Thanks, Martin, I hadn't thought about that -- Debian/IceWeasel is an excellent example of things that can go wrong. Trademarks are useless if impinged and not challenged. If people start making SageThis and SageThat, we may lose control.
Per the norm, when sticky legal questions arise, I think we should look to the projects we respect the most. Python has an excellent page[1] up about exactly this issue, as the word 'Python' and their logo are trademarks. In particular, they do not have a registered trademark. But they can still litigate on their trademark. Debian has an "official use" logo[2], and a lengthy discussion[3] rather than a cogent policy (maybe somebody can find something more official from them?). Linux appears to have an entire "institute"[4] devoted to this. Honestly, I haven't read this yet. The other big issue in my mind is the Sage software company that, among other things, makes financial software. If we register our trademark and impinge theirs with a finance module, will we lose the entire trademark, or just the rights to distribute financial software named Sage? Moreover, I'm very concerned about the notion that we should hurry up and get this done now. That's often a sign of a bum deal, in my experience. My initial reaction was "slightly elevated thumb" and has been downgraded to "dubious frown". If there is money in the Sage Foundation coffers, I think it would be prudent to consult a lawyer that is not employed by the university. Otherwise, William, I'd suggest you pay out of pocket, since our only possible escape from a tyrannical change in university policy would result in the trademark being in your name -- it's in your financial best interest to make sure that's a sound deal. On that note -- I trust you 100% more than I trust UW. Perhaps if we go through with this, you should just pay the fee the moment the deal's done? [1] http://www.python.org/psf/trademarks/ [2] http://www.debian.org/logos/ [3] http://wiki.debian.org/ProposedTrademarkPolicy [4] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/trademark On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:05 PM, Martin Albrecht <martinralbre...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I am usually quite hesitant to add more layers of law (or lawyers) to how we > interact, but I have to admit that I cannot predict the fallout from doing > something like this. > > Perhaps to understand things better, let's say someone wants to setup a > project which improves linear algebra in Sage (I am at a summer school where > Clément is about to give a talk :)) and wants to call this thing SageLin or > SageMathLin. I guess if UW and William are happy with that nothing would > happen. However, what if either party (UW or William) disagrees with that > project for whatever reason? They could force SageLin to drop its name? > > Secondly, it shouldn't be a problem but to verify: having a trademark on the > name does not present a problem for being included in Debian et al., right? > > On Thursday 31 May 2012, William Stein wrote: >> Hello, >> >> As Sage grows, we may have to face more and more crap like [1] and >> possibly attacks from others, which might force us to completely >> change the name of our project to have nothing to do with "sage", >> which would wreak havoc on google searches, etc. To stop this before >> it is too late, I talked with a patent/trademark attorney at >> University of Washington yesterday. To my pleasant surprise, they are >> willing to do all the work and pay the costs associated with >> trademarking Sage in some context of what we are doing (whatever turns >> out to make sense from a legal perspective). They are also willing to >> sell the trademark to me later, if I should so desire. Having the >> trademark owned by UW instead of me personally is I think much more >> useful, since UW is a huge enterprise with the resources to actually >> defend the trademark. >> >> The current common law owners of the trademark are the community of >> Sage developers. Thus I'm writing to ask if anybody who has >> significantly contributed to Sage has any major objections to me >> working with my university to officially trademark the name. Due to >> UW's patent/trademark attorney leaving UW soon for another job, this >> has to happen ASAP if it is going to happen, so please respond by ** >> Monday, June 4 **. (Emailing me offlist at wst...@uw.edu is fine >> too.) >> >> [1] http://www.sagetrac.org/ > > Cheers, > Martin > > -- > name: Martin Albrecht > _pgp: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8EF0DC99 > _otr: 47F43D1A 5D68C36F 468BAEBA 640E8856 D7951CCF > _www: http://martinralbrecht.wordpress.com/ > _jab: martinralbre...@jabber.ccc.de > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
