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Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

 2 years ago
source link: https://lwn.net/Articles/887931/
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Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

[Posted March 15, 2022 by corbet]
Red Hat recently filed a request to have the domain name WeMakeFedora.org transferred from its current owner, Daniel Pocock, alleging trademark violations, bad faith, and more. The judgment that came back will not have been to the company's liking:

The Panel finds that Respondent is operating a genuine, noncommercial website from a domain name that contains an appendage ("we make") that, as noted in the Response, is clearly an identifier of contributors to Complainant’s website. In registering the domain name using an appendage that identifies Complainant’s contributors, Respondent is not attempting to impersonate Complainant nor misleadingly to divert Internet users. Rather, Respondent is using the FEDORA mark in the domain name to identify Complainant for the purpose of operating a website that contains some criticism of Complainant. Such use is generally described as "fair use" of a trademark.

The judgment concludes with a statement that this action was an abuse of the process.

(Log in to post comments)

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:12 UTC (Tue) by mgk (subscriber, #74833) [Link]

That site contains all kinds of malicious links and malware droppers such as:

<div class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code alignleft"><pre class="brush: bash; title: ; notranslate">podman run --rm -i ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile
</pre></div>

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 17:11 UTC (Tue) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

How is that a malware dropper ?

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:13 UTC (Tue) by nyanpasu64 (subscriber, #135579) [Link]

WeMakeFedora.org links to https://danielpocock.com/when-i-discovered-people-traffic..., which has some frightening claims if they are to be believed. Is this incident real, is the (undated) blog post accurate, and what has happened since?

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:49 UTC (Tue) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

In general, Daniel Pocock is not to be believed. I've had no direct dealings with him myself, but several of my friends have, and he is, at best, an unreliable witness.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 16, 2022 10:06 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

> Is this incident real, is the (undated) blog post accurate, and what has happened since?

I am subscribed to a mailing list where he was often posting all kinds of offtopic stuff. He accused everyone else to be out to get him, plus that others are out to get him. He ignored requests to stop talking about all kinds of offtopic things. He ignored this because that topic "was really important and everyone must know". They were way too friendly and patient with him I think. Also, ignoring him didn't work, he just tries to get responses.

IMO it feels like he believes there's a huge conspiracy in free software, plus a huge conspiracy against him. While in practice he's behaving like an asshole and people quickly a fed up with that behaviour.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 18, 2022 5:52 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

Mental illness is tragic wherever it strikes. It can be hard to think of the person it strikes as a victim, and it might be necessary to defend the community against their activities, but we should not forget that the patient and people nearest suffer most.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:23 UTC (Tue) by atnot (subscriber, #124910) [Link]

> Matthew Miller censored my blog from Planet Fedora again at the same time that an online mob attacked Dr Stallman

> The free software community has been overrun by kangaroo courts proclaiming Codes of Conduct in recent times.

Yeah I'm pretty confident this individual is not a good faith actor.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 22:37 UTC (Tue) by cypherpunks2 (guest, #152408) [Link]

Although this person is certainly a troll when taking everything else into account, the views that you single out are those a lot of people hold in good faith. It would be wrong to believe that the treatment of RMS or the movement towards including more CoCs is not highly controversial. Labeling someone as acting in bad faith based on them holding a different side in a hotly debated topic doesn't seem right.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 23:06 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> It would be wrong to believe that the treatment of RMS or the movement towards including more CoCs is not highly controversial

In this case, what is being highlighted by OP isn't so much the topics themselves but the highly loaded language used to describe them.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 17, 2022 12:48 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]

>Labeling someone as acting in bad faith based on them holding a different side in a hotly debated topic doesn't seem right.
Codes of Conduct and whether RMS's actions would fall outside reasonable codes of good conduct aren't hotly debated (or are only hotly debated by time-wasters arguing they deserve an exception). Codes of Conduct put a marker between helpful and unhelpful behaviour when you're trying to get people together to share work. 'People together' is more important than your unique skills or RMS' special contributions -- bugs won't be shallow without many eyes, to adapt an old saying.

The Code of Conduct is axiomatic to you being a good faith actor. It's a lesson learned after many years of trolls functioning as denial-of-service agents taking time from making great software to protect and police the behaviour of contributors. If you can't fit in and work within the collaborators' agreed terms of engagement, you're free to fork the project -- but good luck finding people to work with!

P.S. It remains possible that a Code of Conduct perpetrates ongoing injustice against marginalised people, we all live in imperfect communities. Having a baseline Code of Conduct is a starting point to improve the community's expected standards of behaviour to become more inclusive and less oppressive.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 17, 2022 21:40 UTC (Thu) by cypherpunks2 (guest, #152408) [Link]

It's objectively false that it is not hotly debated (or at least highly controversial), and to claim that anyone "on the other side" is simply a time-waster is intellectually dishonest. I'm not here to argue about RMS or codes of conduct and I'm not going to let you pull me into one. I was just pointing out that it _is_ a controversial topic.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 18, 2022 5:31 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

CoCs were not initially very controversial, but subsequent alleged abuse of them has become so.

The line is somewhere between, "people's perception of your violating the CoC is hurting your credibility", and "my perception that you violated the CoC justifies me in banning you." That is a pretty wide gap, and different people have different ideas about where to draw it, but anyplace where it needs to be far from the first one is a place I would rather not remain involved.

Cf. "Eternal September"

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:25 UTC (Tue) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link]

This is really bad news - on top of that, this individual is such a toxic and bad faith actor, that I'd much rather LWN wouldn't have picked up this news item, as it gives him attention. Don't feed the trolls.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:32 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I thought long and hard before posting this, but it seemed like relevant news in the end and it was hard to justify leaving it out.

We have, incidentally, reported on this individual's activities in the past.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 22:52 UTC (Tue) by gerdesj (subscriber, #5446) [Link]

On balance, Jon, I agree.

I think it is fair to consider your audience here when deciding on matters like this. LWN is not your usual "social". The readers and commentators hereabouts are generally ... reasonable. Unless the matter in hand is C vs C++ vs Rust in the kernel in which case there isn't a big enough bikeshed.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 17, 2022 17:59 UTC (Thu) by hartmans (subscriber, #135969) [Link]

I actually ended up finding out about this from the LWN article. Now, you might argue that I should have known through other channels, but for whatever reason I didn't.
Knowing was important to me for a number of reasons. So, while I agree that I don't want to see Pocock given more attention, I also want to be able to depend on news sources for news:-)
And at least for me this was news. Thanks for reporting.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:54 UTC (Tue) by brunowolff (guest, #71160) [Link]

I disagree. I don't think companies should be able to shutdown commentary they don't like by taking domain names from others. I haven't looked at Daniel's site, but even if I thought the site was problematic, I don't think trademark based attacks on domain names are a good thing. If the site itself has actual trademark violations (not nomitive use or other kinds of fair use), then they should be able to get an injunction applied to the site regardless of what the domain name is.

Trademarks and domains

Posted Mar 15, 2022 17:19 UTC (Tue) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

I do, in general, think that it should be possible to use a trademark to name an entity you're describing or criticizing.

It'd be very different if this were `wehatefedora` or `whatswrongwithfedora` or `fedorasucks`. But the domain name here *sounds* like it could be part of the Fedora community, which is misleading. And the finding *did* agree it was confusingly similar.

It seems like a primary consideration here was that Fedora in fact has guidelines that permit the use of the trademark in some circumstances, and that caused the problem here.

Trademarks and domains

Posted Mar 15, 2022 17:56 UTC (Tue) by brunowolff (guest, #71160) [Link]

You can't tell if it is a trademark infringement without considering the whole site. A potentially confusing domain name might be part of that, but that doesn't make the domain itself infringing, so that a trademark owner can take it. Red Hat doesn't own all uses of the word fedora in domain names and should not be able to sieze a domain using wemakefedora. The proper remedy is an injunction on the site and making similar sites in the future (assuming a violation is found).
If trademark owners wanted their own play area they should have asked ICANN to create a .trademark domain (tm is a country code) instead of convincing ICANN to created an unfairly (IMO) biased UDRP.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 23:20 UTC (Tue) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link]

This is not an accident or a single occurrence, it's a pattern. The individual in question also runs other conspiracy-theory-laden, when not outright defamatory, cesspools, trying to masquerade as being "part of the community", skirting the line using the project's name to appear legitimate to a distracted and casual look. I'm not going to name them, because again, we should not feed the trolls.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 18, 2022 0:12 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

This is not about shutting down commentary.

This is about fighting one troll who did already sever damage to other open source projects in the past. (Jon posted a link to an LWN.net article that I don't want to repeat - don't feed the trolls!)

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 18, 2022 9:48 UTC (Fri) by brunowolff (guest, #71160) [Link]

The end does not justify the means. Taking the domain is not a proper way to do that and I think it is a good thing that Red Hat lost in their attempt to do so.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 18, 2022 11:31 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

Bullocks. The whole issue is about the means and not the end.

This guy has a proven record to impersonate as a member of open source projects that have banned him. He registered Web sites (as a mean) to spread slander and harassment (the end). Here, he registered a Web site that shall obviously be used to repeat his tactic, as he did with Debian and other projects.

Thus, guy uses a *deceptive* domain registration that was obviously made *in bad faith* as a mean to further his end. Trying to stop that is a fight against his mean, not against his end.

This was already explained to you by josh and bluca. Your reaction to josh was not constructive. Please note, that this is LWN.net and not Slashdot.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 16:51 UTC (Tue) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

Jon: Thank you very much indeed for referring back and providing previous context here.

Unfortunately this is a person who regularly antagonizes Free Software communities, gets banned, and then turns to harassment of organisations and individuals.

This is Debian's statement on the situation: https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20211117

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 18:14 UTC (Tue) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

He was also banned from the FSF Europe where he stole the list of subscriber to send spam and various harassing emails (because he was elected at a position that was planned to be eliminated, and he didn't like that). He published private information on people, and harassed the president since 2 years. He is also the reason why the Elekto project was started ( https://elekto.dev/ ), because he abused https://civs1.civs.us/ to send emails all over the place.

He was banned from FOSDEM earlier this year.

He was banned from the github org of people pushing to get RMS back last year (the counter letter stuff). At the same time, he had his email moderated or blocked by the FSF.

And when you say he was banned from Debian, you also forgot the part where he tried to get the police involved by asking people to call the cops on several Debian members (aka, swatting), and making up weird conspiracy by recycling the same points over and over, most likely because he was denied funding in 2015 to bring his partner as he explained on his blog ( https://archive.ph/xJjc4 ).

And I know he is preventively banned from some orgs (for example Alpine Linux as noted on https://mobile.twitter.com/ariadneconill/status/137702613... ).

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 16, 2022 14:54 UTC (Wed) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link]

> He was banned from FOSDEM earlier this year.

That's interesting news, thanks. I recall people being uncomfortable attending earlier FOSDEMs where he was ostensibly presenting (he never showed up when it came down to it)

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 17, 2022 11:53 UTC (Thu) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

You can see the announce on https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2022q1/003422.html

Since the list is now private, I had to go to the internet archives, but the content was rather clear:
"Hi all,

Due to abuse of privileges and other complaints, we have banned Daniel Pocock from participating at FOSDEM.

Kind regards,

The FOSDEM team."

It happened right after people started to bring the issue on Twitter ( like this thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/ariadneconill/status/148973067... ). Once the Open Power room organiser noticed the thread, Daniel talk was removed ( https://mobile.twitter.com/toshywoshy/status/148988026313... ), and I guess this triggered his subsequent removal from the event. It should be pointed that Daniel wasn't in charge of the RTC room this year, so I guess he was maybe already banned, but the organizing team didn't communicate that widely, so Daniel found a loop hole and exploited it.

Given he is widely believed to be the one who sent this email ( https://archive.ph/cxD05 ) and the one after ( https://archive.ph/OZDC7 ), or the one doxxing one FSFE volunteer (since all mail follow the same pattern as what happened in Debian when Daniel was banned ), it was more than time to get him out

One point that should also not be overlooked is that it seems someone used GDPR requests to erase part of history. If you read the previous article ( https://lwn.net/Articles/814508/ ), you will notice that the link at the end about his blog removal from Planet Fedora is no longer valid, as the commit seems to have been removed from the git repo. The rebase was announced without details : https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/infrastruct...

But a whole mail thread related to the blog have also disappeared from the archives. For example, you can't find this mail anymore in the official archive: https://www.spinics.net/lists/fedora-devel/msg267590.html

Since privacy regulations would most likely be exercised by the data subject themselves, it is not hard to have a educated guess on who requested it and why.

So claims of being censored while he being the one who rewrite history to avoid any kind of accountability is one of the reason why people do not trust him for anything.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 17:23 UTC (Tue) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

This strikes me as especially odd:

> Complainant says it has not consented to Respondent’s use of the domain name. However, in an email dated March 30, 2021 (Exhibit 101), Complainant consented to Respondent’s use of the domain name so long as the website followed Complainant’s trademark guidelines relating to Community sites and accounts.

Does Red Hat's left hand not know what its right hand is doing?

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 18:00 UTC (Tue) by chris_se (subscriber, #99706) [Link]

> > Complainant says it has not consented to Respondent’s use of the domain name. However, in an email dated March 30, 2021 (Exhibit 101), Complainant consented to Respondent’s use of the domain name so long as the website followed Complainant’s trademark guidelines relating to Community sites and accounts.
>
> Does Red Hat's left hand not know what its right hand is doing?

Just speculating, but maybe this was clumsily worded by RedHat and they actually meant to say that they withdrew their consent? Things did take a turn for the worse last fall when it comes to this topic, and the referenced email is from roughly 6 months before that.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 15, 2022 20:02 UTC (Tue) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

The opinion quotes those guidelines, which include this statement:

> While these online community sites and accounts are not officially endorsed by the Fedora Project or Red Hat, because they are part of the Fedora Community (and use the Fedora trademarks to identify themselves), their site owners, moderators, administrators, and users are required to comply with the Fedora Code of Conduct. Community sites and accounts which are unable to meet this standard of conduct will be required to cease use of the Fedora trademarks, and will be not be promoted/advertised by Fedora. Our intent is for all Fedora community members to have a positive and welcoming experience in all community spaces, official and unofficial.

Going by some of the other allegations in these comments and prior LWN discussions of this individual, I would have expected Red Hat to specifically allege a violation of this requirement. The fact that they (apparently) failed to do so suggests to me a rather severe level of organizational dysfunction on their part.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 16, 2022 0:04 UTC (Wed) by shemminger (subscriber, #5739) [Link]

More likely RH doesn't want into a counter suit for slander.

Red Hat fails to take WeMakeFedora.org

Posted Mar 16, 2022 22:13 UTC (Wed) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> The judgment that came back will not have been to the company's liking

The decision in this arbitration procedure states that "[The arbitrator] declares that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding."

Very few lawyer will want to be at the receiving end of a decision containing that, ie. a legal slap in the face.


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