In the last few months, there were several complaints about the way Debian was used by other parties than the Debian project. The "Debian" name has been and is being used to refer to things that are not part of, or perhaps even related to, the official Debian project and sometimes the name and logo is used in ways that makes Debian developers very uncomfortable. Such issues were raised several times on debian-project and the SPI mailing lists in regards to particular uses. The issue was also discussed during the SPI Workshop at Debconf 3 run by Benj. Mako Hill and in a number of other places. Thankfully, "Debian" is a trademark held by Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) which holds other Debian assets like hardware and money. However, the only policy regarding use of the Debian trademark is a message published by Bruce Perens in 1998 [1]. Prompted by various trademark issues it has become clear to me that this policy is neither well known enough, clear enough, complete enough, or legally enforceable. A better policy is therefore needed. SPI Board Member Benjamin Mako Hill and Gregory Pomerantz, a hacker, SPI contributing member, Debian users and a lawyer with the law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, drafted a resolution (attached below) that they brought before the SPI board and that was passed in early June, 2003 to create a committee to draft a new policy. The committee is retaining Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton [2] which has agreed to engage SPI on a pro-bono basis for work in regards to the trademark. The new policy will attempt to balance the restrictive elements of trademark law with the need for certain types of open use that are important to community driven Free Software projects like Debian. We recognize that other projects than Debian face similar issues, and hope that our trademark policy can be used by other Free Software projects as well. So far, the committee has not be active in drafting a new policy but plans to move forward with this goal. Due to issues around attorney/client relationship, the committee was created to be fairly small and uses a non-publically archived mailing list. However, since we want others to get involved in this discussion, we plan to carry out most discussions on debian-project and use the trademark list specifically for confidential issues. We will also try to make the archives of this mailing list available on master.debian.org; details will be posted to debian-project as they become available. While the committee will be kept small, it is certainly not closed to participation by interested and active members of the Debian and SPI communities. Please visit the list information page and contact the list administrator if you are interested [3]. To summarize, we are working on a refined trademark policy which is clearer and more complete than the current policy and which will strike a balance between the restrictive elements of trademark law and the need for certain types of open use by the community. Martin Michlmayr, Debian Project Leader Benj. Mako Hill, member of the Board of Directors of SPI [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1998/msg00006.html [2] http://www.cgsh.com/ [3] http://lists.spi-inc.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/spi-trademark SPI's resolution on the trademark committee: WHEREAS, SPI is in control of DEBIAN, a registered trademark in the United States, and may in the future come to control registered trademarks for other member projects. Debian, and possibly other SPI supported projects in the future, is in the unusual position of desiring to encourage the open use of its trademark without abandoning the quality control and source designation functions inherent in a trademark. Toward this end, Bruce Perens wrote a trademark policy and posted it to a Debian mailing list in 1998 [1] that has served as SPI's trademark policy up until this point. While this policy successfully captures the spirit of SPI's intentions in regards to its member project's trademarks, it is informal and not well known. In recent months, SPI has been involved in several trademark issues regarding the use of the DEBIAN trademark. While these cases have been resolved, they alert SPI to the need to review, reconsider, and re-articulate its trademark policy with respect to the DEBIAN trademark, and potentially with respect to trademarks held for other member projects, in more formal and legal terms. SPI is in the unique, and perhaps unprecedented, position of drafting a policy that aims to balance the control called for in trademark law with the openness, freedom, and flexibility at the center of many SPI supported projects. RESOLVED THAT, 1. The board shall create a committee (the "Trademark Committee") comprised of Chris Rourk (Legal Counsel for SPI), Greg Pomerantz (SPI Contributing Member), Bruce Perens and Benjamin Mako Hill to act as a liaison for the SPI Board of Directors and Martin Michlmayr (Debian Project Leader) or a delegate representing the Debian Project and open to participation by other board members and SPI contributing members, for the purpose of reviewing SPI's trademark policy. If the committee feels that there is sufficient justification for elaboration of the existing policy, the committee will draft a new trademark policy with the DEBIAN mark in mind, and present this policy to the board for consideration. 2. The Trademark Committee shall have the authority to retain Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, on a pro bono basis, solely for advice concerning the foregoing activities. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1998/msg00006.html -- Martin Michlmayr leader@debian.org
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