Le lundi 24 janvier 2011, à 08:55 +0100, jdd a écrit :
Le 24/01/2011 04:59, Alan Clark a écrit :
The purpose is from prior discussions, and up for refinement, as the Foundation portal page points out all this is Drafts and represents the current state of the discussion.
OK, thanks.
so let's begin with the more obvious. The Foundation name.
I'm not that glad with the "openSUSE" name. Not because I don't like it, but because several possible problems:
* As I have already read, to be able to keep a copyright, it's necessary to have the capacity of defend it, including in court. We wont have this capacity before some time (may be some years), so if we can't own the name, better not use it;
(that's assuming the trademark is transferred to the Foundation -- my understanding is that, at the beginning at least, Novell would still own it) This is an issue many foundations do have, and some of them are willing to investigate alternative ways to handle the copyright. So we could work with them on this topic. But even as a Foundation, we can still protect a trademark. This is a situation that won't happen that often, and we can ask for pro bono legal counsel, we can ask for help to the SFLC, or we can ask our sponsors to help with such an issue.
* openSUSE is now a (well) know Linux distribution. But in fact it's beginning to be much more. For example a community. I'm not that sure than an openSUSE community and a foundation can share the same way of life. The Foundation need very well controlled structure, after all it's here to make lot of money. Open source community need soft controls, adaptatives and may be loose, to accomodate all the changes needed;
I know of many projects that do have a legal entity with the same name, and that's never been an issue. The GNOME Foundation is more than just the GNOME desktop, and it's working all fine.
* finally, there is no need to have the same name, anything somewhat related is enough ("geeko foundation"?). Ubuntu is driven by Canonical, until now openSUSE is driven by Novell...
Sure, but it's less confusing. And I think this is the important part. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-foundation+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-foundation+help@opensuse.org