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0 pointscxr6mo ago0 comments

Now that's an oversight! Since the Git project holds the trademark here, they better make sure they do what trademark holders do and have licensing arrangements in place with GitHub and GitLab regarding their use of the trademark. After all, how could anyone even begin to think about the existence of a trademark policy without taking these two obvious examples into account?

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Groxx6mo ago· 1 in thread

I mean. Is there any evidence SFC explicitly approved of those names? I haven't been able to find any. They've been in place for decades without apparent contest.

But it's a trademark, and trademark law in the USA is pretty constrained by "will an ordinary person likely be confused" and I can only come up with "probably not" counter-examples in enormous quantities (git-lfs? there are tons of git-prefixed things out there). Git™ is just used with git itself, in practice, and I've never seen anything else Git™-branded-and-prefixed by SFC that changes that.

I'm sure there's probably a court case or N that would make this a lot more clear, but it seems like a fairly safe established pattern in the industry, though it's best to respect SFC's request.

cxrOP6mo ago

> Is there any evidence SFC explicitly approved of those names? I haven't been able to find any.

Yes. The trademark policy I linked to says, "Please be aware that GitHub and GitLab are exceptions to this Policy because they are subject to explicit licensing arrangements".

(But let's even suppose that it didn't say that and the answer to the question you're asking were "no". No trademark holder is required to submit their agreements for public review. So what does it matter that the ones with the trademark policy haven't sought you out to get your input (and blessing)? The general shape of these replies—including the willingness to spend effort arguing but none to eliminate the ignorance that you're stumbling into the discussion with—is grating.)

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