On Monday, 17 June 2019 11:59:40 CEST Richard Brown wrote:
While SUSE does not wish to formally rule anything out at this time, their opinion is that, if the openSUSE Project was to formally request that SUSE transfers ownership of the openSUSE trademarks to the Foundation, then SUSE would almost certainly have to decline that request. This is because it is highly unlikely any trademark law anywhere would be compatible with the idea of a legally separate organisation owning a trademark that contains another organisations trademark.
This comes as no surprise.
One possibility open for consideration is the idea of licensing the openSUSE Marks to the Foundation. Such a thing will need to happen even if the Foundation forms under a different name but if we were to wish to continue using the openSUSE name in our distributions. It is possible that such a license could be exclusive and maybe non-revokable. But any such license will likely have to come with conditions, which could restrict Foundation from some activities which could be seen to be competition with SUSE's business of providing support for software. While there is further investigation required, it is not expected that any such restriction would impact openSUSE's current activities which include 3rd parties redistributing openSUSE in a commercial setting (Box sets, pre-installed on hardware, hosting).
As far as the foundation is able to act freely within a fair scope of actions this is fine for me.
I think the discussion has reached a point where as a Project we should consider a straight 'Yes/No' vote for the question of "Should openSUSE continue to use the openSUSE name and trademarks?"
Wish I'd be a member already. Nonetheless, I think you guys will make a well considered and careful decision.
I will be voting "Yes" for the proposed question or any similarly worded referendum on this topic. I feel the best course forward would be for openSUSE to continue to use the name openSUSE, and I'm mostly comfortable with the Project's ability to stomach the consequences of such a decision.
The only way I could see myself changing that opinion would be that, as we negotiation the details around the Foundation, if any legal/tax or other circumstances were to arise that would limit openSUSE's ability to be reused and redistributed at least as widely as it is today.
But we can reopen such a topic if we find such a condition arising.
One open question left. If you already answered it, excuse me, I lost track of the conversation a bit. Is this YES a yes to use the openSUSE name and trademark for the foundation, too, or only for use with the distributions and we will still figure out a different name for the foundation? Kind regards Pierre -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org