old business...see Rob's responses below
Would it be OK to extract some of Rob's responses and add them (in a
general way) to the modified --
http://www.openoffice.org/distribution/
page?
Maybe as sort of a general FAQ on redistributing?
But with a caveat that ooo-dev should still be contacted.
At least this might forego addressing the same sorts of issues again and
again.
On 04/03/2012 04:39 AM, Rob Weir wrote:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:38 AM, Issac Goldstand<is...@volo-net.com> wrote:
Hi,
At ACNA I mentioned to Shane that the company that I work for was
interested in re-distributing OO but was concerned over the legalities of
doing so - specifically regarding trademark use. After explaining the
company and project in detail he said that he thought it could work out,
and directed me to poll the podling as a prerequisite for getting trademark
approval from the ASF. Although that project (at work) was frozen by the
time I returned from Vancouver, it's come up in discussion again, so I'd
like to ask the podling for permission to use the trademarks and guidance
on how to best keep the podling's interests in mind.
The company focuses on monetized installers, similar to those found in
Oracle's JAVA windows installer or on CNET downloads (which is actually our
product), where we offer an opt-in bundled software download as part of the
installer.
Currently, our team has come up with mockups for the installer and landing
page for the download, which I'd be happy to provide in the form of
attachments on-list, or off-list (or on a wiki if that's the "right way to
do it").
Hi Isaac,
Here are my personal thoughts. Don't take this as a final decision by the
project, but just me weighing in, and hoping that other project members do
as well.
First, thanks for asking. Not everyone does that, though they should.
Links to your mock-up would be great.
For background, I would note that some of our users have been confused but
such "monitized installers" before, and we have received complaints.
(However, to be fair I don't think they were from your company).
Since we cannot control the quality or the user experience for modified
installs, and the experience for the user would differ from our released
OpenOffice, it would probably be confusing to the user to call your product
just "OpenOffice.org" or "Apache OpenOffice" without further distinction.
IMHO, one of the attributes of our brand is that it is non-commercial,
free, open source software.
So I think you should consider another primary name that distinguish your
offering, while truthfully indicating that it is based on OpenOffice. For
example, "Super Office, powered by Apache OpenOffice", where "Super Office"
could be any name of your choice that you have rights to use. That might
be the name of your overall bundle.
So if there is a link that says, "Click here to download OpenOffice.org",
and that link does not actually point directly to an unmodified release of
OpenOffice.org, then that is a problem. If it says, "Click here to
download the Super Office Bundle, powered by OpenOffice.org (TM)", then
that might be OK.
What we want to know, specifically is:
1) How to brand the product? Given we're talking about 3.3.0 (at least
until 3.4.0 happens), we thought to simply brand it OpenOffice.org Should
we continue that line, or use Apache OpenOffice? If the latter, should we
include "Incubating" and the logos set out at https://cwiki.apache.org/**
confluence/display/OOOUSERS/**AOOLogo+proposal<https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/AOOLogo+proposal>or
not?
3.3 should be called "OpenOffice.org", 3.4 should be called "Apache
OpenOffice".
2) We'd like pointers on the right place (if any) to include (TM) or (R)
or anything else both on the landing page and on the installer.
"OpenOffice.org" would be (R). "Apache OpenOffice" would be (TM)
Acknowledgment of the trademarks is key. Also, if users might be confused
as to the source of the bundle, a disclaimer might be appropriate, e.g.,
"Super Office is a product of Foo Corporation and is not affiliated with or
endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. "OpenOffice.org" is a
trademark of the Apache Software Foundation."
3) Other general pointers that you have.
Policy is here: http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/
My recommendation would be first to resolve the name question and how to
avoid users confusing the bundled software with an Apache source or
endorsement. That is the key question.
Regards,
-Rob
Thanks,
Issac
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MzK
"So let it rock, let it roll
Let the bible belt come and save my soul
Hold on to sixteen as long as you can
Changes come around real soon make us woman and men."
-- "Jack and Diane", John Mellencamp
