Adobe Threatens KIllustrator Over Name

Moritz Moeller - Her writes: "Evidently Adobe -- yes the Adobe that has not ported a single application apart from its PDF Reader to Linux -- sees a threat in KDE. They claim that the Koffice vector based drawing program Killustrator violates their trademark for Adobe Illustrator. Here is the mail on koffice-devel. The company demands 2500 EUR from the developer, maybe someone can help with the legal expenses here? The web site for Killuistrator has been put down for the moment. Shouldn't generic descriptive terms like 'explorer,' 'illustrator' 'word' and 'paint' be free for all to use? Nobody called the program Kadobe! I think it is time for some pressure on Adobe ... "

Actually... this is flagrant...

Anything else Killistrator could have stood for?

Re:Why Not More Original Names?

It's very true that patents/trademarks are being abused a lot these days, but in this case the KIllustrator name is ACTUALLY confusing. Common word or not, "Illustrator", in drawing programs, equals a quality product.

Adobe did work a long time for that connection, and even though it may help users figure out what the program is meant to do, it's pretty much like advertising a product to the Linux community that you say is "OGPL licensed", which has nothing to do with GPL (the "O" carries with it terms such as giving up your firstborn and your soul), but you wanted to keep the name similar to GPL so people would recognize it was a license of some sort.

In their purest and most proper forms, trademarks and patents DO protect companies and products from people trying to save time on brand-building. They are not categorically wrong out of the gate.

Besides, if you make something really that good for an audience that has no other alternatives, you could name it "P1-588" and it would still be popular. The free ride on KIllustrator is ending, but if it's really that good, a defiant name change will make it more widely known.

Re:Why Not More Original Names?

Even commercial products aren't original, compare Microsoft Office

• Corel Office
• StarOffice
• KOffice
• Open Office (??)

Exactly what is wrong with the K Desktop Environment appending a K if everyone else appends their company name?

Personally, I think KDE Office sounds better than KOffice. But that's not my decision :)

Perhaps Adobe shouldn't have chosen to make a brand out of such a generic word?

Why Not More Original Names?

Rather than trying to convince the trademark offices that various words shouldn't be trademarked, why can't the various open-source projects come up with more original project names? I'm sick of seeing KOffice and thinking to myself, "Oh, it's just a clone of MS Office" or seeing "GAIM" and thinking to myself, "Oh, it's a GTK version of AIM." KDE seems to be the worst offender in this category.

Not only will you avoid these types of pointless lawsuits, but you'll stop enforcing the MegaCorp's brand strength and start developing some for Linux apps. Pick an original name and quit crying when someone gives you a little legal nudge over your blatant copying of their property.

Re:Generic naming

::shrug:: It depends on how you define "market".

If you use a broad definition: "vector drawing tools", then yes, they fall in the same market.

If you define the markets a *little* more specifically: "vector drawing tools for linux", "free vector drawing tools", "vector drawing tools for Windows/MacOS" or "commercial vector drawing tools", they don't fit into the same market at all.

Adobe produces no vector drawing software for Linux (AFAIK they cancelled their only Linux-based project, which was a port of Pagemaker (?) ) - so in the Linux market, their product doesn't fit. AFAIK, KIllustrator doesn't run under Windows or MacOS (with the possibility of OSX as an exception) - so it doesn't fit into Adobe's market.

The two seem fairly well seperated to me =)

Re:Some comments on the scope of a trademark

At the time Adobe registered "Adobe Illustrator", there was an existing registration for "PC Illustrator" in the same field. A few years later the "PC Illustrator" mark expired and was not renewed. A few years after that, Adobe registered just plain "Illustrator". This sequence of events suggests that "Illustrator" is sufficiently weak that any prefix or postfix, except pluralisation, may be sufficient in the eyes of the USPTO.

Is KIllustrator too close? Maybe, or maybe not. Most likely a court would rule against it because there is clear intent to ride the "goodwill" of the Illustrator mark. The above history might give you justification, though.

The smart thing to do here is drop KIllustrator like a hot potato and choose another name. There are much better places to spend our money establishing and changing legal precedents in favour of freedom and free software.

Some comments on the scope of a trademark

There seems to be a lot of confusion here about just how much protection a trademark does or doesn't give you. IANAL, but let me inject some boring ol' facts into the discussion.

First, foremost, and most gallingly to the Slashdot-kiddie population, is that US trademark (and patent) law is based on a "use it or lose it" principle -- if, today, you fail to defend your property, you may lose the right to do so tomorrow.

This means that Adobe may not particularly care, per se, what the KDE vector-graphics product is called, but they fear the loss of their trademark more than they fear pissing off the Linux community. This does not, IMHO, make them bad or evil, just businessmen trying to hold on to the good name they've built.

Second, trademarks are not "global" in the sense that just because Ray Kroc trademarked "McDonald's" as a name for his burger chain, that doesn't prevent me from opening up a "McDonald's Auto Repair". Trademarks apply to a name or logo applied to a specific product or field of business. You better believe if I open up a roadside hamburger stand called McDonald's that the big chain is gonna land on me with both feet.

Third, what does Adobe's "Illustrator" refer to? A vector-based drawing program. What does KDE's "Illustrator" refer to? You guessed it. Similar products doing similar things means that KDE knows damn well (or should know damn well) that they're on Adobe's trademark turf.

Fourth, yes, a simple phone call might have sufficed, but a) the people who are protesting this would probably still protest even that, urging resistance and thus forcing a lawsuit anyway, and b) with reference to point 1, this may be the first real challenge Adobe's ever had on the Illustrator name, so they feel they need to act decisively to maintain their right to that name.

A final point: precedence rules over registration. This means if some guy in 1981 wrote a program called "Illustrator", not only would he have the right to continue to use the name, he might even have the right to sue Adobe to have their trademark vacated and/or assigned to him. When businesses in unrelated fields use the same name, an understanding is often reached (cf. Apple Computer/Apple Records), amicably or by litigation, that those companies will not enter each others' arenas with the same trademark (Apple Records would not, for example, be allowed to sell "Apple" computers without clearing it with Apple Computer and probably paying a license fee first).

Executive summary: Quit whining. A couple of thousand Euros is pretty damn cheap considering the goodwill that goes with the "Illustrator" name.

Re:Actually... this is flagrant...

No it isn't. That's why when Adobe filed their trademark, they got the whole phrase:

http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=7r 1noi.2.19 [uspto.gov]
not just the word mark 'Illustrator'. They knew that they would not get it. You can't defend what you don't have.

On this one Adobe can go fuck themselves...

Re:Adobe and unix

Good, because "GIMP" [macgimp.org] doesn't sound anythink like "Photoshop".

(although abiword [abisource.com] may run into trouble too.)
W
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Some Alternative Names

Koffice -> KDE Office Suite
Killistrator -> VectorDraw
kword -> Scribe
kpaint -> Artiste

and so on. Rather than fighting this sort of battle on their turf (yes, it is rediculous that generic words like, oh, say, "word," "illustrator," "paint," and so on are trademarked, but these large corporations have already purchased all three branches of our government rather cheaply and hold the home-court advantage in an excess of funds and lawyers to win even the most unfair and indefensible of legal fights.

Far better to just make up unique names and spend the money that would have been spent on legal duels filing trademarks for those names instead. I'm sure numerous people would donate to such a cause.

Anyone have any better ideas for names ... perhaps famous sketchers or draftsmen for Killustrator, famous authors for kword, famouse painters for kpaint, and so on...

Smart user, dumb user

Have you ever noticed how our hypothetical user's intelligence changes to fit our arguments...?

"The average idiot user will never understand that IE's smartlinks are different than ordinary web links!"

...versus...

"It's blatantly obvious to anybody that KIllustrator has nothing to do with Illustrator!"

Of course, user number 1 is using Windows, and user number 2 is using Linux, so maybe that explains the disparity...

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Stop whining

Instead of complaining to Slashdot every time your blatant name ripoff is called out (GAIM, KIllustrator), why not just name your program something that isn't clearly derivative of a commercial program with the same purpose?

This is, after all, the ENTIRE POINT of trademarks -- so that the customer knows what they are getting. For someone who isn't already familiar with the applications, KIllustrator and Illustrator could very well be the same thing.

We criticize MS every time they over-use the word "innovation", why not practice some innovation of your own and actually spend ten seconds thinking of a new name.

Yes, you might be able to claim "illustrator" is a generic term, but seeing as how the program has been around for 15 years and is the market leader, I think a court would give Adobe the benefit of the doubt in deference to the consumer identification of the name with their product. They're hardly trying to stop the use of the word everywhere -- only where it is blatantly obvious that its an intended ripoff of their product identification in vector graphics application software market.

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Re:Adobe releases KLinux

ya know this whole attitude of:
by having a project which is not-for-profit, and realeases source code under a free license, i am within my rights to infringe on anyone's patent or trademark or any other form of IP.

It's just rubbish. Whether or not you "believe" in Intellectual property has no bearing on whether it exists, and if it is legally binding.

Fighting the system through simple noncompliance is not the answer, talk to your govt reps, and demand action. If nobody complains, then nothing changes. The whole point of democracy is that you stand up and be heard, not just bitch and moan cuz you're not in charge.
And do you really believe that gov't cares about anything but money anyway? Well, guess who has more money? The people do, and by the way, corporations can't vote, so if you stop being a sheep and watchin all the political ads, and do something. Then the system might change. If you've never actively participated in the system ( no, just voting is not enough) then you're not doing enough to make sure you're interests are represented. Support a canidate that REALLY represents you, then maybe we wouldn't have all these cookie-cutter, do anything for a buck congressional whores deciding how we're gonna plan our collective futures.

by the way, no i'm not bitter.
-earl

Re:Adobe releases KLinux

Today on the trademark front, Kleenex Corp. accounced that it is issuing an injunction against Adobe, Inc. for use of a confusingly similar name for their product.

The Kleenex spokesman, a Mr. S. Notball, had this to say, "These Adobe people have gone too far. Their giving this product a name that sounds so similar to our product can't help but harm our customers. Picture this, John Q. Consumer has a bad cold, he's not feeling himself and is a bit confused. He reaches for his KLinux, thinking that he's grabbing his Kleenex. And what happens? He ends up with mucus all over his mouse, keboard and monitor! We just can't allow this sort of thing to go on."

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Re:Adobe releases KLinux

Think about how Linus would pronounce this and you'll realize that they'd soon hear from Kimberly Clark. You know, the folks who make that boxed facial tissue?

(see http://205.203.65.110/home.htm if you still don't get it...)

Euro?

Adobe is a US based company. If they are actually trying to get money out of you I don't see why it would be in Euro. Not to mention 2500 euro seems like a very small sum to begin with. I would check with Adobe Corporate Legal and see if this letter is a fake or not before worrying about it. Most large companies tend to get their panties in a bunch to the sum of many hundred of thousands of dollars (or more) over trademark infringement.

Product names

Shouldn't generic descriptive terms like 'explorer,' 'illustrator' 'word' and 'paint' be free for all to use?

No. To my understanding, trademarks refer to specific fields of usage. Illustrator is a perfect name for an illustration program. Adobe (actually Aldus, from whom Adobe bought Illustrator) got to it first, and is enforcing the mark against a party which is distributing an Illustrator program whose name differs only by affixing a "k" to make a cute pun. I'm sure Macromedia would be doing the same thing if somebody called their illustration program aFreehand. (of course I'd be very pissed at Adobe if they sued someone for calling their product Linux Illustrator, etc.)

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trademarking common words

since you can't trademark a common word

Actually, you can trademark common words or phrases,and obvious ones, for use in a certain context. IBM trademarked "Crash Protection" as it related to operating systems, as did Microsoft with "Windows". Oh, and "Macintosh" is a common eating apple, but both it and apple have been trademarked.

Re:Adobe is right here....

Yeah... using tess.uspto.gov [uspto.gov], you can find...

ser# 74731075: "ILLUSTRATOR", for Adobe Systems Incorporated.

ser# 73210166: "ILLUSTRATOR", for Illustrator Pen Products, Inc.

ser# 73657866: "ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR", for Adobe Systems Incorporated.
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Sounds like fraud

Lawyers don't make demands for money upfront.
They threaten first and expect you to back down.
Also 2500 euro sounds awefully cheap for use
of adobe's trademark. Ignore him.
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www.alphalinux.org

Re:Adobe is right here....

Adobe has every right, reason, and frankly, moral justification to persue this suit. Adobe Illustrator is an established, well known, widely recognized brand name, due in no small part to the quality of the product and the boatloads of marketing money spend by Adobe. Naming a product that is a direct competetor KIllustrator, a one letter diffrence, is not just an innocent naming choice, but a blatenty obvious effort to ride on the coatails of Adobe's efforts. Adobe did it first. Adobe did a good job of it. Adobe chose to identify all their hardwork with the label Illustrator. Regardless of the legality/wisdom of trying to trademark a standard word, naming their productKIllustrator is a cheep ploy and is an excellent example of the kind of thing trademark laws were set up to stop in the firstplace. Seriously people, if Microsoft released an MS-Apache webserver the majority of the posters on this board would be demanding blood. Just because someone is an underdog doesn't always make them the good guys.

Adobe and unix

yes the Adobe that has not ported a single application apart from its PDF Reader to Linux

Heh, don't feel bad; apparently Linux isn't the only Unix platform Adobe refuses to port anything other than a PDF reader to [macworld.com]....


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Adobe is right here....

I am sure that Adobe has a trademark on the "Illustrator" name. This pretty much means that it has a naming monopoly on the word Illustrator as it pertains to computer drawing programs. Appending a "K" doesn't adequately differentiate the product. Using an original name is a much better idea. There is no real way to defend what KIllustrator is doing in a court.

Hold it right there

2500 Euro? For some guy's spare time project?Cripes.

Hold it right there. If everyone here is always praising free software, then you can't turn around and claim that Adobe shouldn't treat this particular project with the same amount of seriousness as it would any other (commercial) competitor. You don't know if KIllustrator is tomorrow's wonder-project, that everyone knows about (e.g. Linux kernel). If you can sing the praises of free software 24-hours a day, then Adobe has every right to treat this as a threat, and better to take care of it now then later.

If this is how companies are going to try to kill free software, we need to establish a pool of good software names that no one has trademark claims to and nail them down.

You think?

People should stop ripping off names (and consequently, attempts at name-recognition) and do exactly what you suggest.

(And imagine if Adobe tried to rippoff the name of a free-software project. Wouldn't all of /. be up in arms with pitch forks and torches?)


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Seems like a hollow threat.

I mean, Judges do stupid stuff quite often, but do you really think that one is going to find "Adobe Illustrator" (which must be the trademark, since you can't trademark a common word) and "Killustrator" confusingly similar?

-Peter

Simple reasons...

Lack of Kreativity (a popular view of OSS). Why not just Klone a produkt *and* it's produkt name when you can just sprinkle Ks everywhere. It's less work, and everyone knows programmers have a hard time picking deskriptive names.

Re:Adobe is right here....

Even if this is the case, the fine of 2500 euro is unfair to the developer considering that it's a free application. Just a simple request to rename the application probably would have been enough.

-Karl

Re:Reason to use Original name...

if it has an original name, that name will become synonymous with the software's function.

Very much so.

Part of the entire problem has been that names of commonly used applications have become so standardized and entrenched in the minds of casual users that they have gone the way of Dry Ice®, Band Aid® and Kleenex®. It's just that while those took decades to permeate the popular lexicon, the names of computer applications have been appropriated by popular language in a much faster time.

Honestly, how often have you heard generic computer users say to one another words like

...so I got an Outlook attachment from Bob in marketing that I couldn't open in Powerpoint and had to use Excel instead. I think if he saved it in Word2000 or let me open it from Explorer this wouldn't have happened...

where both parties to the conversation completely and implicitly understand that

• Outlook == email application
• Bob in marketing == dolt who opens all the .vbs viri that flood our inboxes so often
• Powerpoint == presentation software
• Excel == spreadsheet software
• Word2000 == document processing software
• Explorer == web browser application
• MS == redundant, feel-good prefix

Indeed, if you were to use the generic terms for these specific standard applications, they would probably cause more confusion than clarity because they are used so infrequently.

Face it, in corporate and consumer IT, the use of trademarked application names to describe an application is preferred. Those names have migrated into the into the public domain as the most descriptive terms for their respective applications. Their de facto usage will inevitably be sanctioned by the creaking wheels of justice by about 2018, decades after peak usage.

The use of trademarked names for common applications can only be only a source of great delight to those lucky enough to own them. What better way to insure brand loyalty than to possess the name of a standard?

This really is only a reflection of the deeper underlying problem. That is, your "standards" are Owned.

Hope you enjoy paying for them.

how about

how about Kill-ustrator?

This is INTENDED to Cause Confusion

Adobe Illustrator is NOT descriptive. It is a vector based drawing program. Word is a Word Processor. Word is used descriptively. Word is a WEAKER trademark in this regards than Illustrator.

However, ask yourself why the KDE team named their vector based drawing program KIllustrator and their word processor KWord? It is INTENDED to capitalize on the good will of Adobe and Microsoft.

Can any of you HONESTLY say that KIllustrator isn't similar to Illustrator. It is designed AS a knock-off product with a similar name. It is INTENDED for a user to think, wow, this will be similar to the Illustrator that I know.

Why does the Free Software "community" do stuff like this? The rest of the world is comfortable competing (with a few monopolies excluded) fairly. Why does the "community" feel that they can appropriate the names of their competitors.

Linux is NOT just a play toy any more. Severally publically traded companies use it as a basis for business. Many more privately held companies use it as well.

If the whole point of "open source" was to make Free Software viewed favorably in the business community, maybe it is time to grow up.

Referring to Microsoft as M$, MacroHard, etc., does't help you.

If you DON'T care about the business world, than just ignore them and do your own thing. But if your goal is to get your software used, why don't we try acting like adults.

Companies are NOT going to adopt Linux and other "community" projects if its proponents INSIST on acting like 15 year olds.

Act like adults. You're playing with the big boys now, which is quite an accomplishment. But childishness, appropriating trademarks, etc., isn't getting you anywhere.

Declaring everything generic, obvious, and not worthy of protection isn't getting you anywhere. Microsoft is going to succeed in banning government funding of GPL'd work if they are able to paint their opponents as 15 year old intend on undermining the cause of productivity increases of the past 15 years.

The GPL turns copyright on its head. It allows cooperative based development. However, it undermines IT development companies.

First step of winning this public relations war is to act like adults. The NEXT step is to start respectfully competing. And copying everything from everyone else, including names, isn't going to convince the public that you are innovating and improving the economy. It makes you look like children.

My business is based upon various Open Source programs. The "community" earns my company and others a bad rap.

Alex

Re:Why Not More Original Names?

While I tend to agree with Hrunting that more original names would be nice, I urge caution to those who would go so far as to name photo editer GIMP. While those of you who are old hands a linux know what all the recursive MLAs stand for, I am a recovering MircoSofty and it is very dificult to find the program you want with names like pico, emacs, gimp, and grep. This is especially true for people who are used to WordPad, Word, PhotoShop, and find. Be Original just don't be obtuse.
JFMILLER

Re:Repeat after me:

Yeah, you're right. And if this were about patents, Adobe wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But it's about trademarks, not patents. And Adobe's right; calling an Illustrator-like program 'KIllustrator' seems to be a direct attempt to say, in effect, to the customer: "It's like Illustrator, only it runs under KDE!" Take the GIMP; it's often referred to as a Photoshop clone. But it's not called 'KPhotoShop', or 'FreePhotoShop' or anything so Adobe doesn't care.

Re:Some comments on the scope of a trademark

Except that Illustrator is a pretty generic term for the function of the program. I mean, if I wrote a word processor that was called "Pxtl Word Processor", then some other guy wrote "K-Word Processor" one has to wonder - well, they're just word processors aren't they? I mean, ford can't sue GM for making vehicles that they happen to call SUV's, 'cause SUV is a generic term. So, the question is, is Illustrator a generic term for the function of the program (like word processor or SUV) or is it different enough from the generic names of the product that makes it a unique, trademarkable name? For another example, if it weren't for the / - I figure the name OS/2 would've never stood up in court against a similar name - Operating System /2 is pretty darn generic - its not a name, its a classification and an iteration.

Adobe MUST do this

Adobe legally must enforce its trademarked names, or they fall into common usage. If they fall into common usage, Adobe no longer has legal protection over the name. So if Adobe fails to enforce its rights over a name for a similar product with which there is a high probability of confusion between its product (Illustrator) and K's product (Killustrator), it looses the rights to the Illustrator name. It's not a conspiracy. It's just what they have to do to run their business.

Killustrator!

The new first-person shoot-em-up that's sweeping the nation! Use your vector and spline drawing tools to hunt down and exterminate art department interns gone BAD!

Killustrator! For Mac, PC, PSX2, and X-Box. (An unsupported Linux version is available for alpha download.)

Re:Change the Name of Killustrator

No, no... KINI (KINI Is Not Illustrator)

Or KWAKBAS (KWAKBAS WAs Killustrator But Adobe Sued)

This, and putting a message on the splash screen & about box urging people not to buy anything from Adobe. Like Graphics Workshop (Windows image-converting shareware) did with Unisys.

Re:All right then...

I think they should call it Kqkbnwglsd. That way no self respecting company would sue them

They could call it Kltpzyxm, but then every user would be hurled into the 5th dimension!

Re:Reason to use Original name...

Part of the entire problem has been that names of commonly used applications have become so standardized and entrenched in the minds of casual users that they have gone the way of Dry Ice®, Band Aid® and Kleenex®...

Honestly, how often have you heard generic computer users say to one another words like

...so I got an Outlook attachment from Bob in marketing that I couldn't open in Powerpoint and had to use Excel instead. I think if he saved it in Word2000 or let me open it from Explorer this wouldn't have happened...

Those aren't generic names for types of applications they are specific names of Microsoft applications. I have never heard anyone use "Outlook" to mean "email program", they always mean Microsoft Outlook. Similarly Excel and Powerpoint. Word you might have a point, but it's debatable.

I totally agree

Please try to tell me with a straight face that Killustrator is:

1. Not a competing product of Illustrator.
2. The name was not derived from said competing product.
3. The name of the product does not benefit greatly from the inclusion of the competing product's own name in it's moniker.

People may not like Adobe just because they don't write stuff for Linux, but that is Adobe's choice. A company that is out for profit isn't obligated to write software for a particular platform just because many people feel that it's the right thing to do. This is a company that sells stock and is obligated to turn a profit. Writing this type of software for the Linux OS may not be the right thing to do for the business. Remember, this is the company that didn't write stuff for Windows until the early to mid-90's simply because they didn't think it was economically feasible.

But getting back on topic, maybe people should consider copyright infringement issues before they name their software. Being contrarian for it's own sake is silly.

I doubt it

It's not just the userbase, you understand, but the graphics and print culture that has to exist in Linux.

If Adobe were to port Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, to Linux, it almost requires that Linux have it's own printshop culture to sustain the growth and development efforts.

It's like asking the Japanese to import dolphin meat into the US just because we like Anime and eat sushi; there isn't the cultural support for the eating of dolphins for that to be feasible...

Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]

Re:I totally agree

Not a competing product of Illustrator.

Killustrator is not a competing product to Adobe Illustrator (I assume that's what you meant.) It can't be - the two products do not even run under the same operating system. They're aimed at different audiences.

The name was not derived from said competing product.

The name is generic. Like "Office", which was used to describe office suites during the eighties well before Microsoft adopted the name for their suite. It's reasonable to say that the two products have the same derivation for the name, rather than one being derived from the other.

The name of the product does not benefit greatly from the inclusion of the competing product's own name in it's moniker.

The name of the product is illustrative of the product's use, and therefore both products gain from the use of the generic word "Illustrator" (meaning, that that illustrates), in their names. Adobe's marketing of a product under that name may or may not "help" KIllustrator in ensuring users already know what the product is for, but the intended user profile of both products is sufficiently intelligent to be able to distingish between the two products, even by name.

People may not like Adobe just because they don't write stuff for Linux, but that is Adobe's choice. A company that is out for profit isn't obligated to write software for a particular platform just because many people feel that it's the right thing to do. This is a company that sells stock and is obligated to turn a profit. Writing this type of software for the Linux OS may not be the right thing to do for the business. Remember, this is the company that didn't write stuff for Windows until the early to mid-90's simply because they didn't think it was economically feasible.

My heart bleeds. Adobe's development of Linux software is not at issue here, though I feel compelled to point out that they do develop server products, such as Acrobat Distiller, for less prevelent operating systems than Linux, so the economic argument doesn't cut it. Adobe choose to name their product generically, and are claiming a monopoly on use of that generic descriptor. While they're doing so, they're slapping down a group of people who are not competing with them, and, being a group of individuals rather than a huge corporation, do not have the resources to fight back.

Essentially, Adobe is the playground bully here.

But getting back on topic, maybe people should consider copyright infringement issues before they name their software.

There are no copyright issues under discussion. The issue is an alleged trademark violation - an allegation that, if allowed to stand, chips away at the right to use the English language sanely and to provide descriptive names of products and services.
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Obe wan Kadobe

Nobody called the program Kadobe!

That's because George Lucas threatened to sue.

Adobe releases KLinux

no infringement there, either. duh.

Adobe has a point here

Shouldn't generic descriptive terms like 'explorer,' 'illustrator' 'word' and 'paint' be free for all to use?

Do you suppose that the KDE guys would have called the program KIllustrator if there weren't a similar product with a well-known name out there? I have to say that I see Adobe's point of view on this. But what's the big deal? Pick a new name, and move on. Projects (especially Open Source projects) live and die by their quality, not by their clever name.

Invisible Agent

Re:Adobe is right here....

They should change the name to KIllustraitor.

Kill Us, Traitor.

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