[License-review] [curiosa] ???Open Source Festival???

[Rick Moen]

Quoting John Cowan (cowan at mercury.ccil.org):

> Thorsten Glaser scripsit:
> 
> > a bit off-topic, but I was wondering what
> > http://www.open-source-festival.de/en/ (and http://open-the-source.de/
> > the ???official blog???) have to do with Open Source??? maybe OSI
> > needs to go after them and ask them to cease using the name unless
> > there???s some connection?
> 
> The phrase "open source" has several pre-existing meanings.  Notably, in
> intelligence work it means a publicly available source of information,
> like a newspaper.  Consequently, it is not a protected mark (unlike
> "OSI Certified") and anyone can use it for anything.  When people who
> are publishing software are misusing the phrase, we politely ask them
> to stop, then publicly shame them.  But this case is not that case.

Moreover, a fundamental aspect of trademark law -- usually completely
unknown to software engineers along with pretty much all of the other
aspects of law they issue opinions about ;-> -- is that a valid trademark 
(/service mark, certification mark), under either common law or national
legislation, exists within a specific trade or industry and can coexist
happily with other uses of the same mark in a different trade or
industry.

E.g., if I wanted to establish trademark for Moen's Tavern, the faucet
people at Moen Industries would have no basis for objection.  (No, I'm
not related.  Bastiches wanted a blood test.)

-- 
Cheers,                                           "I love stateless systems." 
Rick Moen                                         "Don't they have drawbacks?" 
rick at linuxmafia.com                               "Don't what have drawbacks?"
McQ! (4x80)                                                   -- Sam Hughes