On Apr 21, 2007, at 00:17, Bill Sommerfeld wrote: > On Fri, 2007-04-20 at 19:44 +0100, Simon Phipps wrote: > >> 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. > > Actually, no. You don't actually find you if there's a trademark > issue > until the holder of an allegedly conflicting mark starts grumbling at > you.
The difficulty here is that, following recent changes of the law in certain countries (such as Germany, I believe) that grumbling can come in the form of a cease and desist letter /and an invoice for costs already experienced/. I believe Sun has already received these (though not yet in relation to OpenSolaris) with 4 and 5 figure sums cited. Thus, the old approach of "suck it and see" is no longer so safe and the great example from the past that people bring up may not be helpful. > > I developed a nontrival familiarity with trademark law a few years > back > due to the "ssh" trademark food fight -- I was the working group chair > of the IETF's Secure Shell working group. Fundamentally, trademark > law > is a big, fuzzy hairball, and its nature is deeply unsatisfying to > engineers as a result. Unfortunately, being a noncombatant or > conscientious objector in the trademark space is nearly impossible for > the non-hermit. Totally agree with you. What's even worse is when one tries to discuss it with one's fellow engineers one is considered to be a hostile party :-) > >> We should assume there >> might be a trademark issue whenever we use a decorative name. > > I think we'd be better served by just using reasonable names not known > by us to conflict with anyone else (and honestly, google should be > sufficient for that). We're not talking about products or services > here > -- just the code names for development projects that don't actually > end > up in a product! I think we have to go a little further than that, as Darrin has hinted. We simply can't eliminate all risk and trying to do so is crazy. We have to be aware of the risks though and build regard for them into our process. First, the problem with decorative names is people get attached to them and start using them as file names, variable names, as the inspiration for graphics and so on. In some cases people do it as a game to spite "the man". If we're to use decorative project names we all have to realise they could get changed /at any time/ and without a degree of explanation that satisfies analytical minds. Second, we may not be talking about products here. If we create projects that are free-standing and long-lived, they effectively gain the status of 'products' in this brave new open source world. While folks like Gaim have got away with staying in eternal beta as a way to avoid trademark nemesis, I have a hunch the courts aren't going to treat that as much of a defence when one of these cases finally reaches them. S.
