RE: namespace protection compatible with the OSD?

[Lawrence E. Rosen]

>"OSI Certified" is a certification mark, a kind of trademark. Yet open
>source software authors can claim their software to be "OSI Certified",
>not just "equivalent to OSI Certified". This doesn't constitute
>abandonment of the trademark -- does it?

"OSI Certified" is a certification mark, a special kind of trademark that
can ONLY be applied to third party software.  In fact, if OSI itself made
software it could NOT apply the certification mark to its own software.

The same general rules of trademark apply: OSI is responsible for ensuring
that third-party users of the OSI Certified certification mark meet certain
quality standards -- in this case, the requirement to distribute the
software under an OSI-approved license.

/Larry Rosen