Microsoft And A KDE Project Spar Over "MAUI"

[polarathene]

It is being pushed/marketed on the site for their Linux distribution called Nitrux. I haven't found anything else outside of that.

And their NX-Desktop does look pretty neat -- like a Qt/KDE version of GNOME.

Nitrux(distro) maintains MauiKit and builds it's DE(NX) from it: https://mauikit.org/

The github repo linked prior also links back to the Nitrux site you linked. So this is all just one consumer of it (and the only one?).

There is software build on MAUIKit as you can see by the apps in the repo on GitHub, https://github.com/mauikit, so it's not just an internal thing. But yeah, it's not being pushed/marketed or anything.

Seems to be used internally only by Nitrux, no adoption elsewhere as of yet.

Just went back to the article and read the link blogpost which is by Nitrux too. The only relation to KDE is that they brought them under the KDE umbrella/support, presumably because Nitrux is a customization layer over Plasma, with Maui utilizing Kirigami, that's basically the relationship there. The blogpost does make a point about their position in Google and how MS would overshadow that with this new branding going forward.

Still not likely to cause any real damage that would have an impact on Maui to Nitrux currently, but may have a negative impact on growth in the future.

[polarathene]

So Blue Systems has a patent on the MAUI name (https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#det...arks/013410601), Microsoft comes along and takes the name but it's not "stealing"? Okay. So if you are registered as a nurse and I come along pretending to be you, I'm not committing identity theft?

That's new information you're pointing out. MS either missed that with their legal review or it turned out not to be an issue.

I'm not saying it's ok to do, or that I support it. Just that it's not likely to be have that much of a notable negative impact. This sort of things happens often with open-source project names, heck you have Apple using a common fruit as their company name and a logo of it. Apps called Gallery, Photos, Word, Settings, etc.

When I go to a place like starbucks, to avoid any confusion/hassle with names I just give a simple name like "Matt" which is far off from my actual name, but just because another Matt is there doesn't mean I'm committing identity theft.

MS isn't trying to pretend to be MAUI, they're just very similar. You can see a similar effect with discoveries/inventions, and there is similar for movies being released in the same year with the same theme and even title. Not saying they're in the right, but if they really didn't know about this similar project(which is hard to believe since it should have come up with Google), then they're probably going to fight changing the name after all the PR they just built up about it.

When Pokemon Go came out, I had planned a similar project about a year or so earlier and had contacted Nintendo about it for permission(didn't get a response of course), my project would not have been of the same quality/fidelity, but was effectively the same GPS around the world catching thing. Not that unique or special of an idea, but I'm not claiming they stole it. This type of thing happens a lot.

I'd retract my statement of MS not "stealing" the MAUI brand, since initially I was of the understanding that it was just a name for KDE internal dev, similar to Kirigami but even less widely known. As that doesn't seem to be the case, and it's a bit more prominent, sure, MS is being a dick here, hopefully the IBM patent has some weight, but is it related to Nitrux MAUI? It was filed and approved many years before Nitrux was a thing?

[Paradigm Shifter]

This sort of things happens often with open-source project names, heck you have Apple using a common fruit as their company name and a logo of it.

And didn't that have a multi-decade legal fight with Apple Corp? (Among many other issues...)

Not that I disagree with your point, but when it comes to multi-national corporations with a record of being litigious and/or abusive to smaller targets... they need to be treated with caution.

[STiAT]

Well, I think David Ortinau is right there, github is the wrong place for that kind of discussion, and I see nothing wrong in providing himself to get the relevant people (legal staff etc.) into a proper discussion about the legal implications (and at least in the EU it's a registered name).

I think it will be hard for microsoft to back off the name now since they've used it in their conference, and they probably will risk the legal implications this could bring.

Could all have been avoided if they did some proper research on the name.. maybe somebody on the legal team just made a mistake though and forgot to check european name reservations, which would be unfortunate.

[CochainComplex]

That phrase is used in Dutch and English as well, so not exactly a German saying

Ok my native tongue was underneath the thought ....it was a mixed thing of "as we say in germany"a "german saying" ...etc kind. But well dutch and german are very close related from the linguistic pov and to a certain extend the same with english.

[CochainComplex]

Just for amusement, and if anyone is interested in etymology, I think the reason this is such a widely used saying is because it actually originates from St. Matthews Gospel, so the original form would be Greek?

Wow, this forum makes me remember the weirdest bits of my schooling.

puh could be. But somehow I would even include some of C.G.Jung's archetypical approaches. Since middle european cultures have a close relationship to the wolf as one of the few real predators for humans. Maybe bears but mostly wolf. And wolf and sheep is the prototype of predator and prey. The hidden threat in the night for the vulnerable fluffy sheep. I wouldn't be surprised if that saying emerged in different parts of europe even world independently .....Now we are deep OT

[curfew]

So many shill missing the point even on this forum. We don't care that their Microsoft's department "cleared" it. This isn't about legalese. Being part of the open source community isn't only about dumping some vaguely useful code every now and then, it's also about paying respect to other people in the same community. KDE with its Maui Project is years ahead Microsoft's.

And, hell, these two projects are even producing software for the same purpose. It could be a little bit different if one was a music player and the other a database server, but not in this case, no. Microsoft does not get to ignore other projects in the same space just because it is the biggest company around. In the open source world Microsoft is still the villain and this bad-spirited, ignorant behaviour only underlines that fact.

Asserting that "based on our legal power we have the right to do this" is malicious behaviour. Ethics and morality are not Microsoft's values, only what the legal department tells them. This is the face of a strictly-for-profit company posing with FOSS folks only to get the pictures out there looks like.

If Microsoft really is in violation of a registered trademark for an open source company, then that's simply the cherry on top of the shit cake. But again, some people on this forum are hyperventilating over this issue. The trademark MAUI is owned by Blue Systems but the MauiKit / Maui Project is owned by another company, Nitrux. You can see not even the styling of the word "maui" is the same for these two.

I don't think Blue Systems has ever cleared MauiKit to use its supposed trademark, as they would have had to require them to use the same styling. Otherwise they are actually risking to lose the trademark as they do not pay enough attention to how it is being used by other parties.

[coder]

When I go to a place like starbucks, to avoid any confusion/hassle with names I just give a simple name like "Matt" which is far off from my actual name, but just because another Matt is there doesn't mean I'm committing identity theft.

Yeah, but it's so common that it's in fact likely to collide, which also creates confusion. That it's one syllable doesn't help, either. A slightly less common name, but still one that the baristas would know, is a better bet. And make it at least two syllables.

I mention this, because I've learned similar things about machine names. Within a group or organization, they need to be easy to type, easy to pronounce, and unambiguous. If not easy to type, then they should lend themselves to short abbreviations. One of the best examples I've seen is the atomic elements, all of which have a standard, 1-2 letter abbreviation. A few other things have standard abbreviations, like states or provinces. I've had less success with minerals and trees, as it turns out there aren't so many good options among them (and no standard abbreviations, to compensate for the longer ones).