Lede trademark... Published for Opposition:December 20, 2016
sigh. On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Val Kulkov <val.kul...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 21 December 2016 at 17:01, Florian Fainelli <f.faine...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On 12/21/2016 01:46 PM, Alberto Bursi wrote: >>> On 12/21/2016 09:42 PM, Dave Taht wrote: >>>> On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 12:29 PM, David Lang <da...@lang.hm> wrote: >>>>> On Wed, 21 Dec 2016, Kathy Giori wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> From a PR perspective, I strongly suggest keeping the term OpenWrt as >>>>>> part of the branding of the project moving forward. It can just be >>>>>> cosmetic (web site, etc.) but the name has so much history, and >>>>>> positive connotation, that you don't want to lose that brand attached >>>>>> to the development moving forward. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I agree, I think this is an obvious choice to make. OpenWRT has a lot of >>>>> name recognition, it would be foolish to throw that away. >>>> >>>> Just to take the other side for rhetorical purposes, a purpose of a >>>> re-branding exercise is to show a change in the "product" or >>>> organisation behind it. OpenWrt is widely known... as a bleeding edge, >>>> sometimes unstable, somewhat hard to use 3rd party firmware. DD-Wrt >>>> and Tomato get a lot more press for some reason. So do things like >>>> Yocto. If lede were to succeed in meeting its other goals, coherently, >>>> preserving "lede" and moving forward as a separate project does make >>>> sense. >>>> >>> >>> +1 for this. OpenWRT brand isn't 100% positive recognition, it has some >>> downsides too. Many people (I know and/or have seen around the internet) >>> were discouraged from contributing or using it due to the weaknesses of >>> OpenWRT project. >>> >>> I like more the LEDE branding for this reason. It conveys that it is >>> significantly different, possibly for the better, from OpenWRT project. >>> >>> But I don't have enough information to say for sure what is the better >>> brand to keep, so this is just my opinion. >> >> Keeping or not the OpenWrt, or LEDE name is obviously part of the things >> that need to be agreed upon before proceeding with a merger. If not >> about the "brand", "recognition" or other more subjective criteria, >> OpenWrt is a trademark, so that needs to be factored in for the >> decision, in particular if there is any legal activity going on. > > A trademark exists to protect its owner's rights. The "OpenWRT" > trademark is owned by SPI: > http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:r3y94m.2.1 > > If there is no unauthorised use of a trademark, there is no legal > issue. In other words, if the merged project continues as "LEDE", > there is no legal issue in respect of the "OpenWRT" trademark. > > SPI also has the right to oppose registration or use of a trademark > that appears confusingly similar to "OpenWRT". This seems to be a > purely hypothetical situation, but here it is: if OpenWRT and LEDE do > not merge and for some reason the LEDE folks decide to rename LEDE to > FreeWRT or alike, SPI may have a legal claim against the use of the > "FreeWRT" trademark that some people may see as confusingly similar to > OpenWRT. > > My main objection to "LEDE" is that I have no idea how to pronounce > this name correctly. I suspect that many English speakers will find > themselves equally confused about how to pronounce "LEDE". Is it like > in "LEAD the way", or like in "LEAD, a heavy metal", or like "LE DE"? > While the core LEDE community might know how to pronounce the name > correctly, try explaining it to the world outside. For this reason, > "OpenWRT" is a better choice imho. > > However, I also agree with Dave, Alberto and Stefan that a name change > may be a really smart way to communicate the fresh start of the > project, a reboot, especially if the new name rides on the popularity > of "OpenWRT". It could be for example "OpenLD" (LD for Linux Device) > or "LibreWRT". Of course this is all conditional on the merge of > OpenWRT and LEDE. If the projects do not merge, the OpenWRT folks and > SPI may have a claim against the use of OpenLD or LibreWRT or alike. > > By the way, there is a pending application at the USPTO for the > registration of "LEDE" trademark for use in some software or websites: > http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:8zgvq2.8.1 > > - Val > > _______________________________________________ > Lede-dev mailing list > Lede-dev@lists.infradead.org > http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/lede-dev -- Dave Täht Let's go make home routers and wifi faster! With better software! http://blog.cerowrt.org _______________________________________________ Lede-dev mailing list Lede-dev@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/lede-dev
