From lojbab@lojban.org Thu Dec 05 17:50:11 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 6 Dec 2002 01:50:11 -0000 Received: (qmail 16803 invoked from network); 6 Dec 2002 01:50:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m15.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 Dec 2002 01:50:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao03.cox.net) (68.1.17.242) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 Dec 2002 01:50:11 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20021206015010.YWEX2204.lakemtao03.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Thu, 5 Dec 2002 20:50:10 -0500 Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.0.20021205200329.03138260@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.0.9 Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 20:40:49 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Loglan In-Reply-To: <0AA43179-0893-11D7-A3CE-00039362FD2A@macsrule.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 03:49 PM 12/5/02 -0500, Robert McIvor wrote: >On Mercredi, d=E9ce 4, 2002, at 20:18 US/Eastern, And Rosta wrote: > >> I, on the other hand, did make a concious choice. I was actually > >> canvassing all sources I could find for a logical language. The > >> *instant* I discovered that Loglan was copywritten, I dropped it in > >> favour of lojban > > > > Yes, that is a good reason. (I am assuming you mean what I would call > > "copyrighted" and not "copywritten".) I have never seen a TLI statement > > of its position on copyright, though. > > > As far as I know, it was never asserted to other than LLG, with w= hom >there had also been acrimonious litigation with regard to the name >'Loglan' He had a personal animosity towards Logbab whom he remained >convinced had acted dishonestly with Loglan materials which he had >demanded to be returned. It's ancient history, but the copyright claims (coupled with my general=20 tendency to act independently) were what started the whole disagreement,=20 were not limited to LLG and me, and preceded the fight. He may also have=20 claimed copyright in his disagreement with Carter. JCB was upset with me because I had put out the first JL using the mailing= =20 list I had gotten from John Lees; JCB was in Europe and incommunicado; I=20 had tried to work out with John a coordination between what he was doing=20 with Lognet and what I was doing with the first JL, and he just said that I= =20 should put out Lognet. I felt that assuming editorship of Lognet would be= =20 presumptuous and I did not want to be limited to paid members of TLI so I=20 went with JL, but he offered to send me the mailing list (I may have asked)= =20 and did so. JCB also was upset with me because I had hosted the first=20 Fairfax Logfest, at which I had made copies of the draft 40-odd pages of=20 Notebook 3, which he had given me for review, we did a group review, and I= =20 sent JCB the comments. He also was upset with me because I had done all=20 these things and not made progress on the dictionary update (I was stymied= =20 by the conflicts between multiple gismu lists, and Nora and I had assembled= =20 a set of comments and questions for JCB to resolve when he got back from=20 overseas.) At any rate, JCB was generally feeling distrustful of me, and then when I=20 sent him a copy of LogFlash and told him we had put it up on a BBS as=20 Shareware, he insisted that the wordlists were copyrighted, and that TLI=20 had ownership of the LogFlash algorithm and we would have to pay royalties= =20 on each copy distributed. Since Nora and I disagreed on both of these=20 things (and it was impossible to track how many copies of the software were= =20 being downloaded), we each protested and refused, JCB had a lawyer send us= =20 a letter, and that was the start of the fight. A couple of months later,=20 he "fired me" as dictionary editor/updater and demanded that I send him all= =20 the stuff he had given me, the address list (which he had been upset about= =20 my using it before, but had not asked for it back), as well as all the work= =20 I had done which he claimed ownership of because I was an "unpaid=20 employee", and erase all of it from my own system. Again I refused, and=20 that is when we severed civil relations. A couple of months later he refused to fill my order for several copies of= =20 L4/L5 for use in the Loglan class I was running, and at that point, one of= =20 the students suggested that we just make up new words to avoid his=20 copyright claims. That was the start of Lojban. About a year later, when we had started working on the Lojban grammar=20 (about the time that Bob McIvor visited us at LogFest) JCB made copyright=20 claims and general ownership claims over Jeff Prothero's work on the=20 grammar, as well as trademark claims on Loglan, and he had his lawyer send= =20 a nasty letter to Jeff. Jeff disputed this noting that his YACC work had=20 been done as a student using University of Washington facilities, that he=20 had never signed over any rights to TLI, and that if his work was=20 copyrighted at all or claimed to be a commercial product, that UW would=20 probably have legal claims if there were any to be made. When the=20 following year, JCB notified us that he had registered a trademark on=20 "Loglan", Jeff and I agreed to challenge the trademark through LLG on order= =20 to stop the legal maneuvers and threats, and the two of us more or less=20 financed the legal challenge to the trademark, which was finally won in=20 1992 (Unfortunately this drained us both emotionally and financially so=20 that LLG has been struggling since then, and my leadership hasn't been as=20 robust as it needed to be.) End of ancient history. lojbab --=20 lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org