On Dec 11, 2007 3:40 PM, Roy T. Fielding <fielding at gbiv.com> wrote: > On Dec 11, 2007, at 6:34 AM, Shawn Walker wrote: > > On Dec 10, 2007 11:32 PM, Roy T. Fielding <fielding at gbiv.com> wrote: > >> The Sun and OGB have agreed to those terms within the context of a > >> long conversation, which defines them more than adequately. > > > > Which is completely unhelpful to the community unless that long > > conversation is publicly documented somewhere. > > The community has no need of it. The OGB has complete decision-making > power over opensolaris.org infrastructure up to the point when Sun > decides to arbitrarily violate the charter, at which point the OGB > can either concede the issue or resign.
"Trust us" is not an answer. I also disagree that the community has no need of it. Without well-defined areas of responsibility and control how does the community know that they even need to ask the OGB about something in the first place? > The concerns you are raising are theoretical nonsense that do not > need to be addressed. If the OGB is prevented from controlling > some aspect of the infrastructure, then the specific issue and > circumstances can be addressed at that time. It is absurd to worry > about that now when the OGB isn't making any decisions at all. Actually, it isn't theoretical nonsense. Control of website content was a very recent topic that was very real. > >>> * Any decisions that pertain to one of the above areas are not under > >>> OGB control (direct or indirect) > >> > >> That's wrong. Having "control of or interest in" is a matter of > >> accounting for ownership, as in Sun retains the ability to take > >> those resources away from the OGB at any time. That does not say > >> anything about decisions that are made during the period in which > >> Sun has loaned the use of those assets to the OGB. > > > > I disagree. I believe the statements in the charter are of a > > minimilally-defined nature that are open to greater interpretation > > than what you seem to imply. > > I participated in writing it. Which bears what relevance to the statement that the charter is open to interpretation? > > What the charter says to me is that it is likely that we have the > > ability to control activities of the community on those servers, but > > not those of Sun if they apply directly to their copyright, patent, or > > trademark interest(s). > > Then there would be no need for a charter, no need for an OGB, and > no need for a constitution that separates us from Sun. Your > interpretation has no value to either party, and thus cannot be > held true for any of the signatories. So feedback from a community member is of no value and is irrelevant? Gosh, I feel loved now. Of course, I've also been conveniently excluded from knowing what either party's interpretation is of the charter via the vague "trust us" you've give me in return. > >>>>> Example pages might include the trademark usage guidelines page > >>>>> that > >>>>> Sun provides here: > >>>>> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/trademark_faq/ > >>>> > >>>> Frankly, I think if we were to decide the community got to > >>>> change the > >>>> pages regarding Sun's trademarks on opensolaris.org, they'd just be > >>>> moved to sun.com, and perhaps that isn't a bad thing anyway. > >>> > >>> I'm not so sure. I think legally, we have to have certain content on > >>> our website, and according to the charter and law, only Sun can > >>> control that content. > >> > >> We are not legally required to have any content on our website. > >> It could be completely blank, or contain 100% factual statements, > >> and not break any laws. > >> > >> Sun has certain policies that apply to its own websites. Those > >> policies only apply to opensolaris.org to the extent that the OGB > >> allows them to apply. Statements by Sun employees on our website > >> are no more (or less) owned by Sun than those same statements > >> on third-party sites (slashdot, apache, etc.) Statements about > >> Sun's ownership of trademarks belong on Sun's website -- the only > >> part that belongs on opensolaris.org are the disclaimers that > >> point to Sun's pages on some other site. > > > > Except for the fact that opensolaris.org contains a trademark and thus > > our usage of the domain itself is subject to Sun's requirements for > > usage of that trademark, correct? > > Sun granted us permission to use the OpenSolaris mark. What specific permissions did they grant you in using that mark? What legal entity did Sun grant it to? Oh wait; that's right; the OpenSolaris community doesn't exist as a legal entity as far as I know. > That does not change the ownership of the Solaris mark. > Sun granted us permission to use a set of machines and software > to host the opensolaris.org infrastructure. That does not change > the ownership of that infrastructure, nor does it enable the OGB > to control the time of Sun employees who keep that infrastructure > running. It is a weak position to be in, but no weaker than it > has to be due to the accounting requirements of a public company. > > This is not how I would choose to set up an open source organization. > We are limited by context. > > So, I think it would be very reasonable, as an example, for them to > > require certain documentation regarding the trademark on the website > > in exchange for usage of that trademark. > > Sun did not. Sun required a charter and a constitution. All this > other nonsense about Sun having a special say in what gets placed > on opensolaris.org is nothing more than speculation -- if Sun needs > something, then a Sun employee needs to ask the OGB (or delegated > community) to make it so through action or delegation. If Sun has > a problem with that, then Sun is fully capable of dissolving the > charter and constitution and returning to square one. Well, since the discussions about what exactly we are and are not permitted to do isn't public; speculation is all I have. What else did you expect besides speculation without a public record? It's a little unfair to belittle me for speculating when I have no alternative. I also sincerely doubt that Sun would have given up their rights to the name in the way you imply. For example, I am certain they have full legal control over the trademark as the owner despite whatever usage may have been granted to the "mysterious legal entity" that empowers us with the privately discussed abilities bestowed. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
