John Plocher wrote:
> [moving this discussion over to trademark-policy-dev]
>
> Nicolas Dorfsman wrote:
>   
>>> Finally, this sounds like you do not want anybody else to create their
>>> own distribution?
>>>       
>> It seems to be a real turning-point for OpenSolaris community.
>> Martin has a point...how should we interpret your post ?
>>     
>
> How about "In a charitable manner that presumes good intent?"
>
> For me, this is all boiling down to a very simple decision tree:
>
>      If you want to call your distro /.*OpenSolaris.*/, it
>      needs to follow the rules for using the OpenSolaris
>      trademark.
>
> If you don't want to use the OpenSolaris trademark on
> your distro, then you can do whatever you wish.  Period.
> End of discussion.  Schillix, Nexenta, Belinix and Martux,
> as well as SX and SXDR all continue as is, completely
> unchanged and indifferent to this conversation.
>
> i.e., this is a trademark usage issue, not a community
> membership, community endorsement, download-page-hosting
> or who can use what bits one.
>   

This hits it right on the head John. I thought that we were working 
toward a trademark usage policy which will allow broader, although still 
protected, usage of the OpenSolaris trademark by those who qualify for 
it and want to use it. Having a starting point to determine 
compatibility, Indiana, makes that possible.

> My understanding of trademark law is minimal - and growing
> less every minute; IANAL.  I think it says the following
> about the rules for using a trademark:
>
>      Sun (the trademark owner) needs to ensure that the
>      OpenSolaris (and by reduction, the Solaris) trademarks
>      are adequately protected under a cross-section of
>      international trademark law.  Without that confidence,
>      Sun's executives can't legally allow use of the trademark
>      since it is a major Sun asset.
>
>      The key protective steps seem to be:
>       (1) A clear usage policy that
>       (2) Has a quality control metric that is
>       (3) Administered by Sun (although this can be with
>           strong community direction) and
>       (4) Can be policed effectively
>
> I hope we are all in agreement so far.  If not, then we
> might as well go home, since those points seem pretty
> non-negotiable.
>
> As they say, the devil is in the details.  Somebody needs to
> create a usage policy and there needs to be a quality control
> metric to make sure the value of the brand is not diluted..
> Hey, that's the Trademark and Branding Project over at
> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/branding/
>
> OK, what should that usage policy look like?  Please come
> over to the branding project (trademark-policy-dev) and help
> us - it promises to be an interesting discussion.
>
>    -John
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>   
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