[ogb-discuss] Sun's Responses to the OpenSolaris Trademark Questions

[Rich Teer]

Hi all,

When the initial code drop of Project Indiana was released as the
OpenSolaris Developer Preview last October, a lot of questions and
concerns were raised around Sun's use of the OpenSolaris name for its
distribution, and how it might affect community use of the OpenSolaris
trademark.

As the community's elected representatives, the OGB passed the community's
questions and concerns to Sun's OGB liason, Bill Franklin.  We recently
received Sun's response, and the board has authorised me to release it.
Below is a verbatim copy of Sun's response; at this time the OGB neither
endoreses nor opposes Sun's response.

For and on behalf of the OGB,

-- 
Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA, OGB member

CEO,
My Online Home Inventory

URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
      http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer
      http://www.myonlinehomeinventory.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:08:11 -0800
From: William.Franklin at Sun.COM
To: ogb-private at opensolaris.org
Subject: [ogb-private] Sun's Responses to the Trademark

Rich et al:

In response to the OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) meeting in early 
November, and a number of other directed questions I, as the Sun 
Executive liaison to the OGB, have been asked to respond to those 
queries.  Here is Sun's statement.  

1. International trademark law requires trademark owners to take certain 
specific actions to protect their brands, and the OpenSolaris trademark 
and brand is no different. The OpenSolaris trademark, as a mark derived 
from the Solaris trademark, belongs to Sun Microsystems Inc., and Sun 
must defend it or risk not only the OpenSolaris trademark, but the 
Solaris trademark as well.

When Sun originally set up the OpenSolaris project and invited the 
community members to join it, it informally granted some uses of the 
OpenSolaris trademark to the community, such as the use of the name to 
identify the community. At that time Sun continued to reserve to itself 
the right to name any operating system distribution with the Solaris or 
OpenSolaris trademarks, and did not allow community members building 
their own distros to use those marks in their distro names.

With the three years of experience since then, Sun has decided that it 
would be better for both the community and for its own business, if 
distros were allowed to use the OpenSolaris trademark so that they could 
form an ecosystem of compatible software package and services.

To jumpstart this ecosystem, Sun has decided to fund Project Indiana to 
build a base distro, which it will name OpenSolaris, and to allow others 
to use the OpenSolaris trademark in approved ways in the name or 
marketing of their distros.


2. In support of this effort, Sun invites the OpenSolaris community to 
collaborate in the definition of a set of guidelines that will enable 
others to build derivative operating systems that are compatible with 
the goals of the OpenSolaris operating system and, as an expression of 
that compatibility, are eligible to use the OpenSolaris brand in clearly 
defined ways. Trademark law requires the mark owner to maintain 
objective quality control measures that apply to uses of the mark. Sun 
welcomes the input, expertise and influence of the OpenSolaris Community 
Groups in developing these measures. The work is already in progress at 
http://www.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/Trademark_usage_and_Branding_guideline 



3. Legally, for the purposes of many nations' trademark laws, all other 
uses need to be reserved by Sun, but terms for use are negotiable.Sun's 
statement specifically left out bumper stickers, key chains, user groups 
and book titles. The original debate was about distributions,and Sun 
wished to clarify that naming position. Sun allows things like 'Solaris 
User Group', and 'Java User Group', and 'I Love Java (J2SE1.4)' Coffee 
mugs. Sun has a published fair use policy 
(http://www.sun.com/policies/trademarks/#rules) and Sun feels that this 
would work for the use of OpenSolaris in 98% of the cases. Sun certainly 
would love to see the next good computer thriller movie use OpenSolaris 
as the platform that the good guys use to protect the earth from 
impending galactic doom.

Regards,

William L. Franklin
Vice President, Engineering
Solaris Core Operating System
Sun Microsystems