SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Kenneth Porter <sh...@sewingwitch.com>]

>>From <http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>:

> SpamAssassin is a mature, widely-deployed open source project that serves
> as a mail filter to identify Spam. SpamAssassin uses a variety of
> mechanisms including header and text analysis, Bayesian filtering, DNS
> blocklists, and collaborative filtering databases. SpamAssassin runs on a
> server, and filters spam before it reaches your mailbox.

One of the frequent complaints from end users is that SA blocked some mail. 
And the standard answer is that SA doesn't block mail; some *other* program 
uses the results of SA's analysis to filter mail.

So I suggest changing the wording of that paragraph to replace "filter" 
with "classifier":

> SpamAssassin is a mature, widely-deployed open source project that serves
> as a mail classifier to identify Spam. SpamAssassin uses a variety of
> mechanisms including header and text analysis, Bayesian filtering, DNS
> blocklists, and collaborative filtering databases. SpamAssassin runs on a
> server, allowing other programs to filter spam before it reaches your
> mailbox.

I suspect the term "filter" was used because SA is indeed a "filter" in the 
unix sense of a program that runs in a pipeline that transforms its input. 
But that's a technical detail that doesn't really describe what SA *does*.

RE: [SA] SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Kevin Miller <Ke...@ci.juneau.ak.us>]

Per Jessen wrote:
> The EU trademark database has 44 hits on registered trademarks
> containing 'spam', including Spamhaus, Spamfighter, SpamTrap, noSpam
> Proxy, Spamfinder, SPAMNET and SPAMASSASSIN.  

In other news, Darrell McBride is hired by Hormel to bolster their lagging canned meat business. ;-)

...Kevin
-- 
Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Admin., Mail Admin.
155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500

Re: [SA] SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Per Jessen <pe...@computer.org>]

Adam Katz wrote:

> If you own a company trying to *trademark* something with the word
> "Spam" in it (e.g. "SpamArrest"), that infringes upon their trademark.
> If you own a company with a product with the word "Spam" in it and
> you don't try to trademark it (e.g. SpamAssassin, SpamCop), they won't
> pursue (as it would be along fair use law rather than trademark law).

The EU trademark database has 44 hits on registered trademarks
containing 'spam', including Spamhaus, Spamfighter, SpamTrap, noSpam
Proxy, Spamfinder, SPAMNET and SPAMASSASSIN.  


/Per Jessen, Zürich

Re: SpamAssassin is not a meat butcher

[Adam Katz <an...@khopis.com>]

LuKreme wrote:
> SpamArrest WON THEIR TRADEMARK.

And for that I am glad.

Perhaps my personal stance was improperly gauged; I understand
Hormel's stance and actions, though I wouldn't support their legal
actions and I sided with SpamArrest's fair usage given Hormel's stated
policies.  I see nothing wrong with electronic filtering programs and
devices having either "Spam" or "spam" in their title (though "SPAM"
is questionable) as it is difficult to confuse with Hormel's markets.

> Hormel only stopped acting like total asshats after they lost all
> their court cases.
> 
> This is just revisionist. Hormel was frothing for several years
> there threatening anyone and everyone who referred to spam as spam.

Hormel's official stance looks unchanged since before that trial:
http://www.dmnews.com/Eat-SPAM-Say-Spam-Just-Dont-Try-to-Trademark-Spam-Hormel/article/81424/

Perhaps their lawsuits warrant removing "gracious" from aptly
describing them, but the policy still stands today.  Heck, it's even
profitable ... outside of Hawaii, every purchase I've seen* of SPAM
has been for novelty or exploratory purposes, inspired by email spam.


Getting back to my original point, spam in our context should be
treated as a noun or adjective rather than a proper noun or "proper
adjective" (Hormel's suggested notation for their product is an
all-caps adjective).  It should be capitalized only when leading a
sentence or within the name of a product as its name dictates
(SpamAssassin, SPAM, SpamArrest, spam.  Spam leading a sentence).


* Note, I don't hang around Hormel's target audience or otherwise have
interest in Nascar.

Re: SpamAssassin is not a filter

[LuKreme <kr...@kreme.com>]

On 15-Oct-2009, at 13:21, Adam Katz wrote:
> LuKreme wrote:
>> On 15-Oct-2009, at 12:40, Adam Katz wrote:
>>> They've been very gracious to our community so far,
>>
>> Since they stopped trying to sue everyone?
>>
>> No wait, they didn't stop, they just lost their lawsuits.
>>
>> Yeah, not really seeing that 5 year legal battle with SpamArrest as
>> gracious, myself. I suspect SpamArrest and there more than
>> $500,000 in legal bills would agree. Neither would other victims of
>> Hormel's sue-happy camp of lawyers (EarthLink, Postini, et al).
>>
>> Gracious?
>
> If they were not gracious, they would have taken a firmer stance
> against any use of their SPAM brand pertaining to email.

Firmer than suing everyone in sight?

>> Hormel does not…

now that we have been bitch-slapped by the courts numerous times and  
lost our long and bloody trademark exclusivity battle against SpamArrest

>> …object to the term, but insists that it be spelled
>> in lower case so as to distinguish it

> If you own a company trying to *trademark* something with the word
> "Spam" in it (e.g. "SpamArrest"), that infringes upon their trademark.
> If you own a company with a product with the word "Spam" in it and
> you don't try to trademark it (e.g. SpamAssassin, SpamCop), they won't
> pursue (as it would be along fair use law rather than trademark law).

SpamArrest WON THEIR TRADEMARK.

Hormel only stopped acting like total asshats after they lost all  
their court cases.

This is just revisionist. Hormel was frothing for several years there  
threatening anyone and everyone who referred to spam as spam.

-- 
I'll trade you 223 Wesley Crushers for your Captain Picard

Re: [SA] SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Adam Katz <an...@khopis.com>]

LuKreme wrote:
> On 15-Oct-2009, at 12:40, Adam Katz wrote:
>> They've been very gracious to our community so far,
> 
> Since they stopped trying to sue everyone?
> 
> No wait, they didn't stop, they just lost their lawsuits.
> 
> Yeah, not really seeing that 5 year legal battle with SpamArrest as
> gracious, myself. I suspect SpamArrest and there more than
> $500,000 in legal bills would agree. Neither would other victims of
> Hormel's sue-happy camp of lawyers (EarthLink, Postini, et al).
> 
> Gracious?

If they were not gracious, they would have taken a firmer stance
against any use of their SPAM brand pertaining to email.

Hormel's policy has always been to protect their trademark.  They do
NOT otherwise object to the non-capitalized use of the word "spam."
Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

> Hormel does not object to the term, but insists that it be spelled
> in lower case so as to distinguish it from its capitalized SPAM
> trademark. Hormel objects to Spam's "product identity" (for
> example, images of Spam cans) being used in relation to spamming,
> and has filed lawsuits against companies which have attempted to
> trademark words containing "Spam".

If you own a company trying to *trademark* something with the word
"Spam" in it (e.g. "SpamArrest"), that infringes upon their trademark.
 If you own a company with a product with the word "Spam" in it and
you don't try to trademark it (e.g. SpamAssassin, SpamCop), they won't
pursue (as it would be along fair use law rather than trademark law).

If a company wanted to register a trademark like "Lewis Butler
Productions," you (LuKreme, Lewis Butler) would be able to sue them
for infringing the implicit trademark you own on your name.  You'd
have a lot harder a time suing a company to rename a product called
"Lewis Butler Filter."

Re: SpamAssassin is not a filter

[LuKreme <kr...@kreme.com>]

On 15-Oct-2009, at 12:40, Adam Katz wrote:
> They've been very gracious to our community so far,


Since they stopped trying to sue everyone?

No wait, they didn't stop, they just lost their lawsuits.

Yeah, not really seeing that 5 year legal battle with SpamArrest as  
gracious, myself. I suspect SpamArrest and there more than $500,000 in  
legal bills would agree. Neither would other victims of Hormel's sue- 
happy camp of lawyers (EarthLink, Postini, et al).

Gracious?

-- 
I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Re: [SA] SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Adam Katz <an...@khopis.com>]

RW wrote:
>> So I suggest changing the wording of that paragraph to replace
>> "filter" with "classifier":
> 
> I can't do any harm, but I doubt it would make much difference because
> not many people would read it and I think most ordinary users regard
> it as a fairly pedantic distinct anyway.
> 
> If "SpamAssassin is not a filter", then "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".

The item of note is that SpamAssassin cannot direct mail between
folders or accounts and cannot delete mail.  It marks up messages that
qualify as "spam" and no more.

As to what specific word to say SA is or is not... we should use
whatever best states that to the largest portion of newcomers.
Hopefully there won't be too many differing opinions on what that is.

I'd personally go with "markup" or "flag" rather than "filter" or
"classifier" as I think it's harder to interpret those erroneously.

"SpamAssassin ... serves as a tool to flag incoming mail as spam."
    or
"SpamAssassin ... serves as a mail markup tool to identify spam."

I like Kenneth's adjustment on the final sentence in that quote.


I also wouldn't capitalize "spam" unless referring to Hormel's brand
of canned products.  They've been very gracious to our community so
far, so I'd like to return the favor.  Losing the capitalization
implies use of the word as a dictionary word rather than a proper
noun.  Brands that have lost their place as a proper noun (e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#Trademark ) risk losing their
trademark privileges.

Re: SpamAssassin is not a filter

[RW <rw...@googlemail.com>]

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:24:03 -0700
Kenneth Porter <sh...@sewingwitch.com> wrote:

> So I suggest changing the wording of that paragraph to replace
> "filter" with "classifier":

I can't do any harm, but I doubt it would make much difference because
not many people would read it and I think most ordinary users regard
it as a fairly pedantic distinct anyway.

If you were to say that someone was sent to prison by a DNA test, it's
not literally true, but you wouldn't expect to be corrected.

> I suspect the term "filter" was used because SA is indeed a "filter"
> in the unix sense of a program that runs in a pipeline that
> transforms its input. 


If "SpamAssassin is not a filter", then "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".

Re: SpamAssassin is not a filter

[Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>]

Kenneth Porter wrote:
>> From <http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/>:
> 
>> SpamAssassin is a mature, widely-deployed open source project that serves
>> as a mail filter to identify Spam. SpamAssassin uses a variety of
>> mechanisms including header and text analysis, Bayesian filtering, DNS
>> blocklists, and collaborative filtering databases. SpamAssassin runs on a
>> server, and filters spam before it reaches your mailbox.
> 
> One of the frequent complaints from end users is that SA blocked some 
> mail. And the standard answer is that SA doesn't block mail; some 
> *other* program uses the results of SA's analysis to filter mail.
> 
> So I suggest changing the wording of that paragraph to replace "filter" 
> with "classifier":
> 
>> SpamAssassin is a mature, widely-deployed open source project that serves
>> as a mail classifier to identify Spam. SpamAssassin uses a variety of
>> mechanisms including header and text analysis, Bayesian filtering, DNS
>> blocklists, and collaborative filtering databases. SpamAssassin runs on a
>> server, allowing other programs to filter spam before it reaches your
>> mailbox.
> 
> I suspect the term "filter" was used because SA is indeed a "filter" in 
> the unix sense of a program that runs in a pipeline that transforms its 
> input. But that's a technical detail that doesn't really describe what 
> SA *does*.

I would submit that when the typical end-user reads the above 
description of SA that it gets over their head and they stop reading
somewhere right after "...open source project that serves..."

If end users are complaining that SA blocked mail it's because the
admin, for reasons of linguistic convenience, has elected to use
easily-understood verbiage when describing how the e-mail system
works.

Users like it simple.  They don't want to be told that "a collection
of programs made a group decision to block that message"   They don't
want to be told "well, this program is a classifier, this program
is a transfer program, this program moves mail around as a result of
earlier classifiers" etc. etc.

They want to be told "your mail was blocked by a 'thang' and if your
missing mail, tell us about it"

If the admin substitutes the name SpamAssassin for "thang" then of
course the users will complain about SA.

Ted