NCSA Open Source License

Mark Wielaard mark at klomp.org
Sun Jan 20 19:59:12 UTC 2002


Hi,

On Sun, 2002-01-20 at 19:50, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
> The suggestion that the Apache Foundation create a separate trademark
> license is legally not possible, at least without many more controls
> over the quality of derivative works than would be acceptable by the
> open source community.  

Could you explain that a bit more?

Isn't this what AbiSource does. They have the following statement about
their product:

  AbiSource software products, such as AbiWord, are copyrighted works
  released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  Verbatim copies of such works may be made and distributed, by anyone,
  in accordance with the terms of the GPL without violating the
  AbiSource trademarks. The GPL also grants you certain rights to make
  and distribute derivative works based on the source code to AbiSource
  products.

  The GPL does not grant you any right to use AbiSource trademarks in
  connection with these derivative works. AbiSource trademarks may not
  be used in connection with any such derivative works unless that usage
  is explicitly and specifically licensed, in writing, from SourceGear
  Corporation.

  As a specific exception, AbiSource freely licenses the use of certain
  of its trademarks solely in combination with the suffix "Personal"
  when applied to derivative works based on an AbiSource GPL product.
  Thus, for example, you are free to use the mark "AbiWord Personal" in
  connection with derivative works that are based on "AbiWord". To help
  maintain this distinction, AbiSource releases the sources to its GPL
  products with Personal-based trademarks.

For more information see
<http://www.abisource.com/information/license/>.

Is that not acceptable to the Open Source community?
Note that they write: "We are not evil. Our goal is very simple. We want
to make sure our software stays Open Source, no matter what. That's why
we chose the GPL. We also want everyone to know which products are ours.
That's why we are so picky about our trademarks."

Cheers,

Mark
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