On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 10:07 AM, Philip Hands phil@hands.com wrote:
IANAL, but I suspect that the confusion arises because Luke is (presumably) the sole copyright holder on the canonical documentation for the standard, so while there is a Certification Mark (which I think is mostly dealt with in line with Trademark law) the thing that defines what the Certification Mark actually means is a copyrighted work.
.... yes. my understanding is that Trademarks and Cerfitication Marks, by being covered *by* Copyright Law, are in effect a sub-branch of Copyright.
On the other hand I'd say that Luke has free rein when it comes to moderating or expelling people on this list, so the justification is largely irrelevant ... although being even-handed about it is liable to ensure a better atmosphere amongst those who remain.
the key thing is that i am *required* to be FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory). if the entity known as "ronwirring" were just simply told to bugger off, he could perfectly reasonably claim, under trademark / certification mark / copyright law (whichever it is) that he had been "discriminated against" by me, the (copyright) owner of the EOMA68 Certification Mark.
thus i *may* not either:
(a) be nice and let people just do whatever they like
(b) be heavy-handed and indiscriminately expel people from the list just because they're being an arse.
the way round this is to ask the perfectly reasonable question, "are you going to follow the rules" and if the response is either "no" or there *is* no response... *then* i believe that my obligations have been met and i can then drop a shit-metric ton of bricks on their head. and not before then.
complicated and not a lot of fun!
anybody else wants this responsibility they're more than bloody well welcome to it.
l.