As I recall (and this is in no way a definitive answer), Sun declined to maintain the trademark--it takes an infusion of cash paid to the government periodically. Therefore Jini is no longer an active trademark. This intent was stated prior to the donation to the Apache Foundation and, of course, the Oracle takeover. If this is all true, what I don't know is how long the last trademark payment was good for.
-jeff On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Peter Firmstone <j...@zeus.net.au> wrote: > Hi All, > > I was checking the copies we have of the Jini Specs we maintain, we've got > an index for the specs up on the Apache River website titled > "Apache Jini Specifications v2.1.2" I'm not sure this is quite right, > perhaps it should be "Jini TM Specifications implemented by Apache River > 2.1.2" - Any thoughts on a suitable title for this page? > > http://incubator.apache.org/river/doc/spec-index.html > > Sim has been trying to encourage us to become more involved in documenting > the project, via the mail list and I think our lack of participation in this > area has been a source of frustration. There has been some significant work > performed on the Apache River web site lately, and I know we've been happy > to leave this to Sim and Tom and they've both put their hearts into this > work, but I think we all have a responsibility for the maintainence of our > projects documentation and to make sure these are correct and honor legal > obligations like trademarks and copyright's etc. > > We should all have a look through our new website and make sure we've got > the t's crossed and the I's dotted for Graduation. > > I think there may be some confusion about versioning of the Jini > Specifications and what the difference between Jini and Apache River is. > > To clarify, Jini is a specification, owned by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) > and developed in consultation with the "Jini Community", Jini is a trademark > owned by Oracle, Oracle also has the rights to a number of patents regarding > Jini Technology. Apache River has been granted rights to use these patents, > as part of the software grant by Sun Microsystems, there's also a patent > covenant, which covers AL2 code not included in the software grant. > > Apache River now maintains the Jini Specifications (please correct me if I'm > wrong), but Oracle still owns the trademark. > > I still think we need to be careful to document publicly that Jini is > trademarked by Sun Microsystems (Oracle) and Apache River is an > implementation of the Jini Specifications. > > > To maintain the Jini spec, do we need to follow some sort of process as the > "Jini Community", of which Apache River is a major part? > > I've noticed that edits can occur on the content of these specifications > without much consultation, so I'm wondering how we should handle this > responsibility in future? > > Should the Jini Specification be broken out into a sub project with > releases, votes etc? > > This might be useful to include parts of com.sun.jini or accept external > contributions to the spec from downstream projects and determining future > developments, apart from our current implementation. > > Cheers, > > Peter. > > > > >
