Re: Skolelinux and the "Debian Labs" idea
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Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
| 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
I am curious about why? You state you don't want to see it, but don't
give any supporting argument. I myself am always very suspicious as to
the motive of for profit companies appearing to leverage Free Software
projects. However, I will say that if good ground rules are laid down
and policy in place that must be adhered to, I don't readily see why any
for profit company willing to obey the guidelines should be excluded.
| and am not sure from a trademark perspective, this would be a wise
| choice at all.
If you want to protect trademark, then I suspect not letting *anyone*
use it is the safest approach. Not necessarily the best, but the safest.
| 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.
It should be a submission and review process. However, I think there
should be criteria/guidelines that are the starting point. (i.e. if you
don't meet X then you are automatically disqualified from acceptance)
This makes acceptance much more equitable.
|>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.
Probably the "criteria" of what one needs to do in order to be accepted
to use the "Debian Labs" name so to speak should be a Debian project
development.
| 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.
The contract/agreement that the entity using the "Debian Labs" name
signs or agrees to, should likely be a legal document drafted by 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.
At one point, we were doing something similar with Free Software
Foundation Europe called the GNU Business Network. It different in many
ways, but very much was in process of drafting acceptable criterion for
businesses to agree to for membership.
You can find some early drafts here
http://www.gnuenterprise.org/~dneighbo/gnubiz/
Likely most of the document is irrelevant. However, the criteria
section might be of some use to draw off of.
Just thoughts.
Derek Neighbors
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnue.org
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