As they say, the only person who can safely be appointed to a position of power is the one who doesn't want that honour.
Richard Stallman isn't interested in the label "Open Software" in the slightest (as he has made very clear), so the FSF would make a good, neutral custodian for the trademark on behalf of all those wishing to use it. There is no way it would be abused to feather the FSF's own nest, a definite danger elsewhere. SPI, OSI (not a good choice of name!) and any number of other OSS organizations can perform their roles perfectly adequately without holding the trademark themselves. In fact, it would be a bad idea if one of them were to hold it in an exclusive manner, since this would then make other similar organizations operate in some sense as second class citizens, ie. in a subsidiary capacity. That would not be even-handed, and it's easy to see much bad feeling developing from such a skewed setup --- we see the start of that already. In contrast, in the FSF it would in effect lie in a sort of undisturbed "glass case", a place of esteem for the latest emblem of the community. I think this would work well. Rich Artym [EMAIL PROTECTED]
