On 15/11/2007, Brian Gupta <brian.gupta at gmail.com> wrote: > On Nov 15, 2007 5:24 AM, Simon Phipps <webmink at sun.com> wrote: > > > > On Nov 14, 2007, at 17:50, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > > > > > IF we want to exist as a community *independent* from Sun, then we > > > *must* have control over our own identity, and ultimately also things > > > like resources, etc. An entity (non-profit or otherwise) becomes > > > necessary. (I think there are other third party non-profits that can > > > act as an "umbrella placeholder" as well, if we don't want to start > > > our > > > own. I have no experience there.) > > > > > > IF we do NOT want to be truly independent of Sun (and that may not be > > > such a terrible thing... Sun is after all the largest contributor to > > > this project by several orders of magnitude) then we don't need to go > > > down that path, but we need to stop complaining when Sun uses the > > > OpenSolaris name however they see fit. > > > > This is a false dichotomy. It is reasonable to expect Sun's > > fiduciaries and their spokespeople to treat us with respect, > > regardless of our incorporated status, and I will continue to call > > for it regardless. > > > > A non-profit is an increasingly high maintenance activity (hence > > Fedora's reversal of its Foundation status a while back). It has > > gating rules concerning diversity of membership that we may not be > > able to sustain, has financial and operational reporting rules that > > are burdensome for volunteer staff to handle, and has implications > > for fundraising and governance that go far beyond "independence from > > Sun". I would not support us heading in that direction yet. > > > > Maybe that's enough to convince some folk it's essential, of course :-) > > The thought is not to move everything to a "Foundation". IE: I am not > proposing the equivalent of "Linux Foundation", but rather the > equivalent of the "Linux Mark Foundation". The sole purpose of this > foundation would be to hold the mark(s). These marks would be licensed > free of charge for the OGB to use as they see fit, the OGB would have > the ability to further sublicense te trademarks. The OGB might even > create a trademark committee to do some of the work required. (I > volunteer). > > If Sun or any other organization wanted to use the mark, it would be > possible, but the idea is to use the mark in the same way it that > "OpenSolaris" was used prior to Sun's decision to make a Sun distro > called OpenSolaris. That is to say as an *inclusive* identifier for > the community, source code, and source derivative projects. >
Unfortunately, I don't see that as a viable option. For better or worse, OpenSolaris is a trademark that contains the Solaris trademark. That means that Sun's ability to market their commercial Solaris product is tied directly to our community. This also means that it would not be responsible of Sun, nor possibly acceptable to its shareholders, to allow another entity free reign over a trademark in such a way that it could cause market damage or confusion with Sun's other trademarks or products. Not only that, such a foundation imposes significant responsibilities, financially and otherwise that I do not believe are something the community should be burdened with at this time. > The current plan to use OpenSolaris in new ways, will dillute the > current meaning, and for all practical purposes, OpenSolaris will no > longer mean what it did, but instead will be understood to be a > reference to the distro. All words gain additional meanings over time in the English language. I don't think this is replacing the meaning, but rather adding to it. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor..." --Larry Wall
