On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 09:31:53PM -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote: > On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Richard Braakman wrote: > > Creating such a test would be a lot of work if you don't already > > have one. > > Yes, I'm not thinking of a compatibility test suite. I'm thinking of > things like "All modifications must be clearly itemized in a file called > MODIFICATIONS at the root level" and "The place to report errors or bugs > must not be an apache.org address, and must be clearly indicated in the > README or end-user docs", stuff like that. Stuff that addresses the few > sources of pain it causes us when people release broken packages.
This sounds like a good solution to me. It would even be nicer than most licenses that require that sort of thing, because the requirements go away if the software is renamed. That way it stays easy to share code between free software projects. It's not going to stop FooCorp from releasing "ApachePro", though. But like I said, I don't think a software license can prevent that anyway. You would need a trademark. > > The trademark approach works for several open projects I know of, > > including Debian itself, Linux, and the Kannel project (which I do > > for a living). > > Is there a document or email somewhere that describes a situation where > Debian has had to enforce its trademarks? Did anything go beyond an email > threat to pursue? I'm just worried that no one's really tried to enforce > a trademark on an open source project before, in front of a judge, even if > email threats worked. All I can remember is a few cases where people registered debian.* domain names. I don't know what happened to them. (The domain name is not strictly a trademark issue, but it becomes one when they put up a page selling Debian CDs.) Richard Braakman
