Python Trademark Filer Ignorant of Python? 261
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the everybody-makes-mistakes dept.
from the everybody-makes-mistakes dept.
WebMink writes "Is it possible that the CEO of the company that's trying to file a trademark on 'Python' was unaware of Python's importance as a programming technology? That's what he claims — despite running a hosting company that's trying to break into cloud computing, where Python is used extensively. Still, he also regards the Python Software Foundation as a hostile American company and thinks that getting attention from half the world's geeks is a DDoS. From the article: '[The CEO, Tim Poultney,] confirmed that he'd not involved any technical staff in the decisions he'd made about the Python product brand, and told me he regretted that as it would probably have helped him understand the likely reaction to his trademark challenge. ... He said he now understood how offended the global developer community are and told me there was obviously only one outcome that was now possible.'"
Re:Not 95% of hosting companies (Score:4, Interesting)
Nah it's more like the owner of a car dealership who has never heard of a camshaft.
Re:Resignation? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to point out that there is another Pobox [pobox.com] out there, which is a US company (pobox.com), that is apparently not affiliated with this British "Pobox" company.
From their blog:
=snip=
We support @ThePSF [twitter.com] in their fight for Python trademarks in the EU. @pobox [twitter.com] is *not* http://pobox.co.uk [t.co]. Learn more: http://pyfound.blogspot.nl/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html⦠[t.co]
=end snip=
I'm not affiliated with either company. I've used pobox.com for email forwarding for about 17 years though, which is one thing that made me investigate this, as the UK company's claim of having used 'python' for 17 years seemed to me like about how long the US company had been around.
American? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say the fact that he thinks Python-the-language is something American is proof that he's pretty much completely unaware of it. Unless Holland was annexed by the US recently, while I wasn't looking, I think it's Dutch. :)
Re:Company lacks credibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that leads to a things like deciding that mobile websites are "a big new thing" (which happened last week) and not understanding responsive design despite us explaining it to him several times. At this point we're implementing responsive design and will be selling it as if it was a separate mobile website (complete with a second contract and everything) because that's easier than convincing the boss that it's just a bit of CSS that we can include and exclude at our convenience. The second contract was a business decision made without any input from the developers and we just have to make it happen.
I'm already looking forward to someone canceling their regular contract but wanting to keep their "mobile website". Bonus points if they expect their "mobile website" to remain at the same domain as their new, externally-hosted website. But hey, mobile websites are the future.
So yeah, cluelessness in your field of business is very much possible and is not antithetical to success.
Re:Next, Perl ? (Score:2, Interesting)
A moose bit my sister once.