([email protected] and [email protected] have been BCC'ed so they are aware I have started this discussion on marketing@)
Hi all, An opportunity has been presented to us to allow the CloudStack PMC to directly manage our trademark. I wanted to get a discussion going about (1) do we want to do this, and (2) if so what process would we follow for it. What I need out of this thread is a gauge of consensus, and input into our approach (if you agree with the idea of taking over direct management). FWIW, I'm a strong +1 to taking on this responsibility as a project. As background for those that might not have it, today's trademark guidelines (for the project [1] and the foundation [2]) explicitly state a number of instances where the VP Brand Management for the foundation must explicitly approve certain requests (including, for example, non-software goods with a project logo). Discussion within the ASF board and trademarks committee has lead to a conclusion that (at least) CloudStack's PMC could take on primary responsibility for management of it's brand. The specifics of how this will occur (board resolution or trademark policy changes) are still under discussion. The current general opinion of those groups is that trademark management by a PMC like CloudStack would be done in a way similar to how our security team works. The [email protected] email list is responsible for handling all inbound vulnerability reports, and working to correct them with the appropriate committers. The [email protected] list members are automatically included in our list, so that they can provide oversight and step in to help / advise when necessary. I expect something similar will occur for trademark management questions. I also expect that we will see the foundation-wide trademark policy [2] be patched to account for PMC's owning "approvals" related to their specific marks. One of the reasons for this shift is the desire to scale the approval process beyond a single individual. IMO, we need to be sure that our approach to management of approvals is similarly able to scale within the project itself (i.e.: I'm against a single individual being the one to have to always say "approved".) If we agree in principle, I would expect that we would make changes to our project's trademark policy [1] to clarify this decision making authority and our process / approach for getting approvals. I also expect that we would modify our project bylaws [3] to provide for a clear mechanism for trademark approval. Last, we would perform a PMC vote that signifies that we want to take on this responsibility to the board. So, comments? I'm looking for comments from anyone in the community here, especially if you are someone that asks for approvals today. We want to make it easy to get approval if the policy is being followed, yet ensure that everyone is using our brand correctly. I'll wait a few days, and if nobody else proposes patches to the relevant project documents, I'll propose them myself and see if they match up with everyone's opinions. -chip [1] http://cloudstack.apache.org/trademark-guidelines.html [2] http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/ [3] http://cloudstack.apache.org/bylaws.html
