On 19 July 2012 13:18, Alexei Fedotov <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Ross, > it would help if particular usages in questions (even if they are not > yet complaints) are discussed. We are not lawyers, and examples would > be simpler to understand
Absolutely. However the specifics right now are so varied that it is clear the maintainer of the openmeetings.de site has not read the trademark policy. For example: "On websites, hyperlinks to the relevant project homepage and to the ASF should be added" http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/faq/#attribution I've not conducted a review of the openmeetings.de site, or of any other open meetings related site. My goal is not to pick on specific items on a single page - that would be unfair. My goal is only to raise awareness of the trademark policy so that people can, I hope, take appropriate action in their own time. > I have investigated the following > http://www.google.ru/search?q=%22apache%20openmeetings%22 > > It shows there are few cases we used Apache Openmeetings, which are > not covered by examples from the policy. I believe thefollowing cases > are fair use, maybe we should avoid some of them. Please advise. Generally speaking if the PPMC is satisfied with any specific use of their marks then the ASF will be. However, the PPMC needs to know what is acceptable and what is not. Hence the PPMC members need to know what the policy is. hence this thread. The issue with trademarks is that if we don't protect them then they are no longer valid. This could be damaging to the whole community. I'm happy to give you my opinion on each case, but I'm speaking only as an ASF mentor. I am not a member of the trademarks committee. > * We commnicated to other open source communities adressing our > product as Apache Openmeetings (e.g. jitsi, red5) and trying to build > a better ecosystem for us. This is mostly the only case when I openly > speak from the face of PPMC outside of Apache mail lists (not > mentioning Apache organization PPMC details though). Strictly speaking it is Apache Openmeetings (incubating) - see http://incubator.apache.org/guides/branding.html However, use in mailing lists etc. is not really the concern here, it's in press, websites etc. Furthermore, it's only really necessary on first use, just as the Apache part can be dropped after first use. > * We use Apache Openmeetings instead of "Openmeetings subproject of > Apache Incubator" instead. That's too long. Openoffice does the same. > If "incubating" is important, we can use it on regular basis. See above - OpenOffice does, as far as I am aware conform to this policy. > * The commercial entity offered small incentives to prepare any patch > for "Apache Openmeetings" on a developer blog. That was an open > proposal. Google does mostly the same thing in GSoC. Also the goal was > to strengthen community, not to solve the business tasks. That's > sponsorship, and write now we (as a project) don't have a lot of > sponsorship. This is perfectly OK as long as the activity is outside of the ASF. That is it's not the ASF offering these incentives it is some third party who conforms to the trademark policy in their engagements. The ASF does not, and never will, pay for software development. Third parties are free to pay for anything they want. > Consider the quote, > Our marks must not be used to disparage the Apache Software > Foundation, our projects, members, sponsors, or communities, nor be > used in any way to imply ownership, endorsement, or **sponsorship** of > any ASF-related project or initiative of any kind. > > This statement I fail to understand. AFAIK, Microsoft openly sponsors > Apache and some particular Apache products. > http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/07/microsoft-to-sponsor-of-the-apache-software-foundation/ Yes, ASF and many organisations sponsor the ASF but they are not allowed any special rights over our marks as a result. They do not sponsor our projects, they sponsor the foundation so it can provide services for *all* our projects not any specific project. Using our marks in factual statements is always allowed (no policy we write can change that), so MS can say they sponsor the foundation (fact) but they cannot say they sponsor Apache Foo since we don't accept targetted donations for projects. > Taking the statement literally, when I raise money for our developers, > I cannot refer to the Apache project. You are raising money for your *developers*. That is fine. You are not raising money for the *project*. So you can say "I will pay developers to work on Apache Foo" but you can't say "I sponsor Apache Foo". > My take on that is to clarify the trademark policy here. That would be for trademarks@ to do if necessary. Ross
