Re: Apple's APSL 2.0 " Debian Free Software Guidelines"-compliant?
Josh Triplett wrote:
> Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> Ryan Rasmussen wrote:
>>>10. Trademarks. This License does not grant any rights to use the
>>>trademarks or trade names "Apple", "Apple Computer", "Mac", "Mac OS",
>>>"QuickTime", "QuickTime Streaming Server" or any other trademarks,
>>>service marks, logos or trade names belonging to Apple (collectively
>>>"Apple Marks") or to any trademark, service mark, logo or trade name
>>>belonging to any Contributor.
>>
>> This is good.
>>
>>>You agree not to use any Apple Marks in
>>>or as part of the name of products derived from the Original Code or
>>>to endorse or promote products derived from the Original Code other
>>>than as expressly permitted by and in strict compliance at all times
>>>with Apple's third party trademark usage guidelines which are posted
>>>at http://www.apple.com/legal/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html.
>>
>> This is not good, because it may go beyond trademark law. This is
>> acceptable if and only if Apple's trademark usage guidelines allow
>> everything which is normally permitted under trademark law. I think they
>> do, but the fact that they could change at any time may make this
>> unacceptable. This should be considered a fixable license bug, frankly.
>
> First of all, the changeable trademark guidelines only grant additional
> permission to use the trademarks, so if the requirement to not use the
> trademarks at all is Free,
It's not.
> then the changeable trademark guidelines are
> not an issue. Without that part, the clause becomes:
>> You agree not to use any Apple Marks in or as part of the name of
>> products derived from the Original Code or to endorse or promote
>> products derived from the Original Code
>
> Now, quoting from the Apache license, version 1.1:
>> 4. The names "Apache" and "Apache Software Foundation" must
>> not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
>> software without prior written permission. For written
>> permission, please contact apache@apache.org.
We've allowed this grudgingly, I guess; perhaps because "us[ing the names]
to endorse or promote" is a rather minimal category of things, normally
restricted under trademark law anyway, and only relating to advertising.
I do not consider it necessarily DFSG-free, however, as it may prohibit
statements in advertising like "Apache-compatible", which are permitted by
trademark law.
>> 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "Apache",
>> nor may "Apache" appear in their name, without prior written
>> permission of the Apache Software Foundation.
This is certainly not DFSG-free and never has been. It's a major reason why
we got this changed in the Apache license 2.0. *sigh* Furthermore, Debian
is currently in violation of this clause, as is nearly every distributor.
This is more honored in the breach than in the observance.
> This has the same restrictions as the above clause of the APSL. So if
> the Apache license, version 1.1, is considered DFSG-free,
Which it isn't.
> then so should
> this clause of the APSL.
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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