Found a nice feature of Python's approach. License for this Policy
Interested parties may adapt this policy document freely under the Creative Commons CC0 license: On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Tom Boothby <tomas.boot...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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
