UK VCF?

[Gordon JC Pearce]

On Fri, 2007-08-03 at 12:38 +0100, Simon Fryer wrote:
> G'Day,
> 
> This seems to be slowly drifting off topic.
> 
> On 03/08/07, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote:
> 
> [VCF being a trademarked name in Europe.]
> 
> I don't really care what it is called.
> 
> > Sellam, if you're so enthusiastic as to set up a "rival" VCF to spite
> > someone setting up a VCF-a-like, why not just set up a VCF in the UK?
> 
> Strange, I didn't recall Sellam typing anything like this but I'll

>From yesterday evening: 

1) No, "Vintage Computer Festival" is not trademarked internationally,
nor 
do I have any inclination to invest the enormous amounts of money to do 
so.  Besides, if anyone did want to try to put on a vintage computer 
festival and call it the "Vintage Computer Festival", there's a simple 
solution to that: I would hold a real Vintage Computer Festival down
the 
street from theirs on the same dates and advertise the hell out of it
and 
ensure that the wannabe "VCF" only got two attendees (who would be 
stragglers from the real VCF up the way ;)

> check my email to find the original message. I took the suggestion of

17:50BST, 2/7/2007 or thereabouts

> a rival VCF is that one could be undertaken if someone was going to
> set one up and would risk damaging the image of VCF other VCFs. I am
> sure that if we were to drop a couple of friendly emails to the right
> people, have them share their experiences to improve the event, we
> would not only be able to offer a better event but could also use the
> name in a way that would add value and credibility.

I'd rather not use the name at all, if that's the sort of attitude we're
facing.  This is not to say anything against Sellam, who does great and
important work for the classic computing community; I'd rather just use
a different name and avoid any potential hassle.  Sellam can run a
VCF-UK if he likes, and I'll be glad to see it and perfectly happy to
come along with a stand.

> Now, we could all type about this, discuss the finer points of
> international trademark law and call each other names, or we could
> push ahead, think of a rough location and discuss some of the
> logistics and what would be needed to undertake VCF-UK.

Now we're getting down to it.  It might be worth talking to the
organisers of other computery events, in particular Linuxy ones (rather
than the "computer fairs" that are just car boot sales of pirate DVDs
and cheap crappy hardware).  I was at LugRadioLive last month - maybe we
should discuss it with the organisers of that?

Gordon