>Just for the record: I hate it when the rules get in the way of good intentions. That's not what the rules are intended for, IMHO. The rules should be there to avoid abuse, not to discourage use... >EdB
Erik is right in my opinion. We must balance the need for the Apache Software Foundation to defend ownership of the brand and protect software developers and other stakeholders from being fooled, yet allow commercial services providers to market and sell their services. I do not think that there is a risk today, of *too much* encouragement for those few (those reading this message) who still build applications and sell services with Apache Flex. We should be as lenient as we can with developers and providers who are still with us. >>I would imagine that in the end you will want to use "Flex" somewhere in the domain name and this disclaimer will be required. However, I'm not sure it will be sufficient to allow you to use "apache" in the >>domain name. Another issue is, if someone else wants to start their own site of examples, they don't have a level playing field as the apacheflexexamples domain name just sounds more "official" and will look >>more official in search results. ... This ^^ provides the specific example of what *not* to do - > ...an "abusive example" that Erik described above. When the domain name appears to be "official" and someone is likely to be fooled, then the domain name should not be used. "JoeFlash.com", "JoeFlex.org", Apache-Joe-Flex.com", "Flextras.biz", even "Apache-Flex-tras.biz" allow the service provider to use a keyword rich domain name, yet do not appear to be "official" to me. These examples are just clever services providers trying to earn a living, IMO. If the domain the commercial interest is evaluating has "Apache" + "Flex" + ".org" in the URL being registered, the services provider should not register the domain & pick another domain that is clever, clear, and unlikely to be confused with what ASF owns.
