On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Troy Benjegerdes <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 08:12:25AM -0400, Derrick Brashear wrote: >> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:10 AM, Troy Benjegerdes <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Have the USENIX association lawyers been made aware they are accepting >> > funds in a manner which may expose them to trademark litigation from IBM? >> > Either this trademark IS an issue, and blocks creation of a foundation, >> > and ANYONE that accepts funds for doing work on 'OpenAFS' is potentially >> > liable, or it's not. >> >> You asserting that doesn't make it true. >> > > Then what the hell *is* the deal with the AFS trademarks? Can I market a > product as 'Compatible with OpenAFS'? If I submit code to Gerrit for an IPv6 > implementation that afs3-std has not signed off on, is someone going to claim > I'm violating IBM's trademarks and/or the copyrights on the .xg files?
Compatible with OpenAFS is a statement of fact. I'm not a lawyer, so this is not a legal opinion, but statements of fact should not be able to be construed as a violation. Well. As long as it's a true statement. And you can submit whatever code you want. We won't necessarily distribute it. But you can submit whatever you wish. > I would like to hear an opinion of the Usenix association lawyers, IBM's > laywers, or Red Hat's lawers, as a public statement on this mailing list, > rather than all the uninformed speculation all of us are doing about it. There are lots of things you would like that seems to involve volunteering other people's time, money or resources. Or did you plan on soliciting those opinions yourself? >> > Is there a statement to what ends a donation to the Usenix openafs fund >> > would be used for? >> >> Any purpose the Elders believe will further the ends of OpenAFS. Given >> the low amount of money involved it has been things like >> - procuring a 64 bit intel machine for a Linux port when such things were >> rare >> - subsidizing (or guaranteeing against) cost overruns for AFS workshops > > I think the Elders have done a wonderful job ensuring the AFS workshops > continue. > > Unfortunately, this appears to be all they are capable or willing to do, > since there has been talk of a foundation for years, and the conclusion, as > far as I can tell, was 'its too hard, with all the trademark/IBM license > nonsense'. > > What is the official documented process for me to apply to be an AFS Elder > and try to get some of this crap done? Given that your contributions seem to mostly be volunteering other people to satisfy your whims or curiosities (like, those tests you wanted someone who wasn't you to run with regards to overhead of debug versus optimize) I can tell you I'd vote no on your application. Posting a lot of ideas for other people to run with isn't a contribution to the community. Pushing people because they're not meeting your idea of how things should be isn't necessarily either. It's fine right up to the point where voluntary contributors get fed up and stop contributing. No one's on the hook to be here unless it's between them and their employer. If you want to contribute, stop talking about all the things you want other people to do for you, give you, grant you, provide you, and just contribute. Infringing a trademark to further what you think should happen, as opposed to creating something on its own merits? Also not contributing, so if you're about to jump to "well, I'll set up a foundation for you", let us know how the TFS Foundation turns out. Tho if you're going to do that, I suggest the broader "Troy Benjegerdes Foundation for Distributed Filesystem Research and Development". You might also if you are successful consider endowing a college professor or department to do research to feed your project. -- Derrick _______________________________________________ OpenAFS-info mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openafs.org/mailman/listinfo/openafs-info
