Trademark and Branding Project Proposal
From Genunix
For this to be an effective project, it needs to be endorsed by a bunch of Communities, and populated by a representative set of contributers from them. I'd consider this proposal to be incomplete until that aspect has been addressed.
- -John
Version 0.3 - moved context content from guidelines page to here, updated charter to reflect the legal reality that Sun (and not the OS.o Community) is the OpenSolaris trademark owner.
Version 0.2 - initial public page
Contents |
Short Name
- Trademark and Branding
Email Alias
- trademark-policy-dev@opensolaris.org
Sponsoring Communities
- Advocacy
Initial participants
- John Plocher - plocher
- Sara Dornsife - sarad
- Terri Molini - ?
- Ian Murdock - imurdock
- Eric Boutiller - ericb
- Al Hopper - alhopper
- Shawn Walker - swalker
- Simon Phipps - webmink
- Tiki Dare - ?
Context
- Sun Trademark Policy
- The OpenSolaris Community Charter says:
- However, nothing in this charter shall be construed so as to confer to the OGB: (a) any title or right under copyright, patent, trademark, or other intellectual property law; (b) control of or interest in any asset, tangible or intangible, of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries; (c) control of or interest in Sun Microsystems, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries.
- What are the permitted uses of the OpenSolaris trademark? (From the Trademark FAQ)
- First, the OpenSolaris Fan Buttons and Banners are available now.
- Second, Fair Use of the OpenSolaris trademark is, of course, allowed.
- Third, we are creating a program that will let you communicate that your derived work includes OpenSolaris technology.
- We are also planning to create buttons to communicate that a website or system is running the OpenSolaris technology.
Description
This project is chartered to work with Sun to develop a Trademark usage and Branding guideline policy that covers the use of the OpenSolaris Trademark.
Once developed and approved by the project members, the proposed policy will be submitted to Sun (as trademark owner) for consideration and adoption.
Once the policy is approved by Sun, it will apply to all use of the OpenSolaris trademark, both within and outside of the OpenSolaris Community.
If it is not approved - either by the project team or by Sun - this project will, at the discretion of Sun, either attempt to create a new policy for adoption, or disolve this project and leave the OpenSolaris Trademark usage policy definition entirely up to Sun.
Once and if an initial policy is adopted, this project will continue as the policy-maintainer of record, with the expectation that changes to the policy will require input and approval by Sun.
Background
What is OpenSolaris?
The term OpenSolaris has several meanings:
- refering to the people involved
- the community organized around the open source development efforts hosted on opensolaris.org. Many of the components found there were part of Sun Microsystem's proprietary Solaris product family, while others are integrations and enhancements of 3rd party FOSS projects. Some notable ones are the kernel (aka OS/Net), kernel features (such as device drivers, xVM, DTrace and ZFS), documentation, I18N and L10N, clustering and HPC, installation & packaging, printing, storage and storage administration, as well as collections of 3rd party FOSS projects (SFW, the X Window System, the GNOME desktop, development tools...).
- referring to a distro
- an indication that that distro showcases the above community's efforts in some way, but especially focused on the concept of compatibility - distros that carry the OpenSolaris branding need to exhibit a defined level of compatibility (See parkinglot#1).
- referring to the kernel
- an imprecise pseudonym for OS/NET
- referring to the web site
- A slew of sites exist under the opensolaris domain (www.opensolaris.org, poll.opensolaris.org, cr.opensolaris.org,...) as well as email aliases, forums, downloads and other infrastructure used to support the community.
Why have a trademark and branding policy?
The primary purpose of trademarks is to prevent confusion in the marketplace.
The opensolaris trademark policy exists to encourage proper use of the mark and discourage improper use.
Proper use excludes uses (even ones otherwise complying with this policy) which can be reasonably misread to imply things which aren't true or which otherwise damage the reputation of OpenSolaris.
This policy is not frozen for all time but may expand to include additional approved use patterns if the community and sun feel the existing set is insufficient.
This proper use is intended to be a mark of compatibility between the various distros being developed within the OpenSolaris community. This compatibility is important to users, ISVs and developers; it encompasses both the concepts of "over time" and "across various distros". Being branded with one of the OpenSolaris trademarks is intended to imply that the item so branded meets some set of measurable requirements, and meets (or does not meet) certain levels of compatibility.
