Re: Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?

[Ibrahim Haddad <ibrahim@linux.com>]

Hello Didier,

I am responding to you in relation to your inquiry below. First, thanks very much for sending the MeeGo Project these questions. We really do appreciate it. The MeeGo Project members devoted quite a bit of time discussing these questions to make sure the  responses are fair and most of all work to the benefit of the MeeGo project, its developers and the users of MeeGo.

To start with, the goal is to avoid any confusion around what is and what is not MeeGo.  Anything that is or will become associated with the MeeGo trademark has to be in conformance with the compliance program.  With that in mind, it becomes clear why none of the proposed uses of MeeGo  mentioned in your email are in line with the trademark policy and guidelines as they create confusion around MeeGo project packages, mailing list, project team name, etc.  For example, when you append MeeGo to a package name, it would be very reasonable to conclude that this is an official MeeGo package coming from MeeGo.com, which is not the case and could cause confusion both for your users as well MeeGo's.

We would ask you to move away from using {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o or any subset of those letters or sounds in that order, alone or in combination with other letters, words or marks that would tend to cause someone to make a reasonable connection of the reference with the MeeGo mark. We specifically discussed one possibility for illustration purposes – which is to use MG in the place of MeeGo.  We do not think that a plain text MG, when used in reference to the code, as in a file or project or team name, would cause a reasonable person to be confused.  

We are available for additional discussions if needed and if you prefer to have a call to discuss we can certainly do that.

Best Regards,

Ibrahim Haddad [on behalf of The Meego Project]

PS:
We started an FAQ at http://meego.com/trademark. We have added some text already and Q&A will be added there as they come.

On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <didier@raboud.com> wrote:

Hi dear MeeGo-dev,
(some CCs added for convenience and openness)

I am Didier 'OdyX' Raboud, a Debian Maintainer and I am part of the "pkg-meego"
group on Debian. Our (blurry) intent is to allow Debian users to benefit from
the software that comes out of the MeeGo project.

Following the Smeegol release and the "Trademark compliance, name usage, etc."
thread (and in particular Ibrahim's answer⁰), I want to clear up the path on
which we will walk before being too late.

Our work has somehow begun and is more-or-less documented on the Debian wiki¹.
Some ITP² bugs have already been filed and packaging is in progress on our git
repositories (which are linked from the wiki page¹). Debian packages of
libcontentaction, meegotouch-theme and libmeegotouch will very soon hit the
Debian "NEW" queue, then the archive. So there is a clear need of sorting that
"issue" right now.

Currently, we use the {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o sequence of letters in the following
places:

 * in our team code (pkg-meego), which is:
  - a unix group name (in fact two, there is also scm_pkg-meego) on the
    alioth.debian.org machine
  - a project name within the Alioth infrastructure:
    https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-meego/
  - part of our mailing list name:
    http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listingo/pkg-meego-maintainers
 * in our team name :
  - on the above project page (Debian MeeGo Team)
  - on the wiki team page (Debian MeeGo stack maintainers)
  - in the "Maintainer:" field of the not-released-yet packages (in the
    debian/control file): (Debian MeeGo packaging Team)
  (There is some uncoherence here, it might need merging.)
 * (of course, but mentioning for exhaustiveness) in the packages names :
  - e.g. meegotouch-theme, libmeegotouch, …

In the future, when this work will (eventually) be led to its "end", we might
very well consider releasing meta-packages (as kde-standard, lxde-core, gnome-
desktop-environment, etc) that would be named as meego-handset-ux for example.
Another possibility would be to release live-CDs or installation CDs that would
either launch or allow installation of meego-based environment (as is currently
done for KDE-SC, Gnome, XFCE, …). Their naming is of course not sorted out yet,
but using something along the paths of debian-wheezy-amd64-meego-CD-1.iso would
match what we currently do with KDE or XFCE+LXDE.

[By the way, there is not (at least not currently) the intent/need/whatever to
reach a "compliance" level for the MeeGo software on Debian. Debian is (intended
to be) universal and by such there is no reason (from our point of view) to
_not_ offer to Debian users the free software stuff that comes out of the MeeGo
project.]

So my questions are :

 * which of the above uses is considered OK (or not) by MeeGo (or whoever is
   entitled to draw a line)?
 * how should we name ourselves?. In fact we _are_ the "Debian team that
   handles the packaging for the Debian distribution of the software that comes
   out of the MeeGo project but that's long, would a "Debian MeeGo maintainers"
   team name be Okay ? Is the pkg-meego team code Okay ?
 * if we are not granted the "right" (whatever that might mean) to use the
   "MeeGo" trademark to refer to the "software that comes out of the MeeGo
   project", what are we supposed to use instead? (Please don't make us use
   things like "the name everyone knows but that I can't write").
 * Other pieces of advice ?

Thanks in advance for constructive answers, cheers,

OdyX

[⁰] http://lists.meego.com/pipermail/meego-dev/2010-October/006547.html
[¹] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/PkgMeeGo
[²] Intent to Package
--
Didier Raboud, proud Debian Maintainer (DM).
CH-1020 Renens
didier@raboud.com