Comments on: Trademarks http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/ Dave Neary's view of the world Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:22:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Simon Phipps http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/comment-page-1/#comment-1482 Simon Phipps Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:01:52 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/#comment-1482 Mark is right - OpenJDK is piloting a new approach to trademark licensing that we devised after the OSCON workshop you mention. The OpenJDK mark can be used by derivatives for which “the vast majority of the Software code is identical”. This is the important liberalization that made it possible today for Sun, Red Hat and Canonical to jointly announce the presence of OpenJDK in their operating system distributions. There’s still plenty of thinking to do round the subject, but we hope this sort of practical experimentation will push the subject forwards. Tiki, Rich and I would all welcome comments about the OpenJDK trademark license Mark links to. Mark is right – OpenJDK is piloting a new approach to trademark licensing that we devised after the OSCON workshop you mention. The OpenJDK mark can be used by derivatives for which “the vast majority of the Software code is identical”. This is the important liberalization that made it possible today for Sun, Red Hat and Canonical to jointly announce the presence of OpenJDK in their operating system distributions.

There’s still plenty of thinking to do round the subject, but we hope this sort of practical experimentation will push the subject forwards. Tiki, Rich and I would all welcome comments about the OpenJDK trademark license Mark links to.

]]> By: Mark Wielaard http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/comment-page-1/#comment-1429 Mark Wielaard Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:01:15 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/#comment-1429 Hi Dave, "The OpenJDK project is protecting their trademark by insisting that all implementations of Java pass 100% of their conformance test suite." You are confusing the OpenJDK trademark license, with the TCK compatibility and the usage of the Java trademark. The trademark license the (the free software - distrubuted under the GPL) OpenJDK project uses to indicate when a derived work can still be called OpenJDK is here: http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-trademark-notice.html The key notion is that "the vast majority of the Software code is identical". The license for usage of the (non-free) TCK (Test Compatibility Kit) which you can use to verify and claim that your derived OpenJDK work is compatible is here: http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-tck-license.pdf The key notion is that the tests are secret and you cannot claim partial compatibility. And finally you will have to enter into an agreement with Sun about labeling your product with Java (TM) and usage of the logo itself. As far as I know there is no public license for this last step. Hi Dave,

“The OpenJDK project is protecting their trademark by insisting that all implementations of Java pass 100% of their conformance test suite.”

You are confusing the OpenJDK trademark license, with the TCK compatibility and the usage of the Java trademark.

The trademark license the (the free software – distrubuted under the GPL) OpenJDK project uses to indicate when a derived work can still be called OpenJDK is here:
http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-trademark-notice.html
The key notion is that “the vast majority of the Software code is identical”.

The license for usage of the (non-free) TCK (Test Compatibility Kit) which you can use to verify and claim that your derived OpenJDK work is compatible is here:
http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-tck-license.pdf
The key notion is that the tests are secret and you cannot claim partial compatibility.

And finally you will have to enter into an agreement with Sun about labeling your product with Java (TM) and usage of the logo itself. As far as I know there is no public license for this last step.

]]> By: Chris Messina http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/comment-page-1/#comment-1421 Chris Messina Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:13:09 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/04/28/trademarks/#comment-1421 Thanks for highlighting these issues, Dave. We clearly still don't have a great legal or enforcement situation for non-profit, non-commercial or independent open source projects. Clearly protecting a community's mark is important, and making sure that the value of the mark isn't diluted by offensive uses is somewhat key to the longevity or integrity of communities. Still, for the last several years we've seen the FOO/BarCamp name(s) get used in many different contexts and only in a few circumstances, were the usages offensive; even then, with community intervention, the damage was minimized. In other words, legal protections probably would have both been more costly and damaging to both parties than the simple act of out reach and education. This approach works less well in commercial settings where business interests often collide, but it's something to remember that not all remedies must be executed through the legal system. Thanks for highlighting these issues, Dave. We clearly still don’t have a great legal or enforcement situation for non-profit, non-commercial or independent open source projects.

Clearly protecting a community’s mark is important, and making sure that the value of the mark isn’t diluted by offensive uses is somewhat key to the longevity or integrity of communities. Still, for the last several years we’ve seen the FOO/BarCamp name(s) get used in many different contexts and only in a few circumstances, were the usages offensive; even then, with community intervention, the damage was minimized. In other words, legal protections probably would have both been more costly and damaging to both parties than the simple act of out reach and education.

This approach works less well in commercial settings where business interests often collide, but it’s something to remember that not all remedies must be executed through the legal system.

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