Oddbean new post about login | logout I think it's about trademarks. Take freebsd for example. They put tons of effort in the project for decades. So of course they want to protect themselfes from copycats luring newbies into installing potential malware by using their name, logo and so on. I don't like the idea of copyright, but I can understand the motivation behind this. Openbsd on the other hand doesn't seem to care, no (tm) there iirc
And how does a tm stop the bad guys from shipping malware, lol
on the malware it doesn't. But a TM does protect merch that is sold using the brand trademark, that can be used to raise funds that back to supporting the project. That's where the business value comes in and also bootstrapping to keep it going where it otherwise would have to depend on grants/donations
But why should the owners of the trademark tell you what you can print on your shirt? Trademark, patents, copyright etc all violate the property in real scarce assets, just in order to create scarcity for a non-scarce information. It's such a destructive idea.
Maybe it's just to make sure that forks are labeled correctly/use a different name? Hmm I never really thought of it. But in the case of FreeBSD, Apple would not be allowed to call their fork FreeBSD, they had to label it different. Like AppleBSD or macOS. Seriously IDK
Monopolist IP tactics won't make a monopolist court any better... The solution to justice cannot be provided by monopolies.
Checkout against intellectual property for a rigorous analysis. https://mises.org/library/book/against-intellectual-property
I am 100% with you on IP. But they are free to see otherwise, they are free to try to monetize their efforts in any way they seem legitb it's their work. The sole problem with IP is, that it is protected without consent. If you made a personal contract about it, I would be fine with it - like a NDA when you buy a book and you pay a lot if you leak it. On the other hand, when you publish something, it becomes public. BUT we cannot deny corporatist realities, just becsuse they are not in way with our ancap thinking.
Good point!
After a night of thought - a legit point could also be to pay the minimal TM fee to keep away hustle when OTHERS register the name and try to sue YOU for using your name for your project... Even if you win in court, it's a lot of hustle compared to pay some 100 bucks for a 'TM'.