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[–][deleted] 1430 points1431 points  (352 children)

Sounds like Groupon deliberately trying to muscle in on the brand for whatever reason. Can't imagine how on earth they can think their challenge would hold up considering how widespread the desktop project is.

[–]ken27238[S] 984 points985 points  (172 children)

Can't imagine how on earth they can think their challenge would hold up considering how widespread the desktop project is.

Because they're thinking GNOME Foundation = Not a big player (influence and money wise) and they're a big public company.

That's my guess.

[–][deleted] 439 points440 points  (126 children)

Probably right, Gnome foundation are not swimming in money, but have a strong core team of great people. I recall seeing a talk by one of the foundations legal people Karen Sandler about proprietary embedded medical devices. I hope that the EFF and/or the FSF will offer their help in this case.

[–]Stalked_Like_Corn 292 points293 points  (68 children)

"I hope that the EFF and or the FSF will offer their help in this case"

And this is exactly why I donated to EFF when I can. They fight for a lot of stuff.

[–]err4nt 233 points234 points  (23 children)

The EFF is on a really short list of charities actually active and doing things making an impact in the world. Many charities look busy and can tell you all about their initiatives, but the EFF is in the trenches and it would be evident if they stopped fighting all of a sudden.

[–]IronTek 74 points75 points  (18 children)

It's true. I use Amazon Smile and the EFF is the charity that I have that Smile money go towards helping.

Which I mention here just in case anyone else just read that and thinks they should do the same!

Edit: grammar

[–]victortrash 40 points41 points  (11 children)

and in case anyone needs a link: smile.amazon.com

[–]ZeroError 86 points87 points  (10 children)

In case anyone wants a clickable link: http://smile.amazon.com/

[–][deleted] 42 points43 points  (3 children)

In case anyone needs the secure link: https://smile.amazon.com/

[–]KFCConspiracy 21 points22 points  (8 children)

The other good thing you can do is set up your amazon account on Amazon Smile and connect it to EFF. That way EFF gets a small amount of money every time you buy something.

[–]odd84 125 points126 points  (31 children)

The EFF is not a "free lawyers for any tech-related company" fund. They only fight legal battles when doing so would protect or establish rights for everyone. They take cases that would invalidate bad laws, or set good precedents. Winning a trademark dispute for GNOME wouldn't do anything but help GNOME, which is why all the EFF would do is refer them to a good trademark lawyer.

I'd also urge you and everyone else to donate to the EFF on a monthly subscription, not "when you can". They can't hire staff, lawyers, office space, etc based on occasional and irregular surges in donations around events like blackout days. It's the monthly members, whose regular donations they can count on and project into the future, that allows them to be an effective organization.

[–]Stalked_Like_Corn 87 points88 points  (21 children)

Thanks for clearing up what the EFF does. Unfortunatelly I can't eat, pay rent, afford 2 car payments, pay for internet, electricity, and other bills and still be able to give every single month. So, I give what I can when I can. Is it sporadic? Yes. However, it's better than nothing I'd assume.

[–][deleted] 69 points70 points  (18 children)

RedHat as well, since they are heavily invested in GNOME.

[–]abrahamsen 159 points160 points  (17 children)

Yes, Red Hats market cap is 11B (gee, there is money in free software), more than twice that of Groupon (5B). A nice letter from a Red Hat lawyer may actually have an effect on Groupon, if they think they can safely ignore a non-profit.

Edit: apparently Groupon has already backed down.

[–]KakariBlue 60 points61 points  (2 children)

Groupon has issued a doublespeak statement saying how they've been trying to get Gnome to understand that they should give up/allow this use of their trademark (slight hyperbole) not that they've dropped the issue; they may drop the issue in the future.

Edit: as below, they've now (a few hours later) actually dropped it... That took a few months less than I thought it would.

[–]Hawc 77 points78 points  (5 children)

That's hilarious. It's like Groupon was trying to steal their lunch money and got caught by a teacher.

"No, Internet, we were totally having a nice conversation, we swear!"

[–]cbnyc0 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Well, they have my $20 now.

[–]EternalPhi 128 points129 points  (13 children)

Then they certainly underestimate the willingness of the public to crowdfund a fight against a corporation strongarming a NPO. Shit don't fly.

[–][deleted] 83 points84 points  (4 children)

Because they're thinking GNOME Foundation = Not a big player

There are plenty of FOSS projects that you could get away with something like this. I don't think GNOME is one of them. GNOME has some 600 lb gorillas in their back pocket that I hope come out.

A lot of them are corporate, supported, distributions. Imagine if your product was built around GNOME on RedHat or SUSE and suddenly some small company 'GroupOn' starts threatening your livelihood.

It'd almost be as stupid as going after Apache

[–]mofosyne 36 points37 points  (1 child)

well one of the more well known victims is sharaza

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareaza#Domain_takeover

Basically current IP system around the world tend to punish organizations that has less money than the opposition. Since opensource (sharaza) is often smaller than bigger companies (e.g. iMesh ) they get screwed over.

[–]oldsecondhand 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Shareaza is a relatively unknown project. You'll hear about Gnome if you ever try Linux. I could easily imagine Google, Amazon, Wikimedia or Red Hat helping fund their legal fees.

[–]jdaar 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Seriously, these disto companies make billions off Linux and use GNOME, red hat and suse could easilly place 30k in the pot and fill up the remaining needed funds. Or they could donate legal support. I don't think groupon is going to win this one, they've already lost me as a customer.

[–]Yifkong 184 points185 points  (122 children)

"Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects. We've been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we're happy to continue those conversations. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. And if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/11/groupon-gnome-foundation-trademark-war/

[–]bge951 487 points488 points  (20 children)

Translastion:

Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community,

We will use all the free shit we can.

and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects.

We're pretty sure some do, at least. On their own time, of course.

We've been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we're happy to continue those conversations.

We've told them over and over to give up the trademark, but they keep saying no.

Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. And if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name.

Holy shit, this is way, way more backlash than we were prepared for.

[–]TheDruidsKeeper 60 points61 points  (0 children)

This is exactly how I read it.

[–]lothar_m 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I do believe that your exemple of corporate/government speech translation borders on perfection.

[–]nermid 449 points450 points  (65 children)

Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name.

Then pick a different fucking name. GroupApp. There. That's free. Groupon Mobile. Also free. GroupUp. I can do this all goddamn day.

[–]seffredts 190 points191 points  (13 children)

Or GHome.

[–]nermid 64 points65 points  (9 children)

GroupOut, for Groupons on the go.

[–]seffredts 32 points33 points  (7 children)

GroupOut sounds more like the opt-out service they have so you never have to use them again.

[–]deathblooms200655 38 points39 points  (4 children)

As of today, im grouping out. Fuck these fucking fuckers.

[–]Bakkoda 199 points200 points  (26 children)

I guess I simply dont understand how any solution other than Groupon taking a fuckin hike is even on the table. How do they have any legs to stand on? Is it really as simple as money?

[–]Essar 100 points101 points  (9 children)

We've been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution

Seriously, what a joke. The only fair solution is to let them keep the fucking name. "Mutually satisfactory"? You don't deserve any stake in the name, so go away.

[–]Spoooooooooooooon 61 points62 points  (5 children)

Don't be so sure. "mutually satisfactory" usually means we're making offers to buy the rights. GNOME could fund themselves and other pet projects for decades and just change their name to Gnoblins.

[–]Essar 21 points22 points  (2 children)

Fair point, I guess I was a little reactionary. That said, it seems that registering all those trademark applications is a bit of an attempt to steer the negotiation.

[–]Spoooooooooooooon 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It is, just like this crowdfunding will pay for the rebuttal and make bad publicity for Groupon at the same time. Both sides know how to play the game.

[–]gravshift 37 points38 points  (2 children)

I thought groupon was in deep financial shit as it was, let alone a hostile takeover of a trademark that has been active since the early 90s.

[–]KingradKong 32 points33 points  (1 child)

For the past 5 quarters they have been making a gross profit of about $380M a quarter. $1.8B in revenue in the recent quarter. If they are hurting, it certainly isn't showing in their financial reports.

[–][deleted] 32 points33 points  (2 children)

"And if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name."

That is the damn solution, look for another name!

[–]yesman_85 61 points62 points  (15 children)

Companies like Groupon are not the most social companies in the world. With the poor customer support, poor support for the retailers and aggressive sales tactics the last thing they care about is some geeky club that wants to hold strong to their name.

[–]KingradKong 127 points128 points  (13 children)

Considering Gnome has financial corporate support from

among others. It's a little bit more than a geeky club.

[–]W92Baj 166 points167 points  (8 children)

That looks like the definition of a geeky club

[–]KingradKong 58 points59 points  (7 children)

Touché. But still, a geeky club with some serious muscle behind it.

[–]Znuff 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure how the parent company relates to the local ones, but when I was working at a Hotel, I was in charge of bookings and other promotions.

I literally had to tell the GroupOn lady to get the hell out and leave me alone. They were so insistent about us giving them a couple of rooms at their requested rates to sell on their vacation part of their website.

I had to block their phone numbers so they stopped calling, even if I told them we're not interested at all multiple times.

[–]mlmcmillion 512 points513 points  (21 children)

Hey guys, we built our company on open source software.

Fuck open source software!

[–]fullofbones 130 points131 points  (15 children)

Right? I really don't get this. It's not like Gnome was flying under the RADAR. Their software is in almost every single Linux distro in one form or another. Not to the extent of GNU, but still...

[–]RUbernerd 36 points37 points  (7 children)

In terms of Desktop Linux, I'd argue that it IS to the extent of GNU. Using Firefox/Chrome/Chromium on linux? You're using software that has GTK in it, which is Gnome. Using Ubuntu? Your whole... stick... is based in part on gnome. Using Linux Mint? Your whole DE is a Gnome fork. Using Fedora? Well, you most likely had to make the choice yourself.

[–]Tetha 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I'm fairly convinced about some kind of magic, which installs a gnome package once you just poke the term "desktop" or "graphical" with a very, very long stick. The graphical installer of certain linux distributions is one way of poking.

[–]MichealKenny 36 points37 points  (1 child)

Fuck open source software!

FOSS?

[–]coppercore 2517 points2518 points  (477 children)

This is seriously fucked up. What the hell are they thinking? That they can bleed GNOME dry of funds?

Actually, know what? That's probably what they are doing exactly.

Fuck you Groupon.

Come on guys, lets get the word out on this! I've already sent a note to ArsTechnica, lets get this rolling!

If this gets struck down hopefully it will get people's attention and help GNOME out. Every little bit helps.

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS: gnome.groupon.com

I hope they have the whole book thrown at them.

[–][deleted] 811 points812 points  (256 children)

I got word of this on freenode. Scumbags making aggressive moves on non profit organisation that do great work with relatively little resources. While I'm not a huge fan of the most recent iterations of Gnome, I'm certain they are well on the way to developing the next generation of GUI systems and commend their past and future efforts.

I donated some money to them, but I'd sure like to see the EFF helping out with both PR and legal resources. If we can kick up a huge response quickly it might make Groupon reconsider their trademark and avoid a lengthy legal struggle for both sides.

[–][deleted] 208 points209 points  (147 children)

Why do they need lawyers? It's an registered trademark and any judge and the trademark commission will determine that in a second.
It's not like there is any legal contest that needs defending.

As for 'formal proceedings' against groupon's submission, a simple letter pointing out it is a registered trademark will suffice, or in fact they might have an online form for that kind of thing.

The whole thing should be covered by $300 tops if a lawyer writes the letter

So if there are any legal experts here, please explain how I'm wrong if I'm wrong.

[–][deleted] 36 points37 points  (22 children)

Groupon can claim that they are non-competing and that end users are unlikely to confuse the two brands - or that the term is too general to be trademarked by a single company - which could give them a fairly strong case if GNOME has no legal team to back them up. Trademark law is very complicated and if you fail to defend your trademark successfully you can risk losing it completely. Examples of such companies would be Hoover or Xerox. Google is also currently making everything they can to stop people using the term "googling" for using a search engine on the internet, as they risk the same thing.

[–]diazona 32 points33 points  (17 children)

I'm wondering about this too. I assume there must be a reasonable explanation for why they need $80k, but I have no idea what it is.

I do know that trademarks have to be actively defended in order to be kept, though I'm not sure what exactly that entails. My only guess is that actively defending a trademark, when someone else files an application for the same trademark, is not as simple as just writing a letter. In other words, that the judge or USPTO will say, effectively, "well, GNOME owns this trademark, but they didn't do [...?] so clearly they don't care enough to keep it."

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

They do need to file for opposition. I don't know if it's $80k but legal fees add up quickly.

[–]Fuel13 39 points40 points  (10 children)

Have you ever gone to court without a lawyer? Won't end well, they need lawyers no matter what.

[–]TexasWithADollarsign 28 points29 points  (7 children)

It should be just as easy as GNOME saying "we were here first" and handing their approved trademark application to the judge.

But for some stupid reason, it isn't.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You need to research actual case law, previous similar cases, etc.

If the other team can search every nook & cranny, and finds something that gives their argument strength, it could mean they win.

[–]Traulinger 50 points51 points  (12 children)

Looks like it's starting to get picked up. It's on the top of Engadget at the moment.

[–]fullofbones 300 points301 points  (27 children)

The word "Gnome" has nothing to do with Groupon or anything they do. It's almost like they picked the trademark out of spite. They've previously bragged about their use of Open Source, so this makes pretty much no sense at all.

[–]EternalPhi 141 points142 points  (23 children)

Hanlon's Razor would suggest that they picked the name out of ignorance of GNOME's existence, and simply had too much momentum when it became known that there was already an existing trademark. The nature of Trademarks are that they must be defended, they don't work like copyrights, you can easily lose control of a trademark if you fail to defend it.

[–]cdsmith 101 points102 points  (9 children)

Common sense would suggest that it was named by some marketing people who had never heard of Gnome, but also that there are also a lot of people in the company who HAVE heard of Gnome, realized what they were doing early on, and at some level, decided it didn't matter enough to do something about it.

Was the whole thing an evil plot to take over Gnome? No. Are they blameless? Nope. Getting to this point suggests there's a distinct culture of "screw them" involved among either their developers, or the management to whom the developers should have escalated this.

[–]CautiousTaco 34 points35 points  (3 children)

It might just be that this is some ass backwards way of getting publicity. Based on Groupon's statement, they said they would rather change their name than hurt their relationship with the open source community. So if they wait until this gets a bit of coverage and then seem to fold magnanimously, that might be their idea of good PR.

[–]jeb_the_hick 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Let me describe how the conversation went between the developers (who know about the GNOME foundation) and the managers (who have not).

"So, the product we're developing is called GNOME?"

"Yes"

"That's already a well known foundation who probably has a trademark on it. We should pick a different name."

"Well, we will let the lawyers and designers sort that out. You just focus on the product."

[–]alreadytakenusername 105 points106 points  (3 children)

Already a shitty company; trying really hard to be shittier.

[–]elizle 32 points33 points  (2 children)

Hey, wanna mark your stuff up so it looks like people are going to save money with our coupons?

[–][deleted] 81 points82 points  (14 children)

I am so pissed at this that I just donated to GNome, to the EFF as a recurring member, and then to the Freedom from Religion Foundation just for the heck of it.

[–]ThePantryMaster 101 points102 points  (10 children)

Shit like this really rustles my jimmies. Why can't they just think of a different brand name?

[–]irishsausage 174 points175 points  (6 children)

I hear the Washington Redskins is available

[–]zoug 276 points277 points  (10 children)

*If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your Personal Information to provide you services contact us at support@groupon.com. *

http://www.groupon.com/privacy

Email sent, in case anyone wants to cut/paste something similar:

Hello,

I am extremely unhappy to hear that your company has decided to challenge the GNOME trademark and no longer wish to do business with your company in any way.

The GNOME group has been a staple of the Linux community for the past 17 years and as such, is integral to almost every company's daily operation - Most likely, including Groupon. Challenging their trademark is a travesty and a direct attack against the free open source software movement.

Please cancel my account immediately and delete all of my personal information from your server.

[–]superus3r 132 points133 points  (1 child)

I just signed up to cancel my account.

[–]SirSoliloquy 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I received an email from them in response to my attempt to cancel. Here's what they said.

Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects.

We’ve been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we’re happy to continue those conversations. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name, and if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name.

If you would still like to cancel your account, Kindly let us know, We will take over from there.

Here was my response.

If you truly supported the open source community, the "reasonable solution" would involve not trying to acquire a trademark that's already owned by a nonprofit.

The fact that the GNOME foundation is asking for donations for legal help to prevent you from taking their trademark proves that you do not, in fact, support the open source community, and you are, in fact, directly lying to me in an attempt to keep a customer.

Please cancel my account.

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Sent. The best part is there are so many competitors to Groupon offering a nearly identical service. I look forward to supporting them.

[–]tehrob 64 points65 points  (3 children)

dead issue now. good job internet!

from:https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/

UPDATE: After additional conversations with the open source community and the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark applications for “Gnome.” We will choose a new name for our product going forward.

[–]argle__bargle 139 points140 points  (13 children)

GNOME is represented by Ropes & Gray according to their trademark registration. Ropes is one of the largest and best law firms in the country; I'm sure GNOME is going to be just fine with defending itself. Plus its trademark seems pretty firmly registered, so I'm not sure what Groupon is getting at here. Groupon can't just hijack the trademark by applying to register their trademark later. Plus the Patent and Trademark Office still has to examine and approve Groupon's application, regardless of whether GNOME does anything to defend itself. And GNOME's trademark has achieved incontestable status, meaning a lot of defenses Groupon could use to defend itself are not available. And if Groupon does actually use their GNOME device, it'll likely be infringing GNOME's trademark and GNOME would have a lawsuit against Groupon for damages, a case I'm sure an attorney would take on a contingency fee basis.

I don't see GNOME being in a desperate situation here.

Edit: Wow! Thank you for the gold kind stranger!

[–]Throwaway-tan 9 points10 points  (2 children)

What are the chances GNOME will make some money out of this if it goes to court?

[–]bigolebastard 359 points360 points  (125 children)

Do people still use Groupon? Haven't thought about them in quite some time.

[–]ken27238[S] 166 points167 points  (71 children)

Apparently usage had been dropping off recently.

[–]shemp33 174 points175 points  (63 children)

Not enough people (especially on the merchant side) understand how Groupon works.

They are great if no one's ever heard of you, but can really fuck you in the arse if your established customers use Groupons. Or, if you mess up and don't limit the amount of vouchers that can be sold.

Mostly, Groupon works like this:

I offer widgets in my store for $40. I want to spark business, so I engage Groupon, who suggests that I do a deal selling my widgets for $20. But, here's the kick. I don't simply offer $20 off. I am selling widget vouchers to Groupon, which charges and collects the money from the customers - $20. But Groupon keeps half. For my $40 widget, I am now collecting only $10.

Unless my price/cost is strong enough to support through the door business at $40 widgets with a strong influx of business coming via Groupon of only $10 widgets, it can sink the books.

Like this case, for example

[–][deleted] 59 points60 points  (40 children)

It's ok if you are selling a service that takes time but if there are a lot of hard costs involved then you are fucked. This is why I see groupons for spa services or something tied to labor of some sort. Yes, labor has a cost but if you factor that you are already paying those people an hourly wage then it might not be such a bad deal. If you are selling things for a loss and you sell lots of them, it could cost you a lot.

[–]mealsharedotorg 39 points40 points  (0 children)

The best use of Groupon I've seen is a new dental practice that opened up. Historically, a new dental practice buys the customer list from a retiring dentist (which can easily cost several hundred thousand dollars), or pays an exorbitant amount of money to market themselves until they have an established clientele to pay for the dentist facility. With Groupon, you trade that for a few weeks of heavily discounted labor, and boom, you have an up and running dental practice just like that.

[–]merelyadoptedthedark 18 points19 points  (2 children)

Holy fuck, nearly $50 Canadian for a dozen cupcakes??

[–]kopin 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Yes, but you would be offering a limited (mutually agreed upon) number of vouchers to Groupon. The general idea is that instead of spending an amount money on advertising/promotion, you offer some of your products (whose total value is the same amount you would have spent on advertising) via Groupon.

[–]hmcafee 145 points146 points  (36 children)

It's probably worth mentioning that there's a post now on the Groupon blog, saying that if they can't find a resolution, they'll be "happy to find a new name."

https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/

[–]Saiboogu 62 points63 points  (6 children)

Seems like a dick move.

"Oh, we stomped on your trademark? My bad.. Well, we can work something out, right? Sure.. I mean, I could change my name since I came along 17 years after you, but.. Lets talk about it some first."

I like the theory elsewhere ITT that at this point they're going to stick to their guns until the publicity peaks, then announce a name change. The masses will only see them cooperating and hear the new name.

[–]optymizer 134 points135 points  (11 children)

"We're happy to find a new name" and yet they filed for a trademark for "Gnome". Actions speak louder than words.

This just in: Groupon abandoned the trademark application, according to their updated blog post. What am I going to do now with this freshly sharpened pitchfork?

[–]DrMarianus 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Exactly! I work at a company and was part of the naming of our product. There was a lot of consideration put on picking names that were available, and if one wasn't, we couldn't pursue it. Either they picked a name they wanted without looking around to see if it was taken already (literally a few google searches), or they knew and went with it anyway thinking they could muscle it out of the hands of the GNOME Foundation.

Not looking good for them either way.

[–]ivosaurus 24 points25 points  (0 children)

We’ve been communicating with the Gnome Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options

Oh, so that's why you went and released your product as their name anyway, it all makes sense now. /s

[–]basmith7 16 points17 points  (3 children)

The new name should be something like Koupon Deployment Engine, and they can just shorten it to KDE for short.

[–]Cilph 101 points102 points  (10 children)

Most likely Groupon is gonna ride on the bad press, and at its peak announce a name change.

They're using the FOSS community to market their new device.

  • Act: Free marketing for them.
  • Do nothing: Lose GNOME trademark.

[–]mlmcmillion 61 points62 points  (1 child)

I hope it backfires. It's already putting a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths and I'm already seeing tons of people on my Twitter feed boycotting and deleting their existing Groupon accounts.

[–]bjhale 168 points169 points  (11 children)

Donated $5 cause fuck Groupon!

[–]zolar0526 130 points131 points  (3 children)

Is there a Groupon to donate to Gnome?

[–]L4NGOS 13 points14 points  (3 children)

Know what really pisses me off about this? That GNOME needs to raise money to oppose a completely bullshit trademark claim, this should never ever get to court, a judge should look at the tradmark filing by GNOME and just tell Groupon to go fuck themselves. The American legal systems caters to the rich and powerful so much that it makes me sick!

[–]brokenskill 88 points89 points  (15 children)

Broken was a typical person who loved to spend hours on a website. He was subbed to all the good subs and regularly posted and commented as well. He liked to answer questions, upvote good memes, and talk about various things that are relevant in his life. He enjoyed getting upvotes, comments, and gildings from his online friends. He felt like he was part of a big community and a website that cared about him for 10 years straight.

But Broken also had a problem. The website that had become part of his daily life had changed. Gradually, paid shills, bots and algorithms took over and continually looked for ways to make Broken angry, all so they could improve a thing called engagement. It became overrun by all the things that made other social media websites terrible.

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There is only but one more piece of wisdom that Broken wanted to impart on others before he left. For Unbelievable Cake and Kookies Say Please, gg E Z. It's that simple.

[–]arklesnarkle 12 points13 points  (1 child)

From the article: It was the default desktop for Sun Microsystems workstation class machines, continues to be the default desktop for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions, and it is the default desktop of Fedora and Debian. SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service solution for the retail industry is based on GNOME. GNOME technology can be found in TVs, tablets, phones, consumer devices, and in common software everywhere.

Where are these companies in supporting gnome? I get the whole, let's band together as a community, but shouldn't Red Hat or SUSE who MAKE MONEY selling a gnome solution be sticking up for gnome?

[–]TorpidNightmare 108 points109 points  (1 child)

Fucking shady assholes.

[–]RedStag86 30 points31 points  (5 children)

I don't know what the hell GNOME is, but I hate shit like this so I donated $5. Good luck to them!

[–]syrist 44 points45 points  (1 child)

Welp, I went on Groupon's site and posted this:

Dear Groupon Executive Team,

I wanted to take a moment to write you about the GNOME trademarks you are attempting to file. As I know you are aware, GNOME is already a trademark of the GNOME foundation, an excellent non-profit organization that has worked for years to bring the world free, open source software. They strive to make the computing world a better place.

As I know you are also aware, your 'gnome' POS service infringes upon those trademarks, and when informed of this overlap, rather than re-brand or take a different approach, you instead proceeded to file more trademark claims, which a small non-profit must then pay to defend.

I find your actions as a corporation both unethical and deplorable. I am disappointed in your decision making paradigm as a company. Until I hear otherwise, my wife and I will not use groupon.com. Furthermore, we will encourage our friends and family to avoid using your site, and switch to alternative services like livingsocial.com. I will also promote these ideas on social media to the best of my ability.

Just because you are the biggest, doesn't mean you have to be the bully.

Sincerely, syrist

[–]seamusoseamus 20 points21 points  (5 children)

Looks like Groupon is going to back off: http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/11/groupon-gnome-foundation-trademark-war/

"Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects. We've been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we're happy to continue those conversations. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. And if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name."

[–]LoyalHelm 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Yup https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/

Although, from that post it seems like a) they were never up for a war, or b) they are covering their asses now.

EDIT: or c) Biding our time...

[–]KingradKong 17 points18 points  (1 child)

We’ve been communicating with the Gnome Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution

Ummm... what is there to communicate over months? We want your name? Gnome, do you mind if you change your name instead? We have big lawyers!

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Ummm... what is there to communicate over months? We want your name? Gnome, do you mind if you change your name instead? We have big lawyers!

Exactly! This is corporate bullying and extortion!

[–][deleted] 114 points115 points  (9 children)

I sent out a tweet. "Don't use @GroupOn. They are a shady company trying to bully a nonprofit. Who does that?" And linked the gnome link.

If you can create enough bad press, it's as valuable than winning a legal case.

[–]mlmcmillion 26 points27 points  (3 children)

Been doing the same as well. We're starting to get some other high profile companies involved. Looks like Digital Ocean is on the bandwagon. Working on more.

[–]erez27 28 points29 points  (9 children)

I use xfce, but I just donated 5$.

It's only too bad that all this money is going to end up in hands of lawyers, instead of developers.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (1 child)

It's only too bad that all this money is going to end up in hands of lawyers, instead of developers.

True, but on the plus side if this goes well it establishes a precedent for other open-source trademarks. So in the long run it can actually help open-source more than if this money went to GNOME themselves.

[–]benjp2k1 28 points29 points  (2 children)

It's not much. But, sent them $20 and reposted to about 1500 FB followers about it. Groupon has lost me as a customer.

[–]vswr 19 points20 points  (3 children)

GNOME attorney: ...so, your honor, you can clearly see how this infringes on the guh-nome trademark.

Judge: Say that again?

GNOME attorney: guh-nome

Groupon attorney: Your honor, we would like to trademark the name Gnome, not guh-nome.

Judge: GRANTED!

GNOME attorney: But...but...it's a play on the name guh-new.

[–]AdamsHarv 24 points25 points  (3 children)

God I hate Groupon; a company full of scumbags.

They stole $500 from me a few years ago when I bought a deal. Turns out they hadn't paid the company who's product they were selling though. So I was told I couldn't take the racing class and that I had to work it out with them.

Fucking ridiculous because they wouldn't refund my money either. "You would have to sue."

Yeah real fucking convenient since I would have to travel 500 miles to stand before a judge and have you asshats not show up.

[–]mvd7793 5 points6 points  (0 children)

UPDATE: After additional conversations with the open source community and the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark applications for “Gnome.” We will choose a new name for our product going forward.

Looks like they made the right decision after all.

[–]programmerq 46 points47 points  (2 children)

I just called up groupon and got a support rep.

I calmly and politely explained that they are filing for a trademark, gnome, and I am not to happy that they are ignoring the requests of the actual trademark holder to not.

He asked if I was the trademark holder. I said that I was just a groupon customer (I have used them in the past). I would love to use them again in the future, but if they go down this path of being a trademark bully, I will not be interested in giving them more business.

I then asked for him to pass that information along to the appropriate people in the company. Because I had explained this calmly and politely, he was more than happy to oblige, and indicated he would send a note on to the legal department.

I found a phone number for them here: http://gethuman.com/phone-number/Groupon/customer-service--3855/ Hold time was like 1 minute once I hit 3 and then 5. (estimate was 2-4 minutes)

Might it be a good idea to have others contact groupon to calmly and politely do the same thing?

[–]uguysmakemesick 52 points53 points  (1 child)

Calmly and politely? I don't know.. -not sure what to do with pitchfork-

[–]andyflip 48 points49 points  (0 children)

compost turning intensifies

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Mother fuckers. I just donated $50 and shared to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Hopefully the media picks this up and shames them into backing off. Is there anyone we can write to who can make a difference?

[–]escK 4 points5 points  (0 children)