Usually, when instances like this have happened in the past, the
"leader" has undertaken to differentiate that which they want
trademarked from the underlying community project.
The best known example of this is Red Hat. When it wanted to assert its
trademark, Red Hat created the name "Fedora" to describe the community
open source project on top of which their trademarked products were
built. There are other examples -- mainly Linux distributions
(Freespire, openSUSE) -- but the model could easily be applied here.
So long as "Asterisk" applies to a community open source project _and_
a trademarked product name, both the project and the trademark may be
held back. Perhaps someone might suggest a title for the community
software project so to as reduce confusion with the trademark, while
giving community developers (and those who want to sell/support the
project) a common target name.
("Octothorpe", anybody?)
I don't begrudge Digium the ability to use its trademark as it wants. In
the world of FOSS, a well-known trademark is one of few legitimate
proprietary assets a vendor can leverage. Still, there are ways to do
this that minimize disruption and bad feelings. I have yet to see any
evidence of a deliberate intent to alienate the community; I don't think
anyone benefits from such friction.
- Evan
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