does SSH.COM really in fact approve of the generic meaning of "SSH"?

[Greg A. Woods]

I hate to open up a discussion that may already be closed (I haven't
really followed the trademark dispute other than via the postings to
NewsForge, and in particular the one on March 7), and I can't find on
www.openssh.com an obviously more appropriate address to send this
thought to, so....  [note my reply-to address]

though the message below purports to come from <owner-ssh at clinet.fi> it
does in fact come from someone within the SSH.COM internal network (as
the received headers below show).

I don't know if this person knows of the full details of SSH.COM's,
errr, Tatu Ylonen's views on the SSH trademark or not, and probably th
e-mail below can't be considered authoritative on the subject, but it
does clearly indicate that the word "SSH" is obviously thought of as
"generic" even by someone who's likely an SSH.COM employee.

I guess time will tell once the list has been moved and its "official"
description is posted.  Suffice to say though that the name of the list
itself, and the implied "vendor non-specific" focus would suggest that
there's not going to even be an internal attempt to protect their mark.

Personally I think any idiot who thinks they can give something away for
free (particularly source code) on the Internet for some time and then
rip it back for their own sole use is surely asking for backlash.  The
mere thought that they'd try to protect the command name is pure lunacy.

(Of course I'm still using their implementation in favour of yours!  :-)

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Sender: owner-ssh at clinet.fi
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 09:16:00 +0200
From: owner-ssh at clinet.fi
To: ssh at clinet.fi
Subject: ATTENTION: SSH-list server change
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
Precedence: bulk


Dear patient subscribers,

The SSH-list will be moved from clinet.fi to ssh.org on Thursday March
22nd, 2001. The list is a discussion zone for all the software based on
SSH protocol and it remains vendor non-specific. The new list address
will be ssh at lists.ssh.org. Sending email to ssh at clinet.fi after the
above date will result in an automated reply containing instructions on
how to use the new list.

The new list will operate under different list server software than the
current one. Only people subscribed to the list will be able to send
email to the list. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the
earlier arrangement.

The subscriber list will be transferred to the new server so that all
current subscribers of ssh at clinet.fi will be subscribed to
ssh at lists.ssh.org automatically. If you wish to unsubscribe, please read
the monthly posting on the upcoming list for instructions.


    - SSH-list administrator -


------- end -------

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods at acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>