[asterisk-dev] [Code Review] Remove chan_usbradio and app_rpt.

Sat Mar 10 22:26:01 CST 2012

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 6:47 PM, Tilghman Lesher <tilghman at meg.abyt.es>wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Steve Totaro wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 3:21 PM, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> >> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Steve Totaro wrote:
> >> > On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> >> >> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Steve Totaro wrote:
> >> >> > http://business.zibb.com/trademark/zaptel/29737279
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Filing Date:1999
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Zaptel used by Jim Dixon common law trademark with interstate
> >> >> > commerce
> >> >> > was
> >> >> > at the latest 1999 and probably earlier.  I cannot find the
> original
> >> >> > BSD
> >> >> > driver for the first Tormenta card, but that was the start of the
> >> >> > Zaptel
> >> >> > Telephony Project.  If it was before the federal filing date, then
> >> >> > they
> >> >> > had
> >> >> > no grounds for anything laying claim.
> >> >>
> >> >> No.  Timeline matters for copyright law.  This is trademark law.  It
> >> >> is completely different.
> >> >
> >> > Um wrong.  Pretty clear
> >> > cut http://www.dailyblogtips.com/qa-how-does-trademark-law-work/
> >> >
> >> > I could post the actual laws, but this is much more simple for the
> >> > layman.
> >>
> >> The link says it does not
> >> matter who registers first, only who starts using it first.  You've
> >> done the research, apparently, to figure out when Zaptel Corporation
> >> (calling cards) registered their mark, but you haven't done the
> >> research to say when they first started using the mark.
> >
> > Read above.
>
> Zaptel Corporation apparently started using the mark in 1999 or
> before, the date of the registration of the mark.  Digium (previously
> Linux Support Services) released the first version of Zaptel, version
> 0.1.0, in 2001.
>
> >>  Digium has
> >> paid staff attorneys, and if they made the determination that it was
> >> not worth pursuing, it's a pretty safe bet that Zaptel Corporation was
> >> using the mark first.
> >
> > Doubtful, There was a three year moratorium on transitioning from the
> Zaptel
> > name.  You would probably have noted that if you really knew the true
> story.
>
> I was working for Digium at the time.  There was no three year
> moratorium, just that Digium was busy on other things, and Zaptel
> Corporation had been really patient with Digium about the infringement
> of their mark, but finally demanded that Digium do something about the
> infringement.
>

Probably because they had no leg to stand on, and Digium backed down which
is usually the case.

Again, it was a win-win for Digium, they could get a trademark on their own
name, cut out Jim Dixon and avoid the annoyance of this calling card
company who would have probably backed down.

Did they sue or just make allegations?

You keep dodging the relevance of the usage of Asterisk being banned by
Google Adwords at the same time that DAHDI was going on.  I don't think
there was ever response to Trixter's Open Letter to Digium, I will have to
check.

I think it was just kind of left out there to be forgotten.  Whoops, we
hold the trademark so we hold the power.

>
> >  So in 2005 the decision was made to change from Zaptel to something that
> > Digium could put a trademark on.
>
> The decision was that since we were getting bitten by a trademark
> issue on the name, we would find a name that we could put a trademark
> on, such that we would not have to go through that rename a second
> time.  There were lots of proposals internally, and the particular
> name (and spelling) of DAHDI was based upon a trademark search to
> ensure that we weren't infringing on anything else.
>
>
Doubtful, until I see a court date, there is no issue.  The best they could
do in court is force a name change......  No damages, I doubt they would
even bother since the companies do completely different things.  Jim still
has his project name.

> >> Additionally, it matters not one whit when the Zapata Telephony
> >> Project started, only when Digium started using the mark.  The Zapata
> >> Telephony project is a completely separate organization from Digium,
> >> and if they plausibly have a trademark on the Zaptel name, that does
> >> not extend to Digium.  Separate organizations, separate trademarks.
> >
> > Again, the driver for the first Tormenta card was called zaptel.
>
> Irrelevant, because Digium never made the Tormenta ISA card.
>
>
They made the drivers.

> > I did the research, the timelines on when Digium started using the Zaptel
> > name from the Zapata Telephony project are not defined and I cannot find
> the
> > code.  I will check the repo and see how far it goes back, to .3 I think,
> > frame relay.
>
> Zaptel version 0.1.0, released in late 2001, was the earliest version
> I could find.
>
>
See, it is difficult.

> >> >> >> The maintainers of app_rpt have made a strategic decision that
> >> >> >> they don't want to do the work to make their code compatible with
> >> >> >> DAHDI.  There's no technical reason why they couldn't -- there's
> >> >> >> several competing hardware manufacturers who have kept pace and
> made
> >> >> >> their work compatible with DAHDI.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Who are these competing vendors????  I know of zero.
> >> >>
> >> >> Let's start with Xorcom, whose drivers are distributed with DAHDI.
> >> >> There are others, some of which work with DAHDI drivers as
> >> >> distributed, some of which modify DAHDI post-distribution.
> >> >
> >> > What is the model or name of the Xorcom Radio Interface?  You are
> being
> >> > very
> >> > vague and I cannot find that product offering.
> >
> > You snipped a link of mine that makes your look like a silly boy.  It
> isn't
> > proper to snip links to change the context of discussion.
>
> I snipped a link that was utterly irrelevant to the discussion.  You
> went off on a tangent insisting that I had said Xorcom created a radio
> interface, and I did not.  I reincluded the relevant paragraph from a
> previous email, to remind you exactly what I said.
>
>
My mistake, I mistook what you wrote with "competitors", there are no
competitors as far as I know.

> >> I never said that there were competing radio interfaces, only that
> >> other companies had kept pace with the changes in DAHDI for their
> >> hardware.  Xorcom makes a USB-based channel bank, among other
> >> offerings, and their xpp USB driver interface was distributed with
> >> Zaptel and is still distributed with DAHDI today.
> >
> > And there are several vendor who didn't.  Digium botched up, said DAHDI
> was
> > going to be a find and replace function of Zaptel and then sure enough
> broke
> > a bunch of stuff that you claim they did not break.  LOL.
>
> Where exactly did I say that they didn't break anything?  I agreed
> that the radio interface was broken, and the Zapata Telephony team
> made a strategic decision not to update their driver to work with the
> new release.
>

Again, I may have made a mistake, in this thread, Sean Bright said it.  I
think in the other thread you "may" have said it, I will have to re-read.

>
> > It is OK to be wrong, I have been involved in this much longer then you.
> >  Ignorance to these things is to be expected.
>
> I've been involved in this project since at least mid-2002, and there
> is publically archived evidence to that fact:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020723050749/http://asterisk.drunkcoder.com/.
>  Unfortunately, the older list archives have long since been lost.
> When did you get involved?
>
>
Sometime in 2002, so I stand corrected.

> -Tilghman
>

Thanks,
Steve Totaro
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