[GRASS5] [jberry@innovativegis.com: MapCalc trade name]

[Roger Bivand]

Markus:

I guess that r.mapcalc is more like a function name within the GRASS
environment than a specific brand name as such. Our "brand" is GRASS, and
the question of replying to the MapCalc issue also raises "our" rights to
the GRASS trade name. There must be some advice to be had for Open Source
projects in general - does the agreement between CERL and the GRASS
community give us a lead - maybe even the MapCalc thing is already
answered in that document. Is it online?

A side issue is that the MAP code is also extant or replicated in OSUNAP,
and through MAP II, in Map Factory and its successor MF Works, a good and
intuitive raster system we've used for teaching for years on Macs. So I
think that the issue here is that this company would like to use MapCalc
as a trade name, and are being professional in finding out whether this is
a problem for us. I think that is laudable, and maybe a concilatory answer
may help to build bridges (thinking aloud - they might like to have their
database files at least readable by GDAL for r.in.gdal, so that scholars
could use r.mapcalc in GRASS to replicate/verify what the closed code
commercial product is doing). So if the CERL agreement isn't a problem,
I'd suggest a friendly tone and finding things in common.

We still need to secure the GRASS trade name, though, don't we? Maybe it
is appropriately protected? Is this an issue?

Roger

-- 
Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Breiviksveien 40, N-5045 Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 93 93
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no
and: Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of
Gdansk, al. Mar. J. Pilsudskiego 46, PL-81 378 Gdynia, Poland.


---------------------------------------- 
If you want to unsubscribe from GRASS Development Team mailing list write to:
minordomo at geog.uni-hannover.de with
subject 'unsubscribe grass5'