For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Philippe Verdy]

I'm seeing a huge difference between "this products runs on Windows" and
"this product runs on a Microsoft platform". The former is certainly more
defendable, given the Microsoft provides kits to build products running on
that platform and licences Windows (for this reason, Microsoft has chosen to
be liberal here by allowing references to Windows, but defined a "logo"
program requiring additional licence for those that use specific forms of
referencing it).

On the opposite, Microsoft does not licence its own protected name (because
it is part of its own identity or juridical personality) for use in
competing products, or in comparative ads (unless such right is granted by
law, something that was not possible until quite recently in the EU, and
that may remain prohibited in other areas).

The same kind of restrictions are still valid for physical person names: you
can't freely speak about someone by just citing its name within any context,
even those that do not seem to harm: some people wouldnot like being
associated with things they have not said or performed themselved or that
they did not intend to be associated with. You can see that within emails:
many people don't like seeing their (email) identity revealed and spread
everywhere without explicit consent (similar to the need of an explicit
agreement in trademark licencing), or used in misquoted texts.

In the same spirit, a licence name should always be cited exactly, not
abbreviated unless such short designation is defined in the licence itself,
notably within copyright notices where such (unexplicited) designations
could give false information or could be non-binding with the licencing
terms. Regarding the licence name "Microsoft Permissive Licence", Microsoft
must choose one and stick with this name, not only allowing such reference
by this exact name, by any licensee, but also restricting all other forms of
the name that is not explicitly defined in the licence itself as meaning
strictly the same thing.

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Rick Moen [mailto:rick at linuxmafia.com]
> Envoyé : dimanche 30 septembre 2007 09:46
> À : license-discuss at opensource.org
> Objet : Re: For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License
> 
> Quoting Philippe Verdy (verdy_p at wanadoo.fr):
> 
> > A trademark you don't own can't be safely used for advertising another
> > competing product in every country.
> 
> Stating that your product is under Fooware Company's Fooware Public
> Licence is _nothing the least bit_ like using its marks to advertise to
> advertise a product competing with Fooware's.  Instead, that is a prime
> example (to reiterate) of what in trademark law is called "nominative
> use" -- and I strongly doubt that your country or any other in Europe,
> or frankly, any country, would ever adjudicate such usage as trademark
> infringement.
> 
> If you live in a country that would, then you have bigger problems than
> this licence proposal -- but I'm calling this whole issue of yours bogus
> and leaving it at that.
> 
> 
>