>From the Chair, I don't know, off-hand, what the proportion of discussion of Trademark Policy is in the PMC private discussion activity so far this year.
However, a discussion of trademark policy, as such, especially with "real and fictional examples," is inappropriate on this list if it is about trademark enforcement. Trademark enforcement, when material to an issue before the PMC, is a private duty of the PMC. There are ways to reduce the discussion to essentials there, however. Let me illustrate what I mean by this. Let's say the Apache OpenOffice PMC has offered arrangements, ratified VP Brand Management, by which a third party can employ AOO marks as part of a "Powered by Apache OpenOffice" labeling. The PMC establishes the conditions under which that arrangement is available to individual parties and may propose custom arrangements based on the circumstances. That might be useful to describe and clarify here. On the other hand, proposal of conditions under which third parties might be *required* to enter into such an arrangement is entirely different, even hypothetically. As far as I know that is inconsistent with the ASF view of how its mission is accomplished and its being a good citizen in the world of open-source activities. The ASF is by nature not litigious and resolves concerns about inappropriate use of its marks by other means. I can't imagine it attempting to compel use of any of its marks. IMPORTANT. Trademark protection, infringement, and remedies are serious legal matters and they are not for inexpert discussion on public mailing lists. Suspicions of infringement and any acting on those suspicions in public pronouncements are unwelcome. Even disguised accounts of specific situations relevant to this project are inappropriate. And if not relevant to this project, they don't belong here either. To abbreviate the need for custom PMC discussions on cases of alleged trademark infringement, I have posted a policy applicable to how the AOO PMC shall deal with any allegations of infringement and prospective curing of such infringements at <http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/openoffice/pmc/Policies/Trademark-Infringement-Allegations-2015-08.txt>. Questions, comments, and suggestions about that text are welcome. - Dennis BACKGROUND INFORMATION At the Apache Software Foundation, the Board delegates the determination and resolution of trademark matters to the Vice President, Brand Management. All external engagement with respect to trademarks is handled discretely within the PMC and then always reviewed by, and possibly acted upon, by VP Brand Management and only VP Brand Management. Individual projects are expected to be vigilant about how marks are used and also allowed in the domain of the project. The Apache OpenOffice PMC conducts such activities. The web site page at <http://openoffice.apache.org/trademarks.html> is sufficient information for those who have concerns for use of or infringing use of Apache OpenOffice marks. There are non-specific topical discussions on the use of marks and the naming of software distributions based on code from ASF projects, such as recent discussions on gene...@incubator.apache.org and legal-disc...@apache.org. There are some seemingly-borderline cases that the ASF may take a position on, and it might become necessary for the AOO PMC to be watchful for such cases. In general, VP Brand Management will establish what such cases are. The determination can easily be that some or all such cases are trifles in the context of the mission of the ASF and will not be pursued. The LEGAL JIRA section might also have issues related to branding issues. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Dave Fisher [mailto:dave2w...@comcast.net] Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:45 To: dev@openoffice.apache.org Subject: Re: [REPORT] PMC 2015-07 Private-List Activity through July We could reduce private traffic if we discussed the policy for trademarks in public. The community can help write a clear policy statement with real and fictional examples. This would serve the community by reducing private inquiries to unusual cases not previously considered or unclearly explained. Regards, Dave Sent from my iPhone --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
