Trademark License

Sat Mar 13 06:22:59 UTC 2004

Starting  a new thread,  since Larry's  (belated, if  important) reply
quoted below reminds me of something important to the community.

Seems it  is time  to have some  kind of  guidelines on use  of Trade/
Service marks in FLOSS projects.

All  OSI  approved  licenses   permit  distribution  of  the  software
products, and  even while distributing the modified  `product' we call
the  `product'  by the  original,  often  trademark  name. Most  FLOSS
projects do not have a problem with this.

Some projects, however,  seriously object to use of  the trademarks to
the  modified  application.   Projects  adopt  disparate  policies  on
allowing the redistributed  product to be referred to  by the original
name.

Red Hat, for example  does not permit calling unofficial distributions
of ISO images from their site  as `Red Hat Linux CDs'.  Debian has two
logos, and use of the official bottle+swirl logo is restricted.

Right now, the  Debian project is sorting out issue  of use of Mozilla
-FireFox name in FireFox packages to be included in Debian.

The  Debian Firefox  maintainer has  recently written  to  the FireFox
project,   pointing   out   that   the   Firefox   trademarks   policy
(http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html), permits use of the
name and the artwork only if the binaries are from unmodified sources.

Such  policies are  not inherently  bad since  restrictions on  use of
trademarks  and/or  service marks  does  not  affect  freeness of  the
software, But  having to call  packages to which trivial  changes have
been applied  (say, of the kind  made by distros) by  a different name
can splinter the users' perception  of FLOSS software, thus proving to
be counter productive.

Is/should OSI be concerned with this issue? 

Mahesh T. Pai

Lawrence E. Rosen said on Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 10:42:52AM -0800,:

 > A bare trademark license is not allowed under trademark law. This license is
 > the easiest way to lose the DotGNU service mark.
 > 
 > /Larry Rosen
 > 
 > > -----Original Message-----
 > > From: James Michael DuPont [mailto:mdupont777 at yahoo.com] 
 > > Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:22 PM

 > > --- Norbert Bollow <nb at cisto.com> wrote:
 > > > From Norbert Bollow Tue Aug  5 12:17:30 2003
 > > > Subject: [DotGNU]proposal: DotGNU Trademark License
 > > > 
 > > > A recent discussion with Stephen J. Turnbull has reminded 
 > > me that it 
 > > > is very important to create some legal protection for the 
 > > term "DotGNU 
 > > > Webservice".
 > > > 
 > > > Provided that the FSF agrees to this idea, I'd like to include 
 > > > something like the following in the documentation that will 
 > > be part of 
 > > > the upcoming DotGNU 0.1 release:
 > > > 
 > > > 
 > > > """
 > > > "DotGNU Webservice" Servicemark License
 > > > 
 > > > Version 0.1-alpha1
 > > > 
 > > > Copyright 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 > > > 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA
 > > > 
 > > > Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim 
 > > copies of this 
 > > > license document, but changing it is not allowed.
 > > > 
 > > > 
 > > > 
 > > > "GNU" is a registered trademark of the Free Software 
 > > Foundation, Inc. 
 > > > "DotGNU Webservice" is a servicemark of the Free Software 
 > > Foundation, 
 > > > Inc.
 > > > 
 > > > TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USING THE "DotGNU Webservice" SERVICEMARK.
 > > > 
 > > > 0. This License grants, to businesses which satisfy the
 > > >    conditions that are outlined in sections 1 and 2 below,
 > > >    permission to use the "DotGNU Webservice" servicemark
 > > >    in the context of their commercial activities.
 > > > 
 > > >    Activities which are not of commercial nature are outside the
 > > >    scope of this license; in particular there are no restrictions
 > > >    on using the term "DotGNU Webservice" outside the context of
 > > >    making a commercial service offering.
 > > > 
 > > >    Every business which fulfils the conditions that are outlined
 > > >    in sections 1 and 2 below may choose to accept this license, 
 > > > thereby
 > > >    becoming a licensee.  Each licensee is addressed as "you".
 > > > 
 > > >    You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
 > > >    signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to use the
 > > >    "DotGNU Webservice" servicemark in the context of making 
 > > commercial
 > > >    service offerings; that is prohibited by law if you do not accept
 > > >    this License. Therefore, by using the "DotGNU Webservice"
 > > >    servicemark in such a commercial context, you indicate your
 > > >    acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and
 > > >    conditions. 
 > > > 
 > > > 
 > > > 1. The "DotGNU Webservice" servicemark may only be used in 
 > > connection
 > > >    with services that satisfy DotGNU's definition of "webservices",
 > > >    namely the following two conditions must be satisfied:
 > > > 
 > > >    (a) Some functionality is provided, and in addition there is
 > > >        a description of this functionality, namely how the
 > > >        service should be used and what it provides.
 > > > 
 > > >    (b) The service is offered over a computer network (e.g. the
 > > >        internet or an intranet) via standard protocols, i.e.
 > > > protocols
 > > >        that are open, widely published, and freely available for
 > > > anyone
 > > >        to implement.
 > > > 
 > > >    If you provide a commercial service and use the "DotGNU
 > > > Webservice"
 > > >    servicemark, you must in addition satisfy the following two
 > > >    conditions:
 > > > 
 > > >    (c) You must ensure that whenever the service is usable, 
 > > the owner
 > > >        of the data is able to download the data plus the program
 > > > which
 > > >        acts on the data (the "webservice program") in an executable
 > > >        form which can be used with a version of the DGEE ("DotGNU
 > > >        Execution Environment") webservice server which has been
 > > >        released by the DotGNU Project of the Free Software
 > > > Foundation.
 > > > 
 > > >    (d) You must provide your customers with a written offer, valid
 > > > for
 > > >        at least three years, to give them upon request, at no extra
 > > >        charge, on a medium customarily used for software 
 > > interchange,
 > > >        licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
 > > >        a complete machine-readable copy of the source code of the
 > > >        webservice program plus any compilers and libraries which are
 > > >        needed to translate the webservice program into executable
 > > >        form.
 > > > 
 > > >    The term "webservice program" in sections (c) and (d) 
 > > above refers
 > > >    to a computer program which can be used together with a 
 > > version of
 > > >    the DGEE ("DotGNU Execution Environment") webservice server to
 > > >    provide a webservice which is identical in functionality to the
 > > >    webservice which the customer has purchased from you.  
 > > > 
 > > > 
 > > > 2. Any violation of the conditions in section 1 will automatically
 > > >    terminate your rights under this License.  You must not use the
 > > >    "DotGNU Webservice" servicemark if you have previously violated
 > > > any
 > > >    of the conditions in section 1.
 > > > 
 > > > """
 > > > 
 > > > Greetings, Norbert.
 > > > 
 > > > -- 
 > > > Founder & Steering Committee member of
 > > > http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
 > > > Free Software Business Strategy Guide   ---> 
 > > > http://FreeStrategy.info
 > > > Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich,
 > > > Switzerland)
 > > > Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69      
 > > > http://norbert.ch
 > > > _______________________________________________
 > > > Developers mailing list
 > > > Developers at dotgnu.org
 > > > http://dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/developers
 > > 
 > > 
 > > =====
 > > James Michael DuPont
 > > http://introspector.sourceforge.net/
 > > 
 > > __________________________________
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 > > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
 > > --
 > > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
 > > 
 > 
 > --
 > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3

-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          

  http://paivakil.port5.com         

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