XDC2022 Open Conversation - Day 1

Or young eyesight…

The market for languages and IDEs has changed a lot in the last 5+ years.
The number of young developers that are fluent in coding in language xyz and in handling IDE dfg now is determined by what colleges and universities teach.
Another strong indicator are job offerings and qualifications employers are looking for.

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Frankly, I didn’t mind hanging out with the wisest and most experienced among us.

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I’m old enough to put on a wise front. :slight_smile:

I’m glad to finally fix the lack of proper beards in these conferences.

Jokes aside, it’s been really nice to meet you all in person, and even doing some pair programming. I’m looking forward to see how those projects keep evolving.

Thank you for coming! :green_heart:

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It’s a VGT™ (Very Good Thing).

When I was a young man I looked forward to the conferences my employers would pay for me to attend. From Xojo’s website:

Surely some of those companies would pony up to send a developer or two to a potentially useful conference.

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I think so too.

“Joe Newbie Shop” want solutions…

“Joe Newbie Employee” seek for a job…

Understand the difference ?

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LOL there is another meaning to that phrase on the screen.

:slightly_smiling_face: :upside_down_face:

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Xojo says “Xojo is used by people at [those companies]” not “Those companies use Xojo”, that may be why those companies doesn’t send people to a conference. The management doesn’t know about the tool used by some of their employees, and maybe bought privately by them, for their own use, maybe they even don’t use it in the company, but at home. Or some of those pals just aren’t in a sub 40 category and some were there. :smiley:

If those guys use Xojo for their personal use, how Xoko know it?
I suppose that if Xojo know this or this company use their product, it’s because they do it officially. And I don’t think Xojo could put the company logo on their website as user of their development tool if they aren’t users.

I see from the customer email addresses that I have one user from NASA and one from Amazon. You can’t advertise with the names of your customers because the legal departments of the customers have to agree to the usage of the logo.

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Do you have promo proce for these companies ?

A long time ago, I worked at Apple France and I bought a software with my @apple address because it was on sale for Apple, its employees, etc.

I used it at work, but I did not go through official Apple channels (I paid out of pocket…)

The French distributor was not happy (an idiot must have told him)… but this distributor had never told me about a special price… and never told me anything.

It’s a week off from production, the traveling, the hotel, the conference-fee itself and last but not least all the drinks :slight_smile: Seeing it as a short holyday is probably the best starting point, since it’s definitely fun to meet colleague Xojo mates in person.
Problem: my wife descides where we go for holiday. :worried:

She’s not alone in that case… :wink:

That only means exactly what Xojo advertises. People inside such companies use it, it does not mean that THE COMPANY use it. Also, saying without naming persons “we have PEOPLE inside the companies x, y, z that use our product” (and holding proof) does not hurt anything legal as you hadn’t said you had relations WITH THE COMPANY, but with PEOPLE there, and as you hadn’t named them, you hadn’t broken their privacy too.

We could also assemble a list of plugin licensed purchased by bigger companies.
But just because there is one developer in some little department using our plugin with Xojo doesn’t really mean the company use it for something significant.

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And for the Logo, no, you don’t need to ask permission when using it in a fair use as:

Statutory Exception Within Trademark Infringement Law

The Lanham Act is the statute that largely controls federal trademark law. One provision of the law allows for certain uses of trademarks. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1115(b)(4), one can assert a number of defenses against a claim of trademark infringement.

These include situations where “the use of the name, term, or device charged to be an infringement is a use, otherwise than as a mark, of the party’s individual name in his own business, or of the individual name of anyone in privily with such party, or of a term or device which is descriptive of and used fairly and in good faith only to describe the goods or services of such party, or their geographic origin…”

In other words, the use of a trademark does not necessarily qualify as an infringement if the user is not actually using the trademark as a mark. When would you not be using a trademark as a mark?

Consider a scenario in which you are writing an article about Apple. Your reference to “Apple” in the headline and body of the article uses the trademark, but you are not using the trademark for the sake of selling or identifying computers. Rather, you are using the trademark for non-mark purposes—in this case, for commentary or news reporting.

Informational Uses of a Trademark Are Permissible

Informational (or “editorial”) uses of a trademark do not require permission from its owner. These are uses that inform, educate, or express opinions protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution—freedom of speech and of the press.

For example, permission is not required to use the Chevrolet logo in an article describing Chevrolet trucks, even if the article is critical of the company. You could (obviously) use the word mark “Chevrolet” as well as the famous golden “plus sign” logo mark. This would be true whether you were publishing a news article or an article in an academic journal.

Similarly, if you were making a documentary film on the history of American trucks, you would not need permission to include the Chevrolet logo. However, the use of the logo must have some relevance to the work. For example, it would not be wise to publish an article critical of overseas auto manufacturing practices and include the Chevrolet logo unless Chevrolet was, in fact, mentioned in the article.

Finally, you are also permitted to use trademarks for purposes of parody or commentary. For example, if you were writing a skit about how young people are always on their phones, you could glue the Samsung logo onto the actors’ prop phones without fearing a claim of trademark infringement.

Using Trademarks for Comparison

Under trademark law (specifically, 15 U.S.C. § 1115(b)(4)), you are generally permitted to use a trademark as a means for comparison. For example, you could create a newspaper advertisement that incorporates your mark and your competitors’ marks in order to describe a difference between the companies.

Imagine that you make a type of coffee that you believe to be tastier and less expensive than any other company’s product. You could include on your advertisement the logo of Starbucks along with the price of its comparable drink from another coffee company.

Two important caveats apply here, however. First, you may not alter your competitors’ trademarks in a way that is derogatory or misleading. (For example, you cannot dress up as Ronald McDonald and make him look unattractive!) These activities could subject you to a claim of trademark disparagement.

Second, any comparative information that you use must be accurate. While subjective statements (which coffee tastes better, which product is easier to use, and so forth) are difficult to judge for accuracy, factual information is not.

So if you say, for instance, that Starbucks charges $3.50 for a 12-ounce black coffee, 20% more than competitors, that fact needs to be demonstrably true. If you say that Apple uses deadly chemicals in its iPhones that could leak into users’ hands, that also would need to be true.

In other words, any lies associated with your use of a competitor’s trademark could subject you up to a claim of trademark infringement or disparagement. Assuming that your statements about a competitor are true, however, trademark law does provide some degree of leeway to use registered marks, even without permission.

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Good to know. I’ll check for German law. At least I should be able to say about NASA and Amazon.

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