Hi folks, What are the implications of trademark ownership regarding Open Source software? Say, for example, that I produce --
HappySoft[tm] -- A program promoting happiness and I reserve www.happysoft.org, and make a cool logo, and my Java package names (or C++ namespaces) start with -- org.happysoft.* or org::happysoft::* and my source code, documentation and other material contains a preamble -- This file is part of HappySoft[tm], a program promoting happiness. Somewhere out there, however, I have reserved the HappySoft trademark by (a) using it; and (b) publishing statements like -- HappySoft and the "smiling person" logo are trademarks of the HappySoft Organization, and may not be used or duplicated without permission. which, I figure, is to ensure that, even though people can reuse my code, they cannot claim that what they have produced is *the* true "HappySoft" program. * * * * * Now, someone else wants to build a derivative work -- YaySoft[tm] -- A program promoting celebration based on HappySoft (which is ok, since HappySoft is Open Source). They come up with a new logo and new name, and they publish their work on a separate site called yaysoft.org, and they do *not* claim that their work is HappySoft (beyond perhaps acknowledging the lineage of the code). However, the restricted-usage HappySoft marks remain in the original source code (which, per the applicable license, they should not be required to modify in order to redistribute or include in their derivative work). And the code is still named "org.happysoft.*". So -- 1. Do the authors of YaySoft in this way infringe on trademark law, or, conversely -- 2. Do I as the author of HappySoft, by embedding restricted trademarks in the source code, violate the Open Source Definition? Thanks a lot & peace, Ihab -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3