It's worth noting that (from the article) the offender in this case isn't some gigantic organization like Amazon — it's basically one guy, and one who considers himself to be a member in good standing whose part of the Postgres community. I'd hazard a guess that by taking this public, the Postgres team is trying to create some pressure on him through public opinion in the hope that he sees reason and it doesn't have to become a long and arduous legal battle which benefits no one. And it really shouldn't have to. It's not clear what Álvaro's actual motives are in trying to usurp the Postgres trademark — it could be some cynical profiteering thing, but hopefully it was just some momentary hubris that can still be walked back and resolved amicably.
  - eloff 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm guessing this is just an ego thing that got out of hand. Hopefully he comes around before both sides waste a lot of resources in court.
    - beckler 5y ago
      Getting some arduino.cc vs arduino.org vibes here.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > usurp [Citation needed] I mean, assume good faith, strongest possible reading, etc etc: Isn't it perfectly possible that he's actually just doing exactly what he says he's doing? The "PostgreSQL Community" is supposed to be decentralised, with no intellectual property held by any single entity to target in a hostile takeover, so he's just doing his bit to help decentralise holding of trademarks. Seems a perfectly plausible reading of events; far from "cynical profiteering", nor even "momentary hubris".
- price 5y ago
  That's not an offer to give ground to them in any material way. The next sentence says "the PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC will pursue all options until" the land-grabbing group surrenders all their land-grab claims. That's just saying: we hope they'll recognize that what they're doing doesn't make any sense, and give it up rather than pursue a fight all the way through the legal process.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matsemann 5y ago
What's the end game of the Spanish org? What are they trying to achieve with this?
- happy_path 5y ago
  I'm afraid that It's just a guy with grandeur delusions.
- aunty_helen 5y ago
  Getting a foothold. Spain doesn’t operate on the same level as other European countries when it comes to some things, banking and trademarks would be two good examples of this.
  - hythythyt 5y ago
    why?
- gilrain 5y ago
  A narcissist is equating himself with a community he fancies and is attempting to force it under his control.
  - Tobu 5y ago
    Shades of https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-been-taken-over-by-the-crown-prince-of-korea/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-bee...
tempest_ 5y ago
In the spirit of the open source movement, the PostgreSQL community has always tried to operate transparently and fairly, and provide resources for people to adopt, use, and promote PostgreSQL. We continuously look to improve and are very much open to feedback (look no further than the discussions on our mailing lists)! Perhaps I am just a little too young but I do find the use of mailing lists in some of the older open source projects to be a bit cumbersome in 2021. I know there are advantages to them and their semi decentralized nature is a feature but I sure do find them difficult to interact with. Regardless of the above I do hope they come to a amicable solution and it is interesting to me to find that Postgres trade marks are held by a Canadian entity.
- jimhefferon 5y ago
  Cumbersone in what way?
  - gaudat 5y ago
    Worse UX to this generation of developers than say Discord or other IMs I guess.
    - tempest_ 5y ago
      I don't think discord or slack is a great alternative as it is very ephemeral (and not really open source / decentralized) but I do think interacting with a mailing list is worse than a threaded forum type layout.
      - wbl 5y ago
        Email has had threading since before I was born.
        munk-a 5y ago
        Email has never had explicit threading - email has a bunch of usage habits that many clients interpret as attempted threading (which often results in threads of steam receipts in my gmail webview FYI). There are a number of clients that are particularly good at respecting the specific approaches to threading used by mailing lists and that come with a plethora of powerful keyboard interactions to make browsing a whole bunch of emails trivial. But newer devs may be quite unfamiliar with those options and I don't think it's particularly easy information to learn... especially if your webmail has "just worked" for most other uses.
throwthere 5y ago
Álvaro Hernández here apparently runs a PostgreSQL consulting firm [1] and controls "Fundación PostgreSQL." Would Fundación PostgreSQL have the power to grant exclusive use of the trademark to the consulting firm? [1] https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team
- clra 5y ago
  Just to play devil's advocate — OOC, what do you think the end game for Álvaro would be under this scenario? Under the most cynical interpretation, I guess he'd convert Ongres from a Postgres consultancy to a trademark troll and sue other companies who try to use "Postgres"? Maybe, but that's a pretty serious professional change, and seems a little unlikely, especially given that's a considerable chance that he loses the trademark again if it does end up in court. For my money, the most likely explanation is that it was a land grab move for prestige purposes that went too far. (And one which may backfire as Google ties this press release to his name.)
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    Trademark trolling is specifically the use case for this. Sue every sub $300k/yr company than mentions that they use PostgreSQL in their stack. They won't have the funds to defend themselves, he makes off with $10k-$30k in settlements and goes on to the next one until a court stops him.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    I get the impression that Álvaro has issues with the governance of the core team and PGCAC and thus wanted trademarks to protect his consultancy that were under the control of his non-profit which he believes has stricter governance. He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC.
    - clra 5y ago
      Yeah. My comments are from before Alvaro started commenting in this thread, and I've since changed my position based on reading his responses. > He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC. This is it. The strategy was to acquire the trademarks and then use them as leverage to force the dissolution of Postgres Core and its associated organizations, to be replaced with a new power structure which includes him as a key member. The very last part is me editorializing somewhat (although it's not very much of a stretch), but he's been quite explicit about the rest of it.
foobarbazetc 5y ago
There’s literally no way any of the filed trademarks will be granted if the core team files opposition. Don’t waste your time “negotiating”.
- foobarbazetc 5y ago
  Also, the core team should use their Canadian (or whichever country they have earliest file date in) to file for a WIPO/Madrid mark.
- ryanisnan 5y ago
  I hope you're right. This fella seems a bit like a trademark troll.
remram 5y ago
Why does this happen? What's the point of trademarks existing at all, if you have to fight for it every time someone makes a claim to it? What's the point of registration if the same trademark will be awarded again without regard to existing trademarks in the same region?
- jpalomaki 5y ago
  In general you are responsible for defending your trademarks and taking action if they are violated. In non-obvious cases this makes perfect sense. There’s plenty of abandoned trademarks. This system means that you can’t just take old and forgotten trademark and start suddenly demanding money from companies that (unknowingly) infringe it. I believe this is also the reason why big name brands sometimes go after individuals for trademark violations.
  - remram 5y ago
    It looks like a trademark has already registered in Spain to that different organization, even though there were existing trademark registrations and an organization (PGCAC) actively looking to defend it. Unless the PGCAC majorly messed up some process or didn't respond in time to inquiries from Spain officials, it looks to me like the system (at least in Spain?) does not work.
    - sp8962 5y ago
      > ... or didn't respond in time to inquiries from Spain officials, it looks to me like the system (at least in Spain?) does not work. As a rule you will not be contacted by the relevant trademark registering office. What happens is that the registration filing is published, and if you are opposed to it going through you will need to file opposition within a certain period after the publication. That's why organisations with IP to protect typically directly or indirectly (that is via counsel) use trademark watching services. Essentially these scan the where ever the filings are published, and will send you alerts or whatever when something turns up on the radar. Actually filing opposition is rather tedious and expensive, and particularly when different good/service classes are being used, sometimes difficult to actually be successful with.
spinax 5y ago
This group attempted to register the trademark by extension to the USPTO and was denied for several reasons. Reason #2 for the denial was "Likelihood of Confusion" and points at the existing PostgreSQL trademark on file. https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.1534836 https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.... -> Real-time Status and then -> Documents -> United States of America -> (PDF link) https://madrid.wipo.int/documentaccess/documentAccess?docid=1377044501 https://madrid.wipo.int/documentaccess/documentAccess?docid=...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lobo_tuerto 5y ago
Looks like he likes to write articles and has been featured by some Postgres related Twitter accounts like PostgresWeekly (https://twitter.com/PostgresWeekly https://twitter.com/PostgresWeekly). This is the guy in question: https://twitter.com/ahachete https://twitter.com/ahachete
ahachete 5y ago
Leaving aside considerations about my person, here's Fundación PostgreSQL's response and HN discussion thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514422
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kylecordes 5y ago
I wonder why the pre-existing core PostgreSQL organization (not super-clear to me which this is) did already have these trademarks in the top handful of countries/jurisdictions. Rather than wait for someone else to try and then get in a potentially expensive fight. PostgreSQL has been around for 25 years, there has been ample time to figure that out, right?
- Macha 5y ago
  Sounds like in the US at least they _do_ have trademarks, the other organisations filing was declined by the PTO because of the existing mark, see the documents linked in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513942
- sp8962 5y ago
  Likely because it is tedious (think watching paint dry) and expensive. And except if you take a shotgun approach to the service/goods classes you register in, you are still going to have exposure (in the US you need to provide proof of use down the road so its a non.starter there).
mjw1007 5y ago
Are OnGres or Álvaro Hernández active in PostgreSQL development, or otherwise active in the community? Or have they appeared out of nowhere?
- vickychijwani 5y ago
  I believe this is their HN profile, see for yourself (as indicated by comments from them in this thread): https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ahachete https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ahachete Personally I'm interested in hearing more from them, as they don't fit the "trademark troll" description that commenters seem to be taking for granted here. Seeing some interesting discussion dynamics at play.
  - mbreese 5y ago
    At the same time though, they aren't playing the role of good community citizen either. It's really confusing to see what the motivations are here. Why openly antagonize a community that you claim to be a part of and represent? I hope there is more to it, but otherwise, this just seems like a stunt. Surely @ahachete must realize that the Postgres Core team must defend their trademarks (otherwise they can be lost or lose protection). And either way, I just don't see the endgame here.
    - vickychijwani 5y ago
      Yes I'm a bit confused about their motivations too. Sharing what I've pieced together so far (and trying to approach this from a good-faith perspective): My understanding so far is that they run a Postgres consulting firm [1], and it appears they took the liberty of registering a Postgres trademark for the class of "professional services" in order to (I presume) protect fair use by their firm and (they claim in their response) by others in the Postgres community. Some of this is admittedly speculation on my part, and I'm trying to take a charitable view of their actions to try to understand why a community member would do this. That said I have no opinion on whether this action is net good for the community, and I'm not a Postgres user so I have no horse in this race. It's just the social dynamics of this situation that are interesting to me. [1]: https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team
robocat 5y ago
Here is the full response from Álvaro Hernández at Fundación PostgreSQL: https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-postgres-community/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-post... as referred to by Álvaro’s (hn user ahachete’s) comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514523 I am repeating the link because ahachete was getting downvoted here and he also started a new thread instead of continuing this one.
- ahachete 5y ago
  My bad. Thanks.
ahachete 5y ago
We (Fundación PostgreSQL) posted a new post titled "Respecting the majority, questioning the status quo as a minority": https://postgresql.fund/blog/respecting-majority-questioning-status-quo-as-a-minority/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/respecting-majority-questioning...
- sigzero 5y ago
  You can question it all you want. You can't file a trademark for something that is already trademarked. EOS
sigzero 5y ago
Fundación PostgreSQL is just wrong for trying this. Shame on them.
knorker 5y ago
I read the post. I read the rebuttal. Clearly this guy is an asshole. He may (may) not be a trademark troll, but this is a self-serving asshole move, landgrabbing to promote his business. You know what, maybe he has honest intentions. He's still an asshole. This. Is. Not. Yours. You don't own it. You have applied for paperwork to own it. Incredible asshole move. Your theory of distributed ownership doesn't matter, because IT'S NOT YOURS TO OWN.
CRConrad 5y ago
From https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/trademark-actions-against-the-postgresql-community-2302/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/trademark-actions-agai... : > In the spirit of the open source movement, the PostgreSQL community has always tried to operate transparently and fairly Idunno, from reading both sides of this it doesn't much feel that way.

283 points by alch- 5y ago

Perhaps for legal reasons it is important to show willingness to negotiate .. but really, a land-grab like this gets "we hope we can be friends" response ? "The PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC still hope for an amicable resolution" ..

lm2s 5y ago
I think it just means "outside of court".
Loic 5y ago
It shows the benevolence of the PostgreSQL Community(TM) ;-) I think this is the morally right way to handle the issue. This way they also accumulate good-will if they need to take stronger legal actions. I like it.
clra 5y ago
It's worth noting that (from the article) the offender in this case isn't some gigantic organization like Amazon — it's basically one guy, and one who considers himself to be a member in good standing whose part of the Postgres community. I'd hazard a guess that by taking this public, the Postgres team is trying to create some pressure on him through public opinion in the hope that he sees reason and it doesn't have to become a long and arduous legal battle which benefits no one. And it really shouldn't have to. It's not clear what Álvaro's actual motives are in trying to usurp the Postgres trademark — it could be some cynical profiteering thing, but hopefully it was just some momentary hubris that can still be walked back and resolved amicably.
- eloff 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm guessing this is just an ego thing that got out of hand. Hopefully he comes around before both sides waste a lot of resources in court.
  - beckler 5y ago
    Getting some arduino.cc vs arduino.org vibes here.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > usurp [Citation needed] I mean, assume good faith, strongest possible reading, etc etc: Isn't it perfectly possible that he's actually just doing exactly what he says he's doing? The "PostgreSQL Community" is supposed to be decentralised, with no intellectual property held by any single entity to target in a hostile takeover, so he's just doing his bit to help decentralise holding of trademarks. Seems a perfectly plausible reading of events; far from "cynical profiteering", nor even "momentary hubris".
price 5y ago
That's not an offer to give ground to them in any material way. The next sentence says "the PostgreSQL Core Team and PGCAC will pursue all options until" the land-grabbing group surrenders all their land-grab claims. That's just saying: we hope they'll recognize that what they're doing doesn't make any sense, and give it up rather than pursue a fight all the way through the legal process.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matsemann 5y ago

What's the end game of the Spanish org? What are they trying to achieve with this?

happy_path 5y ago
I'm afraid that It's just a guy with grandeur delusions.
aunty_helen 5y ago
Getting a foothold. Spain doesn’t operate on the same level as other European countries when it comes to some things, banking and trademarks would be two good examples of this.
- hythythyt 5y ago
  why?
gilrain 5y ago
A narcissist is equating himself with a community he fancies and is attempting to force it under his control.
- Tobu 5y ago
  Shades of https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-been-taken-over-by-the-crown-prince-of-korea/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-bee...

tempest_ 5y ago

In the spirit of the open source movement, the PostgreSQL community has always tried to operate transparently and fairly, and provide resources for people to adopt, use, and promote PostgreSQL. We continuously look to improve and are very much open to feedback (look no further than the discussions on our mailing lists)! Perhaps I am just a little too young but I do find the use of mailing lists in some of the older open source projects to be a bit cumbersome in 2021. I know there are advantages to them and their semi decentralized nature is a feature but I sure do find them difficult to interact with. Regardless of the above I do hope they come to a amicable solution and it is interesting to me to find that Postgres trade marks are held by a Canadian entity.

jimhefferon 5y ago
Cumbersone in what way?
- gaudat 5y ago
  Worse UX to this generation of developers than say Discord or other IMs I guess.
  - tempest_ 5y ago
    I don't think discord or slack is a great alternative as it is very ephemeral (and not really open source / decentralized) but I do think interacting with a mailing list is worse than a threaded forum type layout.
    - wbl 5y ago
      Email has had threading since before I was born.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        Email has never had explicit threading - email has a bunch of usage habits that many clients interpret as attempted threading (which often results in threads of steam receipts in my gmail webview FYI). There are a number of clients that are particularly good at respecting the specific approaches to threading used by mailing lists and that come with a plethora of powerful keyboard interactions to make browsing a whole bunch of emails trivial. But newer devs may be quite unfamiliar with those options and I don't think it's particularly easy information to learn... especially if your webmail has "just worked" for most other uses.

throwthere 5y ago

Álvaro Hernández here apparently runs a PostgreSQL consulting firm [1] and controls "Fundación PostgreSQL." Would Fundación PostgreSQL have the power to grant exclusive use of the trademark to the consulting firm? [1] https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team

clra 5y ago
Just to play devil's advocate — OOC, what do you think the end game for Álvaro would be under this scenario? Under the most cynical interpretation, I guess he'd convert Ongres from a Postgres consultancy to a trademark troll and sue other companies who try to use "Postgres"? Maybe, but that's a pretty serious professional change, and seems a little unlikely, especially given that's a considerable chance that he loses the trademark again if it does end up in court. For my money, the most likely explanation is that it was a land grab move for prestige purposes that went too far. (And one which may backfire as Google ties this press release to his name.)
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  Trademark trolling is specifically the use case for this. Sue every sub $300k/yr company than mentions that they use PostgreSQL in their stack. They won't have the funds to defend themselves, he makes off with $10k-$30k in settlements and goes on to the next one until a court stops him.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  I get the impression that Álvaro has issues with the governance of the core team and PGCAC and thus wanted trademarks to protect his consultancy that were under the control of his non-profit which he believes has stricter governance. He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC.
  - clra 5y ago
    Yeah. My comments are from before Alvaro started commenting in this thread, and I've since changed my position based on reading his responses. > He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC. This is it. The strategy was to acquire the trademarks and then use them as leverage to force the dissolution of Postgres Core and its associated organizations, to be replaced with a new power structure which includes him as a key member. The very last part is me editorializing somewhat (although it's not very much of a stretch), but he's been quite explicit about the rest of it.

foobarbazetc 5y ago

There’s literally no way any of the filed trademarks will be granted if the core team files opposition. Don’t waste your time “negotiating”.

foobarbazetc 5y ago
Also, the core team should use their Canadian (or whichever country they have earliest file date in) to file for a WIPO/Madrid mark.
ryanisnan 5y ago
I hope you're right. This fella seems a bit like a trademark troll.

remram 5y ago

Why does this happen? What's the point of trademarks existing at all, if you have to fight for it every time someone makes a claim to it? What's the point of registration if the same trademark will be awarded again without regard to existing trademarks in the same region?

jpalomaki 5y ago
In general you are responsible for defending your trademarks and taking action if they are violated. In non-obvious cases this makes perfect sense. There’s plenty of abandoned trademarks. This system means that you can’t just take old and forgotten trademark and start suddenly demanding money from companies that (unknowingly) infringe it. I believe this is also the reason why big name brands sometimes go after individuals for trademark violations.
- remram 5y ago
  It looks like a trademark has already registered in Spain to that different organization, even though there were existing trademark registrations and an organization (PGCAC) actively looking to defend it. Unless the PGCAC majorly messed up some process or didn't respond in time to inquiries from Spain officials, it looks to me like the system (at least in Spain?) does not work.
  - sp8962 5y ago
    > ... or didn't respond in time to inquiries from Spain officials, it looks to me like the system (at least in Spain?) does not work. As a rule you will not be contacted by the relevant trademark registering office. What happens is that the registration filing is published, and if you are opposed to it going through you will need to file opposition within a certain period after the publication. That's why organisations with IP to protect typically directly or indirectly (that is via counsel) use trademark watching services. Essentially these scan the where ever the filings are published, and will send you alerts or whatever when something turns up on the radar. Actually filing opposition is rather tedious and expensive, and particularly when different good/service classes are being used, sometimes difficult to actually be successful with.

spinax 5y ago

This group attempted to register the trademark by extension to the USPTO and was denied for several reasons. Reason #2 for the denial was "Likelihood of Confusion" and points at the existing PostgreSQL trademark on file. https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.1534836 https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM.... -> Real-time Status and then -> Documents -> United States of America -> (PDF link) https://madrid.wipo.int/documentaccess/documentAccess?docid=1377044501 https://madrid.wipo.int/documentaccess/documentAccess?docid=...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lobo_tuerto 5y ago

Looks like he likes to write articles and has been featured by some Postgres related Twitter accounts like PostgresWeekly (https://twitter.com/PostgresWeekly https://twitter.com/PostgresWeekly). This is the guy in question: https://twitter.com/ahachete https://twitter.com/ahachete

ahachete 5y ago

Leaving aside considerations about my person, here's Fundación PostgreSQL's response and HN discussion thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514422

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kylecordes 5y ago

I wonder why the pre-existing core PostgreSQL organization (not super-clear to me which this is) did already have these trademarks in the top handful of countries/jurisdictions. Rather than wait for someone else to try and then get in a potentially expensive fight. PostgreSQL has been around for 25 years, there has been ample time to figure that out, right?

Macha 5y ago
Sounds like in the US at least they _do_ have trademarks, the other organisations filing was declined by the PTO because of the existing mark, see the documents linked in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513942
sp8962 5y ago
Likely because it is tedious (think watching paint dry) and expensive. And except if you take a shotgun approach to the service/goods classes you register in, you are still going to have exposure (in the US you need to provide proof of use down the road so its a non.starter there).

mjw1007 5y ago

Are OnGres or Álvaro Hernández active in PostgreSQL development, or otherwise active in the community? Or have they appeared out of nowhere?

vickychijwani 5y ago
I believe this is their HN profile, see for yourself (as indicated by comments from them in this thread): https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ahachete https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ahachete Personally I'm interested in hearing more from them, as they don't fit the "trademark troll" description that commenters seem to be taking for granted here. Seeing some interesting discussion dynamics at play.
- mbreese 5y ago
  At the same time though, they aren't playing the role of good community citizen either. It's really confusing to see what the motivations are here. Why openly antagonize a community that you claim to be a part of and represent? I hope there is more to it, but otherwise, this just seems like a stunt. Surely @ahachete must realize that the Postgres Core team must defend their trademarks (otherwise they can be lost or lose protection). And either way, I just don't see the endgame here.
  - vickychijwani 5y ago
    Yes I'm a bit confused about their motivations too. Sharing what I've pieced together so far (and trying to approach this from a good-faith perspective): My understanding so far is that they run a Postgres consulting firm [1], and it appears they took the liberty of registering a Postgres trademark for the class of "professional services" in order to (I presume) protect fair use by their firm and (they claim in their response) by others in the Postgres community. Some of this is admittedly speculation on my part, and I'm trying to take a charitable view of their actions to try to understand why a community member would do this. That said I have no opinion on whether this action is net good for the community, and I'm not a Postgres user so I have no horse in this race. It's just the social dynamics of this situation that are interesting to me. [1]: https://ongres.com/about-us/#team https://ongres.com/about-us/#team

robocat 5y ago

Here is the full response from Álvaro Hernández at Fundación PostgreSQL: https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-postgres-community/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-post... as referred to by Álvaro’s (hn user ahachete’s) comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514523 I am repeating the link because ahachete was getting downvoted here and he also started a new thread instead of continuing this one.

ahachete 5y ago
My bad. Thanks.

ahachete 5y ago

We (Fundación PostgreSQL) posted a new post titled "Respecting the majority, questioning the status quo as a minority": https://postgresql.fund/blog/respecting-majority-questioning-status-quo-as-a-minority/ https://postgresql.fund/blog/respecting-majority-questioning...

sigzero 5y ago
You can question it all you want. You can't file a trademark for something that is already trademarked. EOS

sigzero 5y ago

Fundación PostgreSQL is just wrong for trying this. Shame on them.

knorker 5y ago

I read the post. I read the rebuttal. Clearly this guy is an asshole. He may (may) not be a trademark troll, but this is a self-serving asshole move, landgrabbing to promote his business. You know what, maybe he has honest intentions. He's still an asshole. This. Is. Not. Yours. You don't own it. You have applied for paperwork to own it. Incredible asshole move. Your theory of distributed ownership doesn't matter, because IT'S NOT YOURS TO OWN.

CRConrad 5y ago

From https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/trademark-actions-against-the-postgresql-community-2302/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/trademark-actions-agai... : > In the spirit of the open source movement, the PostgreSQL community has always tried to operate transparently and fairly Idunno, from reading both sides of this it doesn't much feel that way.