Martin, I want to applaud you for a taking the time to think through this as much as you have. I think this is an elegant way to draw a distinct line between Debian the project and non-profit work on Debian while still letting charitable organizations be able to bear the Debian name. You weren't explicit about the non-profit aspect in the message in any sort of categorical way but I want to step forward and say that I do not want to see commercial entities calling themselves Debian-anything and am not sure from a trademark perspective, this would be a wise choice at all. On Wed, Sep 17, 2003 at 01:16:28AM +1000, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: > We could create a "Debian Labs" brand and publicize what it means for > an organization to carry that name. The line I want draw here, and I think you're saying the same thing, is that we'd be explaining to people what the "XXX Debian Labs" means and why it is different than Debian. We should *not* create a list of criteria that if you or your organization matches, you automatically get to start using the name. I think this needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. > Also, is there anyone interested in helping develop these > guidelines? I foresee two sets of guidelines that need to be written. The first is the one that we (non-lawyers and probably Debian developers) write that explains what we think, in broad terms, Debian-Labs should mean. This is what we put on our website. The second set of guidelines is the Trademark License Agreement that specifies, in legal terms, the guidelines we've specified above. This is what the actually organizations agree to. It will need to be written up by our lawyers. In terms of the first, I began work on this a week and a half ago as part of a larger project to define, at this sort of level, the relationship between Debian, SPI, and several types of affiliated organizations. Of course, I'd very much welcome help and I'll contact the people who responded to this off-list to see about collaboration. Regards, Mako -- Benj. Mako Hill mako@debian.org http://mako.yukidoke.org/
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