Owen, From your response below you say the following: "We are trying to assert that only the Apache releases can be called Hadoop. That seems to be the best way to help the project ensure compatibility and prevent user confusion." and " I want Hadoop to be used in as many products as possible. Having a FooCo product that is called "FooCo HugeInsights powered by Hadoop" is absolutely great. The question is just whether they can call something Hadoop if it isn't an Apache release.
-- Owen" Owen, Unfortunately what you're saying is that you would only approve of companies that build their products on top of Apache's release and doesn't modify the Apache release. To give you an example... if Acme Risk Management Company sold a product using Hadoop to do risk analysis on a bank's portfolio, they can only say "powered by Hadoop" if they build their application on top of Apache's release. But the minute they build their solution on top of anyone else, they would lose that right? So using Cloudera's release, which contains things outside of the official Apache release would disallow them? Or if they make their own modifications to the underlying release which isn't part of the official release, they could no longer make that claim? This interpretation of "powered by Hadoop" would unfortunately lead to as many problems as it attempts to solve. First, many choose Cloudera's release because they sell commercial support. So in choosing Cloudera's release, they would lose the ability to say "powered by Hadoop". This diminishes the branding message. The Apache License allows for broad reuse and relicensing as long as the company complies with Apache's T's & C's. Limiting the ability to say "powered by Hadoop" means that they will say that their solution uses a commercially supported 'derivative of Hadoop'. In terms of legalese, good luck in trying to get them on a misuse of your trademark. Cloudera, EMC, MapRTech, Datastax all offer derivatives of Hadoop. (I'm not forgetting about Yahoo!, but are they releasing their own version as well?) The term Hadoop is used as a reference to Apache's Hadoop release. I hope that you start to see the dangers on taking a narrow approach in how you define Hadoop. Just IMHO. -Mike -----Original Message----- From: Owen O'Malley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 1:32 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Trademarks and Derivative Works On Jun 16, 2011, at 10:59 AM, Lawrence Rosen wrote: > Under default trademark law, those others can distribute HADOOP and > APACHE HADOOP only if it is a redistribution of *our* HADOOP or APACHE > HADOOP software. (That's why you can buy Jello Brand gelatin at > Safeway.) Those trademarks are our names for our software. ASF is the > source and origin of those software goods. Nobody else can apply those > trademarks to their own software. The problem is that a rapidly growing set of companies are distributing products that have never been released by Apache and calling them Hadoop. The rules from HTTPD, as I understand them, are that they allow artifacts to be called HTTPD that are releases plus patches that have been committed. With HTTPD that has a formal specification and a very large compatibility test suite, that works. For Hadoop without a formal specification or test suite, we simply can't handle companies calling things Hadoop that are thousands of patches away from our releases. We are trying to assert that only the Apache releases can be called Hadoop. That seems to be the best way to help the project ensure compatibility and prevent user confusion. > It will be to our advantage to have HADOOP and APACHE HADOOP software > better known and widely used throughout the world. For that purpose, > we should be defining the rules we want to *encourage* third parties > to follow, not arguing about derivative work analysis or voting on > whether or not something is a trademark. I want Hadoop to be used in as many products as possible. Having a FooCo product that is called "FooCo HugeInsights powered by Hadoop" is absolutely great. The question is just whether they can call something Hadoop if it isn't an Apache release. -- Owen The information contained in this communication may be CONFIDENTIAL and is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication, or any of its contents, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender and delete/destroy the original message and any copy of it from your computer or paper files.
