[Koha-devel] For immediate release: Koha Open Source Community Regrets Failure of PTFS, Inc. to Comply with Community Guidelines

[MJ Ray]

Rick Welykochy <rick at praxis.com.au> wrote:
> If it is found that PTFS makes any changes to the source code and distributes
> those changes to their customers, then under the GPL they are bound to
> make those changes available to the public.

The GPL doesn't require immediate publication.  Rather, modifiers have
to license the changes to the public and also make them available to
their users.  If PTFS isn't contributing back, we need helpful PTFS
customers to share the improvements with the community.

[...]
> IANAL, but it would appear that issues relating to logo and name hijacking
> are more complex to deal with, since we are getting into the area of trademarks.
> Has the Koha project registered a trademark?

Some of the developers hold trademarks (registered and unregistered)
until the Koha project has suitable legal person(s) to hold them
itself.

I think calling one's business Koha has always been discouraged (Koha
was one of our(TTLLP's) first products and LibLime's too, and neither
of us trades as Koha) and wilful commercial infringement of the
trademarks is a crime in all WTO countries (Article 61 of the TRIPs
agreement).

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237