On Apr 20, 2007, at 19:25, Eric Saxe wrote: > Thanks for cc'ing me... > I guess my project proposal has become somewhat of a case study? :)
Sorry that's happening but I think we're all learning a lot! > Stephen Lau wrote: >>>>> Proposed name: Project Tesla: Solaris Enhanced Power Management >>>>> Not O.K. >>>>> Suggest: "Tesla: Solaris Enhanced Power Management" >>>>> (similar to... several, e.g. Reno and Tamarack) >>>>> >>>> Not OK - Decorative. >>>> >>> Ok by policy, not ok for hosting on Sun's resources. That is, if >>> you >>> speak for Sun here. >>> >> Tesla to me implies the physicist, not a company. > > Again, I think i'm missing context. Is there a trademark issue? If > so, is there a process that proposers > of projects are supposed to (or should) go through to ensure a > project's name is "good"? The problem is that to find out if there /is/ a trademark issue costs a non-trivial sum of money that we don't have. We should assume there might be a trademark issue whenever we use a decorative name. That's why it's better for us to use descriptive names unless there is an exceptional circumstance and there is a sponsor involved who can pay for legal review. Are both of these the case here? >>>> * Including "Solaris" or "OpenSolaris" in the name is redundant >>>> since >>> Agreed. >>> >> >> Ditto. >> > Maybe in the context of opensolaris.org it's redundant. But where > the project name is raised in a broader context > (like "an open source project"), expressing that the work is > destined for OpenSolaris seems useful. Unfortunately, since Sun in its wisdom set this community up with a trademark in its name, Sun will have to abide by US trademark law and enforce licensing and minimum quality standards over that trademark. Thus, the example you describe is exactly the sort of circumstance in which it's better not to use the word "OpenSolaris". S.
