<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/5/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Philippe Verdy</b> <<a href="mailto:verdy_p@wanadoo.fr">verdy_p@wanadoo.fr</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">Now what
I discussed was not stupid: the licence explicitly states this restriction in
the list of grants:</span></font></p><span class="q">
<p style="text-indent: 35.4pt;"><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">(B) No Trademark License- This license does not
grant you rights to use any contributors' name, logo, or trademarks.</span></font></p></span>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">So this
clarifies the licence about the condition of use of its name containing the
trademark "Microsoft". The trademark remains protected, except in
the case of the restrictions of section 3 (as indicated), notably the
restrictions stated in (D), which does not cover the licence itself, but may reference
"Microsoft" in the copyright notice of the software, and (E) which
requires a verbatim copy of the licence:</span></font></p><span class="q">
<p style="text-indent: 35.4pt;"><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">(D) If you distribute any portion of the
software, you must retain all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution
notices that are present in the software. (…)</span></font></p></span>
<p style="text-indent: 35.4pt;"><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">(E) If you distribute any portion of the software
in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a
complete copy of this license with your distribution (…).</span></font></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br>I am not quite sure what you are looking for permission to do. I would think that if Microsoft releases the license, and you copy it verbatem, that this is not only fair trademark use (as in the statement that a given file is governed by it), but by including the license in your file, you are not infringing on any trademarks in any way I know (IANAL).
<br><br>Look at it this way, suppose I buy a new Toyota Prius. After a while, I decide to sell it and buy a hybrid from Honda. Toyota has no basis in asking me to remove their trademarks from the car they manufactured just because I want to resell it. If your country is *that* insane as to allow this sort of thing..... The Microsoft Reciprocal License you include is the one Microsoft released, therefore no trademark infringement.
<br><br>Now, this would be an issue if you wanted to modify the license text. But in that case, I think that trademark would be the least of your worries.<br><br>As trademark attorneys from the EU have pointed out, your argument as you state it does not apply in Europe.
<br> </div>As was politely pointed out to me by Mr Tiemann in the GPL v3 discussion, the specific nature of regulatory regimes in various countries is beyond the scope of inquery relating to the approval of licenses (hence the GPL antitivoization clause, even if it effectively prevents manufactures from using the software in certain forms of firmware, does not violate the OSD).
<br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="FR"><div><p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">This
solves cleanly all possible misinterpretations, but explicitly allows a single
reference only for the purpose of respecting the copyright notices, and your
obligation to distribute the licence (but this does not permit you to use the complete
name of the licence for any other purpose.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="EN-GB">However
the last sentence of the licence (absence of warranty) is possibly problematic:
"The contributors exclude the implied warranties of (…) non-infringement
(…)" even though the users must still keep the name of contributors
in the attribution and copyright notice. So, even if Microsoft signs the
licence, and attributes itself as an author/contributor, Microsoft may include
some code in its distribution for which it has no right and cannot legally grant
a patent licence, and then Microsoft excludes itself from any warranty if this
is an infringement (except if laws are requiring it), making the users fully liable
for the infringement that may be claimed by others when using the software.</span></font></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br>Suppose Microsoft were to release code under the Apache, BSD, CPL, and GPL v3 licenses. Would that be any different? Should WIX be considered to be less open source just because Microsoft released it (under the CPL)?
<br><br>Is this a referendum on Microsoft? Or a referendum on the license?<br> <br>If it is a referendum on the license, then the question of Microsoft's behavior is utterly irrelevant. If it is a referndum on Microsoft, then I am sure many of us would be perfectly happy to turn any submission by the FSF into a referendum on them. We owe it to all submitters to pursue some guidelines of acceptance evenhandedly and subject to the same scope.
<br></div><br>Best Wishes,<br>Chris Travers<br></div><br>