BSD-like licenses and the OSI approval process

Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu
Tue Oct 16 11:30:02 UTC 2007


Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> Of course the risk is with the user: if he is not in compliance
> with the rules, he violates trademark law. And usually the user
> has to draw up some statement spelling out how his use complies
> with the certification criteria.

Doesn't that risk the eventual possibility of a court having to decide
whether something is OSD-compliant (to settle a trademark lawsuit)?...
Even if it were appropriate for the court to make that judgment, I
really don't want OSI to have to sue just because some blatantly
proprietary vendor insists they're legitimately self-certified.  People
can already abuse the trademark, but it's obvious from the license list
they're not approved and thus it's unlikely to get to court.  I suppose
self-certification is an option, but OSI would need to rename the
trademark.  "OSI-Certified" doesn't work when it's not OSI doing the
certification (at least not directly).

Matt Flaschen



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