On 03/06/2019 21:47, Richard Brown wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Sébastien 'sogal' Poher <sogal@opensuse.org> wrote:
What I like to know is if the issues with the trademark can be overcome or not. I do understand that it will be limitating at so point, but what consequences are we to expect ?
My expectation would be that if we do not change the name, an "openSUSE Foundation" would likely face much stricter restrictions on what it can use the openSUSE Trademark for, and stricter limitations on allowing other people or organisations to use the trademark.
Using Sarah's example of the ownCloud situation as a reference.
OwnCloud GmbH (the company) have Trademark guidelines based on our openSUSE ones. https://owncloud.org/trademark/
With the key difference being any discussions regarding exceptional use is decided by ownCloud GmbH - trademark@owncloud.com. (note the '.com', not 'org')
In openSUSE's case, the first point of contact regarding any trademark discussions is the openSUSE Board (board@opensuse.org to be precise). The Board then take it onboard in the interests of the community, and negotiate with SUSE when required.
This is quite unlike the ownCloud Foundation who seem to have absolutely no say, rights to grant use, or control over the ownCloud Trademark in any way manner or form.
https://foundation.owncloud.org/#communitycontinuity
The only rights the ownCloud Foundation have documented is a limited right to use the text version of "ownCloud", which could be elevated to full ownership of the trademark in the event of ownCloud GmbH no longer existing.
So, taking that as an example, my expectation would be that if we go down this road of having a Foundation without a rename, we could end up in a very similar situation to ownCloud.
The openSUSE Project could lose the current influence that it enjoys regarding the use of its trademark due to the unique nature of the openSUSE Board simultaneously being representative of the community and the company. This unique legal duplicity (where the Board can be seen to be 'part of SUSE'..at least through my role) will not be the case under an openSUSE Foundation. Even with all plans ensuring SUSE will retains influence and a close relationship over the Foundation, for all legal matters regarding Trademarks and such, I am almost 100% certain the entities will NEED to be considered separately, leading to the comparative reduction in community influence over the openSUSE Marks compared to the status quo.
The removal of the communities influence regarding the Project's Trademark is a situation I personally would find very distasteful, which is why I outright reject Sarah's suggestion that ownCloud is an example we should aim to emulate in this case.
They stand as a good example of a 'worst case'..the sort of worst case we'd be able to avoid by renaming the Project.
At the same time its a "Worst case" and currently we have no advice as to what any restrictions over the current status quo there would be for an openSUSE Foundation. It is probably something we really should get cleared up before voting on the name change so members have a clear idea of what they are / are not voting for. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org