Project name change required due to trademark infringement

[gnunn1]

Looks like I'm going to have to change the name of the project as I received a letter from the Terminix corporation with regards to trademark infringement. While I could fight it, I don't think it's worth the time or effort.

I think when I ran the naming poll last year the preferred alternative was Mosaic so I'll probably end up going with that.

[alex285]

i reckon to get an advisory from Github people before you change the name, and make sure their request is at least legit. But if they cant force it, just stay Terminix and ignore them. Besides pretty sure there are also firms and products called Mosaic too :/

[alex285]

@gnunn1 hmm, you removed the letter? why?

[gnunn1]

I didn't want anyone harassing the lawyer, he's just doing his job.

[arcticicestudio]

I think Alex is right, you should probably ask GitHub for advice on how to handle this or maybe contact the corporation to try to clear that this project is in no way connected with / related to their company.

If this doesn't help a new poll would help to get some more name ideas.
The name Mosaic may cause even more problems, just google for it and there will be more than three larger companies were one of them may raise a trademark infringement too 😒

I think, if it is necessary to rename the project, should you go with a name related to GNOME since it is based on their design guide and targeted for the DE itself.
The GNOME team (non-profit) won't raise any law infringements since they're guys like you and me: they love open source 😄

➡️ I'd vote for the name Gnomix.
There is no project, at least on GitHub, and no distribution that uses this name. It still contains a part of the old project name (nix) and reflects the idea of a new terminal emulator for the GNOME DE 👣

[alex285]

@gnunn1 obviously is up to you, but i would kindly request to attach again the letter. It has nothing to do with who signs it, but with the company. Moreover it is essential to be here for people to understand the issue, and to be aware in future such cases that can come into themselves, and in any case it is a public document since it concerns a public project, and it is not a private.

My 2 cents!

[jp7677]

I like "Mosaic" very much, makes searching in Gnome Shell Overview also easier since "Terminal" always appears before "Terminix" in the search results. But I don't want to turn this thread into a new poll so please stay on topic ;).

[f2404]

Mosaic was a web browser so I'm afraid this isn't a valid choice.

[gnunn1]

@f2404 the last release of Mosaic the browser was twenty years ago so I'm not too worried about that. @arcticicestudio makes a good point about the google-ability of the name though, might be better to go with something made up and unique.

[gnunn1]

Anyway, I'll run another poll on the name later today.

[f2404]

Also, Mosaic™ is an NVIDIA trademark.

[gnunn1]

@f2404 That would be the show-stopper.

[gnunn1]

Here's the text from the lawyer for the Terminix corporation without his contact information:

=====
Our firm represents The Terminix International Company Limited Partnership, an
affiliate of The ServiceMaster Company, LLC (“Terminix”) in its intellectual property
matters. As you may be aware, our client has continuously been using the trademark
TERMINIX for almost 90 years and has built a brand that is recognized internationally as a
provider of pest control services. Terminix has invested significant resources in advertising and elevating the brand to the point that it has become a famous household name.

In recognition of Terminix’s exclusive rights, the United States Patent and Trademark
Office has issued to Terminix U.S. Reg. Nos. 0635715, 1404366, 3586266, 3959928, 4073092, and 4248466, among others, for the TERMINIX marks (“Terminix Mark”).

We recently became aware of your recent terminal emulation software that shares the
same name. Although we recognize that your software is unrelated to pest control, we have to be diligent in protecting the Terminix Mark. If we allow uses like yours, we run the risk that the Terminix Mark will no longer be synonymous with pest control, and our client’s trademark will be weakened.

In order to resolve this matter, we simply request that you change the name of your
software. We look forward to receiving your assurance within seven (7) days that you will
comply with our request. We are happy to discuss non-infringing alternative names that would be acceptable. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at the number below.

[thanostx]

You kill/fix bugs faster than they do, that's why they fight you! 🥇

[gnunn1]

@thanostx I was going to joke that I'm probably improving their reputation which seems pretty horrid based on the reviews I've seen

[gnunn1]

So of the names suggested previously in #41, here's the ones I liked:

Tessellate
Splitterm
Ditto

I'm also going to suggest one more name, an invented word which combines Tile and Unix:

Tilix

[alex285]

Tessellate is even hard to write!
Splitterm is a description, not a name :)
Ditto, I dont know if means something, but I will vote for this! 🥇
Tilix ..is so typical unIX :p

[gnunn1]

Ditto is an English word meaning "a similar thing; a duplicate".

[gnunn1]

Termino? It's the Spanish word for Terminus which I also like but would prefer not to use since it's fairly well used already.

[ivoarch]

+1 Ditto
+1 Tilix

Tremendous Terminal (tremendous-terminal) , Tremendous Tile (tremendous-tile) ,
Tremendo in Spanish
Tremendus (trĕmendus ) in Latin
Mosaico - el mosaico - mosaĭcum

[edubxb]

:+1 for Tilix

[jp7677]

What about:
Tico - Tiling Commands, a tiling Terminal Emulator for Linux using GTK+ 3

[alex285]

What about TNT Terminal? Tilix Not Terminix :p

[f2404]

I also like Tilix, but there seems to be a name clash again: linux distro, company
Ditto: clipboard manager, pokemon

[Vaesper]

+1 on a name that does not overlap with GNOME Terminal in the overview search. Right now I have to type the name all the way out to termini before it will launch Terminix rather than GNOME Terminal. So better to have a unique prefix rather than a unique suffix imho. (Honestly though I think you probably shouldn't be giving in to this lawyer because it's nowhere near the same industry but this seems like a good opportunity to address that "bug").

[egmontkob]

How about adding a bit of ego? gnterm, gnix, gnunnix, ... :)

[ivoarch]

Gnuterm

[gnunn1]

@egmontkob Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not much for ego. I have a personal company called GExperts and back in the days when I was doing Delphi development used to name free things I was working on GX..., so my file explorer was GXExplorer, etc. Having said that, things always change and there may come a time where I hand the project over to someone else, I'd prefer it not to be related to me.

@ivoarch Considering I'm using the Mozilla license probably best to avoid Gnu.

@f2404 It looks like that Linux distro Tilix is discontinued and the home page for it is blank (www.tilix.com). The UK company is a bummer but there's no trademark registered for Tilix in the US or Canada which is the domain I care about legally.

The reality is that it's going to be incredibly difficult to come up with a name that is sensible but it isn't used anywhere else.

[f2404]

@gnunn1 OK, I vote for Tilix then if you're fine with this name.

[ghost]

I used to love the GExperts Delphi enhancements, so thanks for making my life easier!
Suggestions I like best so far:

• Tico
• Tilix
• Tremendus

[dsboger-zz]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler

[egmontkob]

Could you perhaps add some migration code that copies over all the old settings (if the new ones are absent)?

[alex285]

@gnunn1 Tilix (http://www.tilix.uk/) doesn't belongs to TIAA (https://www.tiaa.org/)? thats inside the 50 biggest companies worldwide and US based

in any case and to my view it would be a huge mistake to make a name change for the wrong reasons. first Terminix (the terminal) is totally legit, as it has nothing to do with Terminix (the company) as objective (Terminix isn't even a brand name, is a project name). and while you said that "you could fight it", there is no need to fight it. just politely tell them, you cannot change the name ..and ask Github guys too

except if you want to change names every-time that someone is annoyed why his product/compamny does't come Google first

and apart this, it is also wrong to change for reasons like the open source movement/culture etc etc etc
it just feels wrong to me :/

[gnunn1]

@alex285 If you want to cover my legal fees to fight it, let me know. Otherwise it's not up for discussion.

Tilix isn't a registered trademark in the US and Canada so it's not a protected term and thus is safe to use.

[gnunn1]

@egmontkob Unfortunately I'm not seeing an easy way to do this. Typically the install would involve uninstalling Terminix and then installing Tilix, either manually or by a package manager. Uninstalling Terminix will remove it's gsettings (i.e. removing it's schema) and making the settings inaccessible.

[egmontkob]

Can it still ship gsettings schema files under both 'tilix' and 'terminix' for a transational period (about a year or so)? I hope their lawyers wouldn't mind it. Not sure about the technical bits. Thanks!

[gnunn1]

@egmontkob There's a number of issues with that as well. First off, there's no way to tell if the person is a new user or an existing one, so that means it will always copy from the old to the new even for new users. This in turn implies a certain amount of backwards compatibility, for example removing from the new schema or changing defaults means I have to maintain the same in the old.

Also for new users it's pollution of dconf with both schemas and potentially leads to confusion.

So no, I don't have any plans for this.

[alex285]

@gnunn1 legal fees in what? is there a Terminix (Terminal) company to sue? At the worst what they could do, is to sent a letter to Github and ask them to suspend Terminix (the repo). Thus first thing you should had done was to contact Github legal department and ask for an advice

btw if you look on: https://www.uspto.gov/
you can see there are several Trademarks registered under Terminix on US

Also Terminix not being registered on US and Canada, but being registered on UK for example, how it makes any difference at all. Unless there is an company, it makes absolutely no difference. It goes again to Github policies and rules.

[gnunn1]

@alex285 As far as I can tell, all of those Terminix trademarks are registered by the same company, Terminix International. It's quite common to register variants of the name AFAIK.

My expectation is that Github would get a takedown request from them and decide whether or not to takedown the repo. Github's policy on this is pretty clear:

https://help.github.com/articles/github-trademark-policy/

Github could delay the takedown and ask me to work it out with the trademark holder but it just leaves me in the same position as now. I'm just not seeing the point of dragging this out.

Additionally, yes I can be sued as an individual and I have sufficient personal assests that I'm not interested in going down that route. If github were to refuse to takedown the repo, I'd expect that would be the next step.

For me changing the name is far less hassle then the alternatives. At the end of the day I work on this for fun, the minute it stops being fun I'll just move on to something else. Changing the name keeps things in the fun spectrum for me, not changing and dealing with the hassle is not fun.

[gnunn1]

@alex285 Also, if you think Tilix is a bad name then feel free to come up with some suggestions and check that they have no issues and I'd be happy to consider them.

[alex285]

@gnunn1

At the end of the day I work on this for fun, the minute it stops being fun I'll just move on to something else. Changing the name keeps things in the fun spectrum for me, not changing and dealing with the hassle is not fun.

well that is a good point! I'm just pissed with the demands that some people make! anyway!

if you think Tilix is a bad name then feel free to come up with some suggestions and check that they have no issues and I'd be happy to consider them.

nah, Tilix is okay! Besides when you first placed the naming issue, I wasn't in favor of Terminix anyway! I like Tilix more! If I remember, you wasn't such a huge fan of Terminix name either :)

[gnunn1]

I've completed the name change, feel free to open bugs or PRs for things I've missed. I'm sure there will be some issues as we go through a transition period, I appreciate your patience.

[bilelmoussaoui]

@gnunn1 is anything should be reported to Weblate guys ? As far as I can tell the repository name on Weblate is still Terminix

[gnunn1]

@bil-elmoussaoui Definitely and I will be sending them an e-mail shortly, just cleaning up a few remaining things first.

[dsboger-zz]

I'm working with migrating the autotools files. Soon after Ill push a tilix-git to AUR and ask for a merge from terminix-git to tilix-git.

[gnunn1]

Thanks @dsboger, that would be great.

[dsboger-zz]

tilix-git is up and running (I'm using it now). The other packages (terminix, vte3-terminix-git) I'll move after Tilix is released.

[ximion]

Please note that while Terminix (the exterminators) are completely unrelated to software (and therefore I don't know whether their trademark is applicable to Terminix (the software) at all), there is a company called Tilix doing software stuff: http://www.tilix.eu/
However, I couldn't find a registered trademark for Tilix, so going with that name might be fine.

[Vaesper]

Under the excuse "better late than never":

Tilter

Short for TILing TERminal.

[phw]

For migrating my settings I did:

dconf dump /com/gexperts/Terminix/ > terminix.dconf
dconf load /com/gexperts/Tilix/ < terminix.dconf

This even works after you have uninstalled the terminix schema, since the user customized settings are available even after the schema got removed, and the default settings do not matter anyway.

You can of course also do this in a single line, but I wanted to have the settings backed up in a file just in case ;) If everything is ok you can probably clear the old Terminix settings with:

dconf reset -f /com/gexperts/Terminix/

Finally to copy the bookmarks and custom themes just do:

mv ~/.config/terminix ~/.config/tilix

[dsboger-zz]

I've updated most of the Wiki for the new name, but I did not touch the screenshots. It would also be nice to add a question about the name change to the FAQ.

EDIT: I have seen now that tilix-web kind of replaced the wiki, so maybe duplicated pages should be removed?

[dsboger-zz]

The migration to Tilix in AUR is mostly complete, except some merge requests from old to new packages have not been resolved by trusted users yet. This means that some of the old packages still coexist. Once the merge requests are accepted, the history of the old packages (comments and votes, mostly) will be included in the new packages. The status of AUR packages for Tilix is as follow:

• There is a tilix-git that replaces the old terminix-git (not merged yet).
• Someone (carlwgeorge on AUR, I don't know his name on github) created a tilix package (that builds from source) before I did, so now they maintains the "main" package on AUR. They seems cooperative.
• Some users asked me to create a binary distribution package similar to the old terminix. I've pushed the tilix-bin pacakge and terminix got merged into it, so there is no terminix anymore.
• There is a vte3-tilix that replaces old vte3-terminix-git (not merged yet). I dropped the -git because the Tilix patches for VTE should change rarely and depend more on VTE then Tilix itself.

EDIT: links

[ckrzen]

Just wanted to give a heads-up that Tilix(Terminix) became the default vte in "Ubuntu Budgie 17.04" and is a great alternative to stjerm(currently unmaintained and my previous choice for a lightweight quake-esque term). Great project. Keep it up!