Update: https://www.gnome.org/news/2014/11/groupon-has-agreed-to-change-its-product-name/
Hello Ubuntu GNOME Community,
Sad but true. Everyone I suppose is shocked. I have seen this today on Facebook – Help the GNOME Foundation defend the GNOME trademark against Groupon! – and I still can’t believe my eyes but this is not a joke, sadly .. this is true and official:
“GNOME” has been a familiar name in software for the past 17 years, and a registered trademark since 2006. The GNOME project has been a staple desktop for GNU/Linux and BSD desktops. It was the default desktop for Sun Microsystems workstation class machines, continues to be the default desktop for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions, and it is the default desktop of Fedora and Debian. SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service solution for the retail industry is based on GNOME. GNOME technology can be found in TVs, tablets, phones, consumer devices, and in common software everywhere.
Recently Groupon announced a product with the same product name as GNOME. Groupon’s product is a tablet based point of sale “operating system for merchants to run their entire operation.” The GNOME community was shocked that Groupon would use our mark for a product so closely related to the GNOME desktop and technology.
Please read this email from Tobias Mueller.
I have contacted GNOME Foundation by sending this email to the mailing list. And after spreading the word, I sent this email too. I have also contacted Ubuntu GNOME Community and informed everyone via the mailing list and this one as well. This has been done to make sure everyone is informed and updated.
Now, with this post on Ubuntu GNOME Website, even more people within Ubuntu GNOME should be informed. I shall also share this on Ubuntu GNOME Social Media channels.
As mentioned on the emails, if you can’t donate money, kindly donate some of your time to help GNOME Foundation defend the GNOME Trademark against Groupon.
I have created the above banner which could be used on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other site/channel. Please, feel free to use it.
Do not forget to use these hashtags: #DefendGNOME #GNOME
Everyone is invited to help and spread the word.
Thank you for reading and we expect some serious action from your side!
Ali/amjjawad
Ubuntu GNOME Community Leader