This and other RFCs are available on the web at http://dev.perl.org/rfc/ =head1 TITLE A Trademark on Perl Should be Acquired in Larry Wall's Name =head1 VERSION Maintainer: Bradley M. Kuhn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 30 Sep 2000 Last Modified: 1 Oct 2000 Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Number: 354 Version: 2 Status: Frozen Suggests: RFC 346: Perl6's License Should be (GPL|Artistic-2.0) =head1 ABSTRACT Larry Wall should trademark the term "Perl" in the area of Computer Software, and license the use of the term "Perl" freely for use only when referring to the Standard Version of the Perl language and its implementation, perl. =head1 FREEZE NOTES No one objected to this, and those on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list who did speak up seemed to feel that this was a good idea. =head1 DESCRIPTION One of the goals stated in the Preamble of the Artistic License was to grant the author (i.e., Larry Wall) some artistic control over what happens to things that are called "Perl". This is a reasonable goal, and L<RFC346> proposes some changes to the Artistic License that will enforce this is much as possible with copyright law while keeping the Artistic license an open source and free software license. Sadly, copyright law only covers copying, modifying, and distributing copies of an item. It is difficult to permit these activities in the spirit of open source and free software, while still holding complete artistic control. My reading of the the license of Perl is that it attempts to handle this problem by requiring redistributors to I<either>: =over 8 =item (a) rename the Package completely so it's not called "Perl" or "perl', or =item (b) make the modified version available as open source and free software. =back And, the license proposed in L<RFC346> attempts to require this much in a legally sound way. However, more can be done. Copyright law is limited in this area, because it isn't designed to control the names of things. That issue is covered by trademark and service mark law. Thus, we can ensure that things called "Perl" are really Perl by obtaining a trademark on Perl, and licensing that trademark in a way that allows only those distributing the Standard Version of Perl to use the name "Perl". =head1 IMPLEMENTATION This RFC proposes the following two measures: =over 8 =item (1) Larry Wall obtains a trademark on the word "Perl" when used to refer to computer software. =item (2) Larry Wall licenses the use of his trademark freely to anyone who is distributing software or documentation that contains or describes the Standard Version of perl, as made available by the original authors and copyright holders of perl. Modified versions of perl and the documentation thereof are prohibited from having the term "Perl" in their name. =back This trademark, combined with the (GPL|Artistic-2.0), will together ensure that things that are called "Perl" really are Perl. =head1 REFERENCES The Artistic License RFC 346: Perl6's License Should be (GPL|Artistic-2.0)
