As an introduction to those here in Maven land, I'm the VP of Brand
Management at the Apache Software Foundation, and I and my officer's
committee at trademarks@ are responsible for setting brand policy for
all Apache projects, including trademark usage by third parties.
Since this includes comments specifically about Apache trademark policy,
I thought it would be important to clarify or correct some things.
People may be interested in reading Apache's formal trademark policy, as
well as several other linked policies about domains, events, etc.:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/
Jason van Zyl wrote:
Doug, this is only part of the story but if we are strictly talking
about trademarks here then people should understand what that discussion
is about.
What Sonatype was seeking was the use of "Maven Central" as a service
mark in very much the same way Doug Cutting's company, Cloudera, has
been granted a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the service mark
"Hadoop World".
I believe these are significantly different things, and it is
disingenuous to compare them as such.
For one, Cloudera has worked constructively with the Apache Conferences
Committee on the branding for their Hadoop World event, and actively and
productively worked with Apache on securing the MOU; in fact it was
recently updated and renewed for a second year by both sides. I have
not seen the same kind of behavior on Sonatype's side on the core
attribution issue.
Secondly, event branding is a very different thing than services
branding, especially in the case of Maven Central, where the service is
such a central part of how our Maven software works.
These service marks are for services provided to the
community and not intended for commercial purposes. One could argue
"Hadoop World" is a marketing event for Cloudera used to drive sales and
raise awareness about Cloudera's involvement in Hadoop, but it's an
event held for the community and it's free of charge. You'll notice
that's it's not "Apache Hadoop World", it's "Hadoop World". You can see
an example of the usage here:
http://ostatic.com/blog/cloudera-announces-hadoop-world-and-hadoop-marches-on
Since that's an OStatic news article, it's OStatic's responsibility, not
Cloudera's. While news articles without sufficient attributions or link
backs to Apache project's home pages are certainly an issue in terms of
both the details of trademarks as well as the overall effect of their
reputation, news articles are a fundamentally different thing than
corporate homepages, or product or download pages.
You will also note that what Sonatype is repeatedly accused of which is
to use "Maven" and not "Apache Maven" you will notice in the link above
Cloudera seems to be exempt from. Not a single mention of Apache Hadoop
in that press release. Actually if you walk all over the Cloudera site
you'll find similar, if not worse abuses, all over their site.
Both the Hadoop PMC and trademarks@ welcome specific reports of third
parties improperly using Apache marks by third parties. If it's a news
article, like that OStatic article, then it's probably best to address
it to press@ though.
This all
seems to be fine for Cloudera, a company founded by Doug Cutting who is
on the Apache Board. Cloudera knows this and has been gradually fixing
things, but they were granted an MOU for "Hadoop World" and no severe
action was taken against Cloudera as a company. Apache is purportedly
and organization based on the participation of individuals so really one
wouldn't expect any targeted action against a company. Doug should know
better than anyone how these things work, working toward and eventually
becoming a member of the Apache Board.
We also have the example http://www.tomcatexpert.com/ which also seems
to be fine, and you'll note this original infraction occurred while Jim
Jagielski was involved with SpringSource. Jim, as Doug, is on the Apache
Board. The Apache board took no severe action in the case of
TomcatExpert site.
In both cases either trademarks@, concom@, or the relevant PMCs have
been working with the third parties in question, and those third parties
have responded constructively. These are not board issues; the board
has delegated these responsibilities, and the board only steps in when
necessary. Such as when a third party does not comply with requests.
Now, I don't find any of the cases cited above as egregious
misappropriation of Apache property, but simply a way for companies
involved with Apache to get some recognition for the work they do and to
promote their involvement with the projects they've helped make
successful. These uses never particularly bothered me. What I take
exception to is that the fact that grants of these exceptions seem
selective, Apache policies regarding trademarks are made up on the fly,
and that what other companies have been granted at Apache, Sonatype is
not.
I'm not quite sure how to address your statement "Apache policies
regarding trademarks are made up on the fly" other than to say I find it
somewhat offensive. We have a number of web pages detailing our
trademark policies, and I assure you, they were not "made up on the
fly", rather were a process of multiple ASF members, officers, and ASF
counsel over a period of months.
In addition, the Apache Board felt the Maven PMC dysfunctional for
not being more forceful with this trademark issue even though the Apache
Board, by example, has never been this forceful with any other company
as a whole. Not Wandisco, not Cloudera, not SpringSource.
Again, the board only steps in when trademarks@ and the relevant PMCs
can't make progress. And re: WANdisco, you really want to pull that
card out? The Subversion PMC called them out on their poor behavior
with Apache marks very publicly and officially here:
https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/apache_subversion_to_wandisco_1
The Subversion PMC pulled this kind of response together without
assistance in a few weeks, and WANdisco made substantiative changes in
response to it in fairly short order. This is in wide variance to both
the Maven PMC's behavior in past years, and in particular in wide
variance to Sonatype's behavior on specific issues.
In this regard
the Maven PMC should have been disbanded, but instead the board targeted
a whole company. Which by Apache's own philosophy of itself being a
collection of individuals seems rather odd to me.
So that's a summary of the trademark issue and Doug started the
conversation with trademarks so I'm fine disclosing that part of the story.
Actually, I think you missed the most important issue, which is
Sonatype's continued and explicit refusal as an organization to
recognize the "MAVEN" mark with respect to our Apache Maven product.
This explicit refusal of such a key point about respect of Apache brands
and a willingness to give proper credit to the Apache communities that
build our software is something I have not seen in any other company in
the past two years I've served in this role.
I have been glad to see a number of other positive branding changes and
attributions that Sonatype has made as a result of our requests in the
past few months. I'm certainly appreciative of the tremendous amount of
work that Brian Fox has put in on this issue. But when your
organization is explicitly refusing to recognize that this community and
the ASF have been the true source for Maven software for the past many
years, well, I find your umbrage to be somewhat misplaced.
- Shane
If Doug and Jim want to continue the discussion about the other major
issue then again, I will leave the initiation of that discussion to them.
On Jun 17, 2011, at 7:54 AM, Doug Cutting wrote:
For many months the board has been asking the Maven project to obtain
proper attribution from Sonatype for Apache's "Maven" trademark.
Sonatype has thus far failed to comply. The Sonatype website states
only that "Apache Maven" is a trademark of the ASF, not that "Maven"
alone is also a trademark of the ASF. Since Sonatype seems to dispute
that this trademark belongs to Apache, Sonatype employees are unable to
simultaneously legally act for Sonatype and Apache at the same time. So
the ASF has removed Sonatype employees from the Maven PMC in order to
remove them from conflict.
Doug
On 06/16/2011 05:11 PM, Jason van Zyl wrote:
Jeff,
I believe this strictly falls within the purview of the Apache Board to
explain. In particular Jim, Doug and Shane.
Only the board has the right to reveal the business that has been
transacted on private lists.
Rest assured that's Sonatype's commitment to Maven users and our pursuit
of innovation with respect to Maven-related technologies has not
stopped, and will not stop.
On Jun 16, 2011, at 9:42 AM, Jeff Jensen wrote:
Is there a forthcoming explanation for a seemingly Maven PMC shakeup?
I find it odd that consistently excellent contributors such as Lukas,
Brian, et al are suddenly not on the Maven PMC. This is concerning as
these are people who have drastically improved and moved Maven
forward. It's very concerning that a heavy committer such as Benjamin
is no longer committing as he has done very useful, fantastic work.
These events are very concerning for the forward progress of Maven.
The strong temptations for competitive products, a la Gradle, do not
allow Maven progress to stop; particularly the best progress to date
of the past year. These events are detrimental. For us uninformed,
what happened, why is it good, what is the plan forward behind this?
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Thanks,
Jason
----------------------------------------------------------
Jason van Zyl
Founder, Apache Maven
http://twitter.com/jvanzyl
---------------------------------------------------------
We all have problems. How we deal with them is a measure of our worth.
-- Unknown
Thanks,
Jason
----------------------------------------------------------
Jason van Zyl
Founder, Apache Maven
http://twitter.com/jvanzyl
---------------------------------------------------------
happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will
elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come
and sit softly on your shoulder ...
-- Thoreau
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