On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:44 PM, David Crossley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Robert Burrell Donkin wrote: >> Martin Cooper wrote: >> > >> > The status page template includes a bullet item that states, in part: >> > >> > "check www.nameprotect.com to be sure that the name is not already >> > trademarked for an existing software product" >> > >> > How do we go about this? The CSC web site wants me to call them to have an >> > account set up, but surely we're not all setting up accounts for one-time >> > use, are we? I just want to complete the check for the PhotArk podling. >> >> i'm not sure that we have a good answer to this question ATM >> >> maybe we need to rephrase this - how can the incubator ensure that a >> name is not already trademarked for an existing software product? > > I agree. I took the liberty of changing the subject > of this thread. > > Recently i tried to summarise the various discussions > on this topic. > > See the page: > "Choosing names for ASF projects" > http://www.apache.org/dev/project-names.html
thanks for starting to take a stab at this <blockquote cite='http://www.apache.org/dev/project-names.html'> > When people conduct an internet search after hearing about an ASF project, > they will use some technical terms and a name. We want to appear near the top > and not get confused with someone else in the same technical space. </blockquote> IMHO this is the opposite of the problem: apache projects are often very quickly highly ranked when conducting internet searches. an apache project with a similar name to someone else in the same technical space may quickly come to dominate searches in that space. If someone else holds a related trademark then this may lead to a legal dispute. > I have passed it by the legal-discuss mail list, > but only received some general comments so far. might need to raise a JIRA if you want some sort of formal approval - robert --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
