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Debian

SPI Formally Non-Profit 79

Posted by justin++ from the 501-(c)-(3) dept.
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is now formally a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, meaning that all donations are now tax deductible. SPI is the umbrella organization of several free software projects, primarily Debian, but also GNOME, Berlin, and the Open Hardware project. They (Disclaimer: I am a Debian developer, and thus associated with SPI) claim to hold the Open Source mark.
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SPI Formally Non-Profit More

SPI Formally Non-Profit

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  • Re:There is no Open Source trademark (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > * The trademark application has expired, so SPI's sole claim to fame
    has faded in the west.

    Good. When SPI polled the Debian developers for their prefered course of action
    this was what I voted for: to let it expire.

  • Re:A Few Opinions (Ignorant Maybe?) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While I think you'd have better posted your anti-KDE rant as an AC, I do somewhat agree with the people issue.

    We really should appreciate the work of the *developers* ESR and RMS, but we shouldn't turn this into the kind of personality cult it sometimes is.
    There are a lot of other developers who have contributed code of similar importance, and it's just unfair not to give them equal credit.

    You haven't mentioned the worst example of this 'cult':
    Miguel de Icaza from the Gnome project

    In fact he has just split a project and written a decent amount of code, but not more so than many others.
    Yet he shows up in the media as a kind of saviour of the software world, at the same time doing considerable harm to the Linux community by spreading (unneccesarily) FUD of the worst kind.
    RMS has earned the freedom to be radical by working for free software for decades.
    Miguel has not. He is a perfect example of what 'leadership' should not be like.

  • Re:Tax consequences (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bruce,

    I'm more curious about time/labor donations. I would happily take 3 months off of my "paying" job to donate a very reasonable $50/hr towards free software, if there was the nifty side effect of cutting my gross income by $24,000 [$50/hr * 3 mos].

    I suspect a lot of engineers'd follow suit.

  • There is no Open Source trademark (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is no trademark on Open Source:
    • "Open Source" is too descriptive.
    • SPI has no legal right to Open Source, since they've never certified anything as Open Source. OSI has always done that.
    • The trademark application was in Bruce Perens name, not SPI's name.
    • The trademark examiner rejected the application and returned it for clarification to Bruce, and he never responded because he insisted on doing so as an SPI officer and SPI wouldn't allow him to.
    • The trademark application has expired, so SPI's sole claim to fame has faded in the west.

    What does this mean? It means that Microsoft can call Windows 2000 "Open Source" if they want to. But not if we don't let them!. Boycott any product that claims to be Open Source but doesn't meet the Open Source Definition [opensource.org]. Tell everyone you know what Open Source really means. It's our only hope.

  • Hi, would you mind reposting that sig in legible form? You're lacking at least a close ` character.

    I keep meaning to get a mailing list together for us sick people who enjoy writing these.

    And yes, this is offtopic. Moderate away

    --

    #!/usr/bin/perl -ie_one_down_pass_it_around,-:_bottles_of_beer:_on _the_wall:99
    for(($t,$a,$b,$i)=split/:/,$^I;$i;print){$_="-$i $a$b,-$i$a,-Tak$t".--$i."$a$b
    ";s/(-1_.*?e)s/$1/g;y/_-/ \n/}
  • > How the hell do you write those things anyway?

    Well you start with a simple, clean little program and use every trick you know to compress the hell out of it.

    BTW, I have no idea why my posting ate part of the one it is a reply to. Odd. Also, I have set up a mailing list for discussion of these things, go
    to http://kitenet.net/~sigprog/ to subscribe.

    --
    #!/usr/bin/perl -lisubstr($_,39+38*sin++$y/9,2)=$s joey@kitenet.net
    for($s=' '||McQ;$_='JOEY HESS 'x8;print){eval$^I} # Joey Hess

  • Pay for: domain registration, hardware, booths, travel, print adds, etc.

    See http://www.debian.org/donations

    --

  • Trademark Dispute (Score:3)

    by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Wednesday June 02, 1999 @05:12PM (#1869296) Homepage
    I for one think it is a very bad reflection on SPI that they have failed to act in a timely manner on this trademark dispute. They called for comments from the free software community in 1998 (FWIW I told them they should give the mark over to OSI) and said they would have a decision by the beginning on 1999. Well, here we are and it's June and we haven't heard anything out of them. I emailed them in Feb or March and was told they were running behind but hoped to come up with something RSN. (They also told me they got disappointingly few responses).

    If SPI wants people to trust them with their money, they need to do better about following through on doing what they say they are going to do. Or at least communicating why it is that they can't do it.
  • Well, there are some UseNet posts archived on deja.com using the term "open source" as a descriptive term relating to free software that go back to several years before OSI was formed. That would seem to me to indicate that it was a descriptive term already in use before the trademark was applied for, and thus you can't trademark it any more than you could trademark the term "free software." Then again, IANAL.
  • Hmm, interesting. You can't stop somebody from using "open source" in a sentence, but what exactly can you do? If a company said "We made our product an open source product," or "We open-sourced our product," and the license did not meet the OSD, could you do anything?

    Also, are there any plans to apply for overseas trademark protection?
  • I'm not sure of how this would differ for a certification mark, but I do recall that Xerox was particularly fussy about people using "xerox" as a generic synonym for "photocopy" because they were afraid that if it became a common descriptive term they would lose their trademark.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Thanks for having the journalistic integrity to add the disclaimer! You guys are learning! 8^)
    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • Posted by Justin:

    i do what i can ;)
    thanks. i needed that. (no, that is not sarcasm)
  • I think most of this might be possible. However, no one can change the license of software that has alread been released. If M$ buys the FSF and releases an evil GPL3, we still get to use everything that is released under GPL2 according to the conditions of the GPL2. It is of course possible to rerelease software using a different license, but that doesn't affect previously released versions.

    So, M$ can't prevent us from using our free software, but they might, theoretically be able to "steal" it, ie use it in their own closed software.

  • How many people are there that are "like linus"? Your definition of "signifigant" is too steep to be useful. Few us will ever do anything signifigant by your requirements. Everybody genuflect. We're not worthy. I think we know this already.
  • >What does this mean? It means that Microsoft can call Windows 2000 "Open Source" if they want to.

    No they can't. The phrase has meaning even if not trademarked, and for Microsoft to make that claim about an OS that clearly does not approach any publicly accepted definition of open source would be false advertising.

    As a parallel, you can't advertise a car as having air bags just because it has a couple of balloons in it. "Air bags" has a meaning without a certification mark and organization enforcing a definition.
  • Okay,

    Let's look at what ESR has done:

    - fetchmail, as noted. This apparently has a decent user-base.
    - Many high quality HOWTOs over at the LDP ( I count at least 7, some technical, some not. )
    - Lots of press contact. (good & bad)
    - Maintains the Jargon File/Hacker's Dictionary
    - principal co-developer of ncurses (which you probably use daily)
    - helps out with metalab.unc.edu

    I'd call that substantial contribution. It's more than I've done. It's more than most people have done. And I'm more than willing to let him do the speaking thing. I don't want to.

    So what are you kvetching about?
  • It's really ugly to lots of people in the community too.

    Actually, here's a good topic for a slashdot poll:

    The Open Source Trademark Should Be Owned By:

    Bruce
    Eric
    SPI
    OSI
    The Open Source Community
    etc., etc.

    Personally, I think it should be jointly owned by all developers / programmers / companies who release program(s) complying to the DFSG... i.e. those who support the right to freedom of code, as it were.
  • I'm not too familiar with it all. I'm anxious to donate, and even moreso to something like the LSB gaining that status...

    (I also desperately want another topic to be discussed than Bruce vs. ${ANYONE})
    ^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~ ^~~^~
  • YEAH! What a good sport. I'm not used to this but I'm happy to see it!
    ^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
  • True, My rant against big names of people with not much stuff was slanted more towards Eric S Raymond, and other people. Stallman has contributed quiet a bit, but I dont like his politics and how he goes about handling things.
  • I didnt say he didnt do anything. I just said he didnt do anything significant. Sure, people use fetch mail, but out of the 11million linux users, how many do you even think have fetchmail installed? As for the Jargon file/howtos, The Jargon file would of most likely been maintained by someone else if he hadnt stepped upto the job. I cant say that for sure though. Ncurses, well, that is somewhat usefull, I doubt I use any software that uses it, except for make menuconfig when compiling the kernel. I am just saying overall here, his contributions are nothing compared to people like Linus, but yet he thinks he is the poster child for open source.
  • Yes, Stallman has done quite a bit. Thats why I primarily spoke about Eric S. But like I said above in a previous reply, I dont like how he goes around saying and thinking that he should control the open source movement. I dont like it politics and way of handling things.
  • Why do you feel you have to post as Anonymous Coward. The goverment isnt going to get you, and if it is so what. If I am going to comment I am going to stand up for what I am saying, and not hide behind AC. As for Miguel, I have noticed his name around the media lately, I just dont follow who actually developes gnome that closely so I wasnt sure what exactly he is claiming to be. Thanks for the contribution.
  • I think you took my message wrong. The intention wasnt as much to bash them, as to point out that they are not doing alot and are not the leaders they claim to be. And I dont worship wannabe leaders like Miguel. If I was to worship anyone it would be Linus Torvalds.
  • I dont know why people are affiliating me with gnome, and being a gnome/miguel fanatic. First of all, I only run gnome maybe an hour a day now, until I reinstall Debian 2.1 tonight. I certainly dont obsess over Gnome being so cool. The point of throughing in a anti-KDE rant was to get the point across, that everyone is entitled to there own opinion, and what you are doing is not allowing me to have mine and saying that KDE is better.

    You you fetchmail, but how many others out of the 11million linux users use it. And I am not new. I have been using Linux since before 1.0, and free software tools since before that. And with ESR I think I would still have those shiny Gnome buttons that I dont even play with. And I dont whine, the purpose of writing that was to make a few points, not whine over ESR or RMS or anyone for that matter. What have I dont for the GNU community? Not nearly as much as RMS, or Linus, but I help run the Linux in the Classroom organization that is working hard to get linux into schools. I helped get the creation of the book Open Sources started, look in the Acknowledgement section. I and a leader in the open sourced ReactOS project. To name a few things. Its not like I sit here and use linux and take advantage of it.

    Once Again, dont call me a gnome fanatic, I dont even know Migeul's title or whatever he does. All I know is that he is part of the gnome project, and I could care less, as long as quality software is produced. As to why you have to flame me is another question. Once again you must not of read my little part on how people are allowed to have there own opinions, I even put down that they might be ignorant and am not claiming to be some wise guy who knows all these things.

    BTW, Is it cool to hide behind AC? You talk about Miguel hiding, what about you?
  • That's right; I forgot you'd stepped down from SPI. I apologize for implicating you in my rant :)

  • Re:Trademark wars... poll topic? (Score:3)

    by David Price ( 1200 ) on Wednesday June 02, 1999 @02:49PM (#1869316)
    Unfortunately, the Open Source service mark needs to belong to a specific organization. That's the point of the mark - enforcement. "Free software," unfortunately, is used by many commercial software companies to mean "software that can be acquired for no money." The GNU [gnu.org] definition is ignored.

    The "Open Source" term was registered as a service mark to bring a little sanity to the advertisement of free software. If a company advertises a product as "Open Source," those viewing the advertisement can be confident (theoretically) that the program's license allows free redistribution and modification. If it doesn't, then the owner of the "Open Source" mark can bring legal action against the offender; therefore, the mark is a clear sign that you're getting free software.

    Unfortunately, there's a deadly flaw waiting in the wings. Since the ownership of the mark is in dispute, if either organization ( OSI [opensource.org] or SPI [spi-inc.org]) takes legal action, the offending software company will argue that the mark belongs to the other organization.

    This will have the effect of playing the two organizations off each other, and ultimately destroying the effectiveness and purity of the "Open Source" term. That would be a blow to our movement, since "Open Source" has become, in the past few months, the term under which many of us identify it.

    The ownership of the mark must be resolved, soon, before it has to come before a court. I personally don't care which of the two feuding organizations ends up with it; I trust both to use their best judgement to administer the mark. But it has to belong to only one of them.

    Eric, Bruce: one of you must display maturity and selflessness and give up your claim on the mark, before you pull it apart like two children in a tug-of-war that ultimately breaks the toy in dispute.

  • There should be nothing special about SPI's association. Being a GNU project can mean something different than the traditional concept of ownership...

    Many projects are copyrighted (thus legally owned) by their developers. But they are GNU projects nontheless. Being GNU means some kind of honor and recognition, but these projects can be associated with other organizations at the same time. GNOME is definitely an important GNU project/closely associated with the FSF, and SPI's support is also a plus...

    Just an outsider's opinion...
  • I'm just guessing here, so don't cut me down too hard. I assume that most of the money goes to the programmers. The rest would go to bandwidth and the such, and maybe even some equipment (if they needed to buy new stuff).
  • It's between OSI and SPI (and maybe between Eric and OSI to some extent). There's not much I can do about it.

    If I had my 'druthers, I'd see "Open Source"(tm) continue to refer to the DFSG/OSD that I wrote with the Debian folks.

    Mind if I do a shameless plug? My name's on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. Again, you win a few, you lose a few.

    Bruce

  • I am completely convinced that if there hadn't been a campaign about Qt's license, and a Harmony project, and a GNOME project, that Qt would not be Open Source today.

    I made peace with the KDE folks the moment I could. Actually, about 12 hours before I should have: I was so anxious to make peace that I preceded Troll Tech's public announcement, much to their annoyance. I publicly endorsed Troll's new license, and they display that endorsement on their web site.

    Nobody was more happy than me to see that mess resolved. I still think things would have been much worse if it had not happened.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Write some code. Donate the code to FSF or SPI. Get a knowledgable accountant who is willing to try something new and defend it in an audit. Write off the value of "foregone royalties". Get audited. See if IRS disallows it. Someone has to be first.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • If gifts from strangers make up a significant part of your income, the IRS will consider them to be taxable income and not real gifts at all.

    If I'm not mistaken, there was even a line regarding taxable proceeds of barter on my return this year.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I don't think I have ever screwed up anything as badly as I've screwed up the Open Source trademark. I am frankly at a loss regarding how it will finally be sorted out (and it's out of my hands).

    Well, you win a few and lose a few. It's nice to see SPI finish its 501(c)3.

    Bruce

  • I'm not sure that you are correct about the application having expired, given the last paperwork I saw from USPTO. I think OSI can continue to pursue the application, and there is still a dispute with SPI, in which SPI may have a valid claim. Even if that application dies, it's still a trademark, just not a registered one, and registration can be applied for again. I'm not a party to how OSI and SPI are resolving this.

    I didn't ask SPI for permission to respond as an officer of SPI regarding the Open Source trademark. That was regarding the Debian trademark, and they did indeed give me permission, and I responded, and as far as I know the Debian trademark is in good shape.

    It's "too descriptive"? I'm not sure I agree with that one. It's also in a different trademark category from "OSS.com". I think it's valid - there's only a question regarding ownership.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Tax consequences (Score:3)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Wednesday June 02, 1999 @03:23PM (#1869325) Homepage Journal
    This means that SPI can use your money to work for free software approximately 1.3 times as efficiently as CoSource or SourceXChange. Given that you are in a 33% U.S. federal tax bracket (average for software engineers), you will essentially get back 33% of what you donate.

    Let's not forget that FSF has been a 501(c)3 for at least a decade.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Bruce Perens and the lynch mob (Score:3)

    by Midnight Coder ( 8953 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @05:05AM (#1869326)
    I've never meet Bruce Perens, or even e-mailed him, but from reading his work, and from observing his involvement in threads here I gotta say, I like the guy.

    He is committed to free software development, he doesn't just talk, he does what it takes to make a difference. I admire him for it.

    I've watched people here slander him in the worst possible way, and seen him lose his cool and reply angrily. I didn't think any the less of him for it, to me it made him seem more real, it made it seem like the stuff he is contributing to is really, truely, dear to him. Even if we go away I think he'll stay.

    So you say he was involved in the anti-KDE campaign. To me the "anti-KDE campaign" is the worst thing to ever happened in the free software world. It is a shameful story, a witch hunt were innocent developers were attacked for "crimes" they did not commit. The KDE developers did nothing wrong, I wasn't around from the beginning but I've read the mailing list archives and I've watch in horror and disgust over the last year or so.

    There is no excuse for what I've witnessed.

    Now I know Bruce Perens was part of this, I know he voted against the creation of a KDE newsgroup on usenet, I know there's much I don't know about how he was part of the anti-KDE campaign.

    But I believe he is innocent, unlike others who joined the lynch mob in this despicable affair, what he did, he did for the right reasons.

    He had every right to criticize the KDE project, people expressed valid concerns, what if MS brought TrollTech and stop giving away QT for free? If would have been the end of KDE that's what.

    KDE was about a GUI for unixes, not about freeing the source code. It relied on a toolkit that didn't give us the right to freely modify and distribute it. For some people, for Bruce Perens that wasn't good enough.

    Some still criticize KDE they call it evil and make derogatory remarks about the KDE developers. There are still reasons people don't like KDE, they consider C superior to C++, or the only kind of free software the are interested in is GPL'd software, or they won't support a truely international project like KDE because they consider it un-American. I don't think Bruce was interested in any of those reasons though.

    Once Bruce was satisfied with the QT license he crossed the line to support KDE. He stepped out of the lynch mob that had flocked around him and shielded the lynchees. That took guts, that's something he should be admired for.
  • From experience, I have the opposite impression
    - KDE just works fine, while Gnome keeps on trashing.g

  • I would guess yes, so to me Eric S, Stallman are both useless pieces of trash.

    Eric Raymond's contributions have already been noted, so I'll note Stallman's.

    Stallman originally developed GNU emacs and gcc. GNU emacs (and its derivatives) are *widely* popular, and gcc is the compiler that free/open source software lives and breathes.

    So, while Stallman's politics may seem harmful to many, including myself, I'd say that guys like he and Raymond are undeserving of the title "media whore."

  • Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot a month or so ago but it didn't make the cut. Maybe if this thread get's active we can find out.

    So how about it? Are there extant FSF/SPI organizations in Canada? What would it take to setup a branch of the FSF or SPI in Canada so we can make tax-deductible donations too?
  • does that include donations of time?

    if i'm reading this right, this means that any money that goes into the development of Debian or GNOME is tax-deductable?

    so if some random company-- say, Redhat (ok, REALLY bad example) wanted to extend debian for some particular reason, any amount of money they spent paying programmers to do that would be tax-deductable, assuming they gave all code created to the debian community?

    that's really cool.

    err, wait-- isn't Redhat already paying people to work on GNOME?
  • You forgot these options:
    • Microsoft
    • Al Gore
  • I really can't think of any good reason why people wouldn't being that tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course).

    How does tax deductible mean you get to donate for free? I am not an accountant but I thought tax deductible meant the amount you contribute gets taken off of your taxable income.

    If I make $60,000 and get taxed at 33% then normally I would pay $19,800 in taxes. But if I made a $1000 donation to SPI I get taxed on $59,000 at 33%, paying $19.470.

    I save $330 on taxes but spend $1000 out of pocket. Rather than it being free I spent $670. That doesn't strike me as free.
  • Christopher Browne,[*] in this article [ntlug.org], points out (I'm paraphrasing):

    Setting up tax-exempt charities to fund free software development is good for the donors' tax bill, but if the charity is paying programmers to write the software, the programmers' salaries are taxable.

    On the other hand, if you give a cash gift to your favorite free-software programmer, you can't deduct the gift on your taxes, but the programmer doesn't have to declare it as income, either.

    Back on the first hand, a gift, by definition, has no strings attached, so if you give a gift to your favorite free-software programmer, and that programmer takes the money and retires to Bermuda, you have no recourse.

    [*]Browne has a collection of Web pages describing his own proposal, the
  • This is awesome, now I can make some donations to the SPI and at the same time put all of that (former) tax money to actual use :)

    I don't get why GNOME is under SPI, though, why isn't it just part of the FSF (or am I being ignorant here)?

    Anyway, I think it is really important that people either start donating money if they can't donate code. I really can't think of any good reason why people wouldn't being that tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course).

    Also, they still haven't resolved that whole Open Source trademark issue, huh? That's too bad, because it must really appear ugly to outside observers of the Free Software/Open Source community.

  • I have to agree with your question about GNOME and SPI. Considering GNOME is part of the GNU Project and Miguel is a member of the FSF Board of directors, I was stunned to see that GNOME is considered to be an SPI project. I'd have hoped that atleast the GNOME web pages would credit the SPI if SPI is considered the umbrella for GNOME.
    As an FSF volunteer though, I'd much rather see the FSF as the umbrella organisation.
  • There's certainly things to spend money on that benefits the community. Here's a list for you:

    • Hire programmers to write free software
    • Paying for booths at tradeshows
    • Travelling to other places to talk about free software
    • Software distribution (bandwidth, domain names etc)
    • Hire lawyers to defend free software in court

    I don't know if the SPI will hire any programmers, that seems an unlikely event to me (FSF does this though), but they will most probably pay for Debian booths at different tradeshows and pay the travel fees for some Debian volunteers to staff the booths.

  • Yes, but your $1000 donation only costed you $670.
  • I was thinking the same thing, given the nature of free software. I guess the money could go to servers, bandwidth. If they get enough money they could hire some free lance programmers. And graphic artists for logos and web page design and such. But all in all, I don't think it help much.
    I hope someone could give us a good reason to donate. I mean, if you donate to the hungary, they get food. If you donate to the homeless, they get homes. If you donate to the SPI they get... er. Where does the money go. It seems to me that money given to the FSF is used to hire people to manage the money (See, recursion isn't just an acronym, its a business model!).

    Does anybody know where the money goes?

    --

  • tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course). No it doesn't. It means you don't have to pay taxes on that money. So, if the donation is $1,000 and if you would have paid 20% tax on that money then in effect the goverment donates $200 and you donate $800. -PP
  • The problem is that it's descriptive (as it was designed to be, if I understand its genesis correctly), not that it was used previously. Our (OSI's) lawyer, Larry Rosen, keeps banging it into our heads that we cannot stop people from using "Open Source" in a sentence. I can say "I opened five xterm Windows" without infringing on Microsoft's trademark.

    Also, the AC missed that the trademark is a U.S. trademark only. I've run into that a few times, when people complain to mark-misuse about non-U.S. people misusing it. All I can do is cajole these people -- I can't use the mark against them, because it has no force in their country.
    -russ
  • Trademarks are not like patents in the sense that "prior art," in the sense of use in a descriptive sense bars subsequent development of trademark rights. Rights to a trademark are obtained by use in commerce with respect to particular goods and services. While the first such user is entitled to priority in that mark if it is valid subject matter. Mere denotative use in a newgroup would not likely constitute a use in commerce.

    While it is generally more difficult to obtain protection for a merely descriptive mark than, say, a suggestive, abstract or coined mark, the mere fact of some prior denotative usages in a newsgroup would not likely factor heavily in a trademark validity analysis.

    These factors are somewhat further complicated by the fact that these folks are seeking registration of certification marks rather than trademarks, which although it uses generally similar principles to trademark law, is really a different critter than a trademark or collective mark. As is usually the case with legal matters, the truth is rather more interesting.
  • You are conflating issues. A suggestive mark is as protectible as an abstract or coined mark. A merely descriptive or merely geographically descriptive term (even one that has been publicly used in denotative fashion) is protectible if it has obtained secondary meaning in the relevant marketplace.

    On the other hand, even a coined or abstract mark can lose its distinctiveness and become legally unprotectable if it becomes generic. However, the standard for genericide is quite high, and there are few modern examples. To be invalid as generic, the mark needs to be far more than "a common descriptive term," it would need to be the *only* term for a given genus of services. While "open source" does suggest or describe certain properties of certain classes of software licensed, it is unclear that a court would deem the mark invalid as generic.

  • Re:There is no Open Source trademark (Score:4)

    by werdna ( 39029 ) on Wednesday June 02, 1999 @03:30PM (#1869343) Journal
    The poster is correct that, according to the USPTO database, the application for a federal registration of OPEN SOURCE as a certification mark of software licenses was abandoned for failure to respond to an office action. As Bruce points out, abandonment of an application is not an abandonment of a trademark or a certification mark.

    The question of descriptiveness is, well, tricky. Without passing on whether the mark OPEN SOURCE is merely descriptive rather than suggestive as used for licensing services, I will note that even if it is merely descriptive, the mark could still be enforceable if it had obtained secondary meaning. These subtleties are often overlooked in thinking about trademark cases, but they would be at the crux of any legal dispute if one arose.
  • Well, the money could go into defending free/open licenses, hiring a lawyer to get patents on stuff we created first (so some stupid company doesn't get it), maybe even advertising. People really take something a lot more seriously when they see it on the tube.

    Stuff like that.
    --------
  • Here's another topid for ya:
    A lot of Free Software is governed by the GPL, and most people put the recommended clause:
    "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version."

    This is good, because it allows easy expansion into further versions of the license, but what if, somehow, Microsoft gained some control over the FSF, even for a few months, and released a Version 3 of the GPL, which allows the exception that Microsoft does not have to release derivative works under the same license.

    Is this a legitimate possibility? Could Version 3 severely damage the Free Software movement, making all our work proprietry?

    Or worse, I'm not sure, but if copyright law allows the legal owner of the software to change licenses at will, could someone buy Linux from Linus, change the license, and make it proprietry?

    Maybe someone with a legel background (US and other countries) could give us some info here. (Or will the SPI have to use its funds for that? ;) )

    --------
  • I have to agree about the helpfulness of this new
    orginization. Its about time another group came
    on the scene to help the open source movement. I
    really don't think the outside is paying much
    attention yet. But if more orginizations
    come around to help, we will soon be a force to
    reckon with.

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