Flax Engine 1.1 Released For This Impressive Open-Source 3D Game Engine

[oiaohm]

Of course there can be differences between lowercase and uppercase.

For example, in Dutch if I write "Cola", I technically owe Pepsi money (if they were crazy enough to sue individuals) as that refers to Coca-Cola, but if I write "cola", then I owe them nothing as that refers to all types of coke (which we call "cola").
And in English too: if I write "Walkman", then I technically owe Sony money for use of that name, but if I write "walkman", then all is good.

So yeah, there *can* be differences between uppercase and lowercase meanings of words.

Yes there can be differences. But when it comes to Open-Source vs open-source vs Open Source vs open source there turns out not to be very big difference at all.

Vistaus its rare for a trademark to be allowed in lower case. Cola/Coca-Cola are both technically names and both names have entries as trademarks. Open source is special because its not a name its a property/adjective also the define you find in dictionaries for computer usage that is the primary define come from Open Source Initiative.

https://trademarks.justia.com/791/30...-79130339.html Walkman example you give is technically wrong. The trademark of Walkman is all capitals.
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-la...as-too-generic
Yes Sony never owned the rights to Walkman as a name. 2002 someone finally took Sony to court and found that out it was a generic term and those writing dictionaries were smart enough to perform trademark searches..

The Sony case show:
1) How careful you have be in your trademark application.
2) That what is written in dictionaries has effect on Trademarks.

The word "hoover" in lower case is still protected by the "Hoover company" trademark and must only be used to refer to a Hoover company product because its written in the dictionary that way.

Really miss usage of Open Source or open source in the computer scope the Open Source Initiative could take you for attempting to damage their Trademarks. They did go to the effort to get their meaning placed in all the major countries legally recognised reference dictionaries. What is written in the reference dictionaries does have legal meaning. Lot of people would not think that a Oxford Dictionary that is a reference dictionary has legally enforceable meaning and why if you have a trademark its really critical to be checking reference dictionaries and putting in requests for correction if something is wrong .

Its is important with trademarks to check what is in the dictionaries where it come from into the dictionaries and what is written in the Trademark registrations. Walkman is a good example just because it starts with a capital seams like a trademark has been published with the trademark round circle after it does not have to be legally a trademark. Open source is a good example of ouch where something that can be lower case that is normally not published with a trademark symbol after it is still protected by trademark law due to where it define in the dictionaries comes from the trademark holder.

Basically law in these areas get ugly. There are a lot of things people think are hard and fast rules around capitals and trademarks the reality there is not.

If you want a different define for open source you need to get the dictionary writers to agree with you and be willing to face a possible Trademark infrignment case.

[qarium]

The fact that it's not using your favourite license does not mean it's become proprietary or it's distributed as binaries.
God, some radical open source fanatics are just that, radical fanatics.

it is not open-source by any sane standards... ok you also use Nvidia closed source so anyone have to accept that you are the one you are...

[qarium]

Blame this on the person who called us "fanatics" in a poor attempt to start a flamewar.

to be fair.... it is maybe not birdie who is the troll ... because maybe it is [email protected] who postet this Source-Trap bullshit on phoronix.com...

it is complete insanity that anyone even the single one or even only [email protected] think this topic has any place on phoronix.com....

i am not premium user of this website and send mony to michael just to see news on Source-Trap to fool people into a Trap what could cause them harm.

this is a "Trap" and people will be harmed...

[tildearrow]

to be fair.... it is maybe not birdie who is the troll ... because maybe it is [email protected] who postet this Source-Trap bullshit on phoronix.com...

it is complete insanity that anyone even the single one or even only [email protected] think this topic has any place on phoronix.com....

i am not premium user of this website and send mony to michael just to see news on Source-Trap to fool people into a Trap what could cause them harm.

this is a "Trap" and people will be harmed...

By that definition, I would have been knocked off the forums already as Michael would be mad at me for not letting me do his plot.

Michael posted the article, but d3coder, skeevy420 and birdie are the ones who pointed out about the dubious licensing.

[Vistaus]

Cola/Coca-Cola are both technically names and both names have entries as trademarks.

Maybe so, but here in the Netherlands it really is legal to say "cola" when referring to cola in general, while "Coca-Cola" is not allowed (unless you're talking about Coca-Cola *and* don't mind paying them if it's said commercially). So while both might be trademarks, there's officially a local difference over here and PepsiCo has acknowledged that a couple of years ago.

[oiaohm]

Maybe so, but here in the Netherlands it really is legal to say "cola" when referring to cola in general, while "Coca-Cola" is not allowed (unless you're talking about Coca-Cola *and* don't mind paying them if it's said commercially). So while both might be trademarks, there's officially a local difference over here and PepsiCo has acknowledged that a couple of years ago.

Funny enough the trademarks are "Coca-Cola" and "Coke" turns out cola/Cola is not trademarked and never has been and really cannot be. "original ingredients: coca leaves, and kola nuts" this fact about Coca-Cola is important. This historic "Coca-Cola" name is a list of active ingredients. A incorrect way of writing kola nuts is cola nuts.

The early clones of Coca-Cola called themselves Cola and that was kind correct because their recipes did not contain coca leaves but did still contain kola nuts or what incorrect written is cola nuts. So the name Cola for the drink Cola comes from Kola nuts being used as a ingredients now we get Cola drinks today that don't contain Kola nuts. Its like modern ginger ale that you read some of them they have no ginger in the ingredients.

Vistaus Cola is one of those words people think has been trademarked but in reality no one has ever trademarked that word.

Trademarks are a horrible mess. "WALKMAN" and "Walk Man" are the sony trademarks Walkman is not. Yet hoover in lower case is trademark protected in usage that it better be about a Hoover company made item if you are using it.

There are a lot of cases people giving TM credits or putting TM in circle after word that is not trademark protected at all. There are a lot of words we use that are lower case that turn out to be trademark protected. Yes hoovering you legally cannot use for general vacuuming if you are not going to be performing it with a Hoover vacuum cleaner unless you want to-do trademark infringement.

The hoover example is a item most people would know yet most people would not be aware that is a trademark protect word in usage.

[stiiixy]

We call it vacuuming. Because Hoover is a brand, sounds ridiculous and what if they started making cars, or nuclear reactor's?

Using company names (which is what they want) for a verb (action, in this case hoovering/vacuuming) shpuld be stripped from vernacular in general. It's the kind of mindshare upstart companies could only dream of.

Googling instead of searching is another example, more analagous to us at large.

And, as noted above, cola is not C'd or T'd because it's a flavour, not a product or company.

[oiaohm]

We call it vacuuming. Because Hoover is a brand, sounds ridiculous and what if they started making cars, or nuclear reactor's?

Using company names (which is what they want) for a verb (action, in this case hoovering/vacuuming) shpuld be stripped from vernacular in general. It's the kind of mindshare upstart companies could only dream of.

Googling instead of searching is another example, more analagous to us at large.

Yep googling is another one that is basically trademarked. I do agree these trademark words in lower case are problem.

And, as noted above, cola is not C'd or T'd because it's a flavour, not a product or company.

Cola original flavour comes from the Kola Nut. So so its really progressed how ginger ale has progressed how there are modern ginger ales with no ginger in them with only a some what resemblance in flavour to ginger the exact same thing has happened with Cola drinks vs Kola Nut. Reality is that Cola is really a historic writing down error when people were writing Kola Nuts we are stuck with without that error Coca-Cola would be Coca-Kola and the drinks would have been Kola.

The reason why Cola could not be trademarked when Coca-Cola was is that Cola was existing product the Kola nut. K being swapped C in english does happen quite a bit. You think about it you here Kola as Audio your first thought write down is Cola because C is more common than K words. Horrible part is sometimes these errors make it all the way into trademarks and common usage. Official name of Kola nuts has always started with K but the unofficial Cola Nuts error appears over 100 years before before Coca-Cola comes a product and never completely disappears.

You have same problem with the word kat today. "an evergreen shrub, Catha edulis, of Arabia and Africa, the leaves of which are used as a narcotic when chewed or made into a beverage." yet you will find people miss writing that kat as cat that is no where near close in meaning. K being swaps to C is a on going problem that has been going on for a few hundred years now and likely to be going on for hundreds of years into the future.

[stiiixy]

It's called a homonym.

[uxmkt]

You can read definition of Open Source here
https://opensource.org/osd

Ok fine. OSI can have their own definition of "open"; I'll prefer the open definition that natural languages have had in excess of a 1000 years.
Moral of the story: If you don't want to be misunderstood, be more specific that you mean OSI's definition of "open" when claiming that something is (or isn't) "open".