On 12/4/19 5:56 PM, Issac Goldstand wrote:
On Dec 4, 2019 22:15, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
. But I've learned from Fedora user
groups that allowing any random stranger to start up a group, using our
Trademarks, to promote whatever message comes into their head, is
*going* to bite us in the butt, sooner rather than later.
Are these from groups that are managed/overseen by RedHat? Can you share
more information about what you've learned the hard way? Because maybe
the way I suggest below is objectively wrong, and if so I'd rather
understand the faulty reasoning on my part sooner, rather than later...
I'm reluctant to tell stories on a public list, particularly when almost
all of the stories are third-hand. But the lesson learned is that when
you give someone a title, there's a chance that they will take it as a
fiefdom - a little kingdom where they rule, call the shots, and don't
have to answer to anyone else.
I've mentioned before that my standpoint is that it's impossible to
properly police every fan driven event out there, and I seem to recall
that use of a trademark by fans in a manner that isn't making profits is
generally considered acceptable use. Is it not therefore a good-enoungh
way to start by allowing (CTR instead of RTC as it were)?
Absolutely. We don't even *want* to police every fan event. And we want
a LOT of fan events. The nuance is the moment we give our Official Seal
Of Approval to a group/event/organization, then we are implicitly
approving their message, and that's where we introduce audience confusion.
This is *NOT* about the Indore group and their recent event. Rather
it's
about the future. The groups currently out there are full of
experienced
Apache people. All well and good. The second wave will be full of
people
wanting to promote their business, or their personal brand, using our
name, and spreading misinformation about Apache under our official
banner.
Once there is enough traction in the user groups that we can see a clear
difference between user (fan) groups that are promoting Apache vs groups
that are using the name to promote themselves, we could go with the
carrot and stick. The carrot is recognition and support by the ASF for
the good players, and the stick is trademark abuse complaints and
threats of legal action to those that don't.
Or even just the stick.
Because the carrot means having to make rules. And rules make life
harder for volunteers. Pulling off a successful meetup/event and
maintaining a successful community is hard enough without rules.
Sometimes rules are unavoidable, and so be it, but let's keep the
barrier of entry as low as possible for the amazing folks who are trying
to raise positive awareness of what we do here.
We *cannot* allow this to happen. To do so would be a dereliction of
our
duty as a PMC. We must plan for the bad actors, even while enabling the
good actors.
Can we really expect to catch all the bad actors, long term? Especially
since anyone can go to meetup.com, register The Official Apache Software
Foundation Meetup of Somecity, Somecountry, tack on the feather logo,
and run with it with us none the wiser... Yes, we'd react swiftly and
forcefully once we *did* catch on, but we can't stop it from happening.
We can't monitor everything.
No, we cannot expect to catch them all. But if, as I say above, give any
group our Official Seal Of Approval, and give them space on OUR website,
we are *explicitly* endorsing whatever they say. That's the line that
cannot be crossed.
We've gone 20 years without real traction in local small events that we
are happy with. Suddenly in the past week I'm seeing more interest than
we've had in years. Yes, we should have a plan for bad actors, but not
at the cost of stifling potentially good ones.
+1
I'm not entirely sure what I'm proposing, but I think that
requiring, at
this stage, at least one Member to be involved in the creation and
mentoring of a new group, is a reasonable path.
Just remember that it will be only mentoring.
Not every geographic location has a member (or even PMC member) that can
supervise the content actually delivered there. Unlike the incubator
where the mentors see everything happening in-code and on-list, for
offline events in different languages and locations, the level of
supervision needed to truly monitor the group is simply not scalable.
I'd be willing to be such a mentor - given the above caveats - if comdev
seems it helpful.
I would think that geographically (or at least time-zone) close mentors
would be preferred, but, yes, failing that, we definitely need others to
step in.
--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com
http://rcbowen.com/
@rbowen
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