Shawn Walker wrote:
> Why would anyone but the trademark holder be legally allowed to draft
> a policy for the usage of its name?
The trademark holder /has asked/ for community input into its
trademark usage policy.
The ground rules it set are pretty flexible. Even in the case
of the controversial one true OpenSolaris Distro, this is all
Sun has said:
> To jumpstart this ecosystem, Sun has decided to fund Project Indiana to
> build a base distro, which it will name OpenSolaris
Myself, I would have phrased this differently and made it
into a community request rather than a Sun dictate:
Hey Sun:
We (the OS.o community members who wish to build a unified
ecosystem around the work done in the OpenSolaris community)
are focusing our efforts in the Indiana Project, which is
currently the only "make a distro" effort in the entire
OpenSolaris.Org Community Group and Project space, and we
would like Sun to allow it to use the name OpenSolaris as
the name of the distro they produce."
With the recent work to create the Distro CG, this request could
obviously be rephrased into "the Distro CG would like to be able
to use the name OpenSolaris....
Whichever of these three path you take, you /still/ get to the same
place, which is the predictable response from the trademark owner
requesting a set of "how would you decide what can and cannot be
called OpenSolaris" metrics (called Quality Control Metrics in the
trademark lawyer world).
Sun's only specification of what it wants in those metrics was:
> form an ecosystem of compatible software package and services
and
> Sun invites the OpenSolaris community to
> collaborate in the definition of a set of guidelines that will enable
> others to build derivative operating systems that are compatible with
> the goals of the OpenSolaris operating system and, as an expression of
> that compatibility, are eligible to use the OpenSolaris brand in clearly
> defined ways.
Translating to simple English (sorry Martin and Joerg :-), this says
to me
Dear OpenSolaris Community:
Thank you for your inquiry about use of the OpenSolaris
trademark for your project. Sun has decided that it will
work with you to find a way for the Indiana Project of
the OS.o community to use the OpenSolaris name for its
distro. In order to do so, you will need to figure out
how to best build an ubiquitous ecosystem around the
OpenSolaris Code Base that consists of a set of compatible
distros and a way to support an extended set of 3rd party
applications and services, as well as a set of brandings
and/or trademark taglines that express the relationships
that you will need.
The "decision" that Sun made was simply that it wishes to use
its OpenSolaris trademark as a brand that emphasizes compatibility
across distros, repositories and applications, and that it does not
care to associate its brand with distros or technology ports that
do not contribute to that compatible ecosystem.
I certainly understand how some in the community won't like this
decision, as it moves the community away from being a wide open
free for all and imposes some order on its activities.
I feel like a yenta.
-John
