Groupon abandons its Gnome trademark applications

Yesterday we reported on the threat to the GNOME Foundation’s GNOME trademark from Gnome trademark applications made by Groupon (news passim).

Groupon has now withdrawn its Gnome trademark applications and issued the following statement.

Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects. We’ve been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we’re happy to continue those conversations. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. And if we can’t come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we’ll be glad to look for another name.

UPDATE: After additional conversations with the open source community and the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark applications for “Gnome.” We will choose a new name for our product going forward.