And without lawyers, trademark laws would likely not be of the scale or complexity that they are now. But that's another rant :)

>Also, trademarks are not bad things.

In this case, I tend to disagree. Especially as "listserv" should be genericized by this point.

Have you read the history? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV

It appears as though the author of the software decided to commercialize it and now you fault him for trademarking it? I think you're kind of baseless in your argument here.

Update: I don't fault the guy for taking some software, re-writing it and then commercializing it. If the original authors didn't want to trademark the name or even protest the trademark application, then that is their fault.

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The original LISTSERV software, the BITNIC LISTSERV (1984-1986), allowed mailing lists to be implemented on IBM VM mainframes and was developed by Ira Fuchs, Daniel Oberst, and Ricky Hernandez in 1984.

In 1986, Eric Thomas developed an independent application, originally named "Revised LISTSERV"

LISTSERV was freeware from 1986 through 1993 and is now a commercial product developed by L-Soft, a company founded by LISTSERV author Eric Thomas in 1994.

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Eric Thomas started a competing product years after the original LISTSERV, and trademarked the name. He didn't trademark Revised LISTSERV - just LISTSERV. He wasn't the first to use it, but will now be the last. I absolutely do fault him for that (I don't know where that stands legally, but I do know I wouldnt want to get sued to find out).

Taking advantage of a situation like this still makes you a colossal jerk, regardless of how legally in the right you may be.