I've been having some discussions with Chris Rourk (SPI counsel) lately about Debian trademarks and his points are worth discussing. His opinion is that Debian would be best served by abandoning its marks and purposefully making the term "Debian" generic. There are some clear benefits.
Programmers (like myself) try to map our perceptions of systems we know and love onto others that have little to do with computation. Law is probably one of the worst. We like to think of trademark law as something like firewall rules where we can say "this is ok, this isn't, except in this situation" and so forth. If you look at real trademarks this is not the case. For instance, take Coke or Star Wars or anything of that caliber. You will see, quite consistently, that the owners of these marks show absolutely no leniency in enforcement. You can be assured that making Coke t-shirts without permission will meet serious legal resistance. This enforcement is the only way that a trademark can truly be held. The owner must be the universal and final arbitrator of use and must show that use is carefully monitored and enforced. With the Debian trademark we want use that is almost entirely unenforced except for a few particular (and somewhat poorly defined) situations. This policy will put us in a difficult position if we have to litigate. The defendant will put forth the argument that there is no clear definition of proper use and claim that our mark is generic. Our only alternative is to religiously shut down everyone who is using the word Debian without our explicit permission. That isn't very Debian. Why not just cut to the chase? I'm not sure if Chris is right, but I see the logic in his reasoning. If anyone can put this email in front of any attorneys, I would be very curious to hear their thoughts. E -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com
