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Re: [sf-uk-discuss] Re: Moodle cease and desist.

Tony Whitmore <schoolfo...@tonywhitmore.co.uk>

Miles Berry wrote:
> Tony Whitmore wrote:
>> David Goodwin of WolvesLUG, Pale Purple etc. made a blog post containing
>> a worrying story about Moodle:

>> "A friend received a cease and desist letter from someone at moodle.com
>> moaning about his use of 'Moodle Services', 'Moodle hosting', 'Moodle
>> training', 'Moodle Consulting' and 'Moodle installation'. It appears
>> they have a wide ranging trademark. While I understand there is a
>> benefit to having commercial 'Moodle partners', Moodle has it's roots in
>> the open source community - it seems rather short termed and defeating
>> to restrict the online visibility of Moodle related resources."
> There's nothing stopping people using Moodle code on their websites.
> There's nothing to stop them making money out of Moodle.
> They can in fact take the whole of the Moodle code and sell this under
> whatever name they choose, other than "Moodle", subject to the terms of
> the GPL.

Of course, but that's not what's happening here.

> Most of the folk who get one of these cease and desist letters are are,
> I suspect, interested in using the high profile "Moodle" brand for their
> commercial advantage, rather than contributing to the ongoing
> development efforts, either directly or through financial support.

That's something of a sweeping generalisation, isn't it?

Being unable to list the software you're prepared to support on your
website with coughing up a fee sounds incredibly backward to me.
Personally I would resent any project that tried to take away my freedom
in this way.

Tony