Mailing-List: contact general-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: pass (athena.apache.org: domain of robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com
 designates 72.14.220.152 as permitted sender)
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
        d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
        h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version
         :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition
         :references;
        b=X6s7XPS6puD452w84jxP2fet0DqM3hxy+Z4h7XJ4eGPwNX6idWiuubCzhfGG/Ra7CQ
         g7TUlugIU+XcUFlzzVGylCSS6nonkEXwP+vw7aWiwhS9pJnKp6jsoYGx+4NuBXqbwh8d
         1VAoXK1mR7cdKc9KfqlLjnh7+OWum9lg1CUaI=
Message-ID: <f470f68e0810290624w7ab8d80dm19f28f2b3d8d17a8@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:44 +0000
From: "Robert Burrell Donkin" <robertburrelldonkin@gmail.com>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Choosing project names (Was: Checking trademarks)
In-Reply-To: <20081027224455.GC23222@igg.indexgeo.com.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
References: <16d6c6200810261042t1677e46g13b81e10eb204304@mail.gmail.com>
	 <f470f68e0810271510h5988f346s2be664dc3fbda2bc@mail.gmail.com>
	 <20081027224455.GC23222@igg.indexgeo.com.au>

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:44 PM, David Crossley <crossley@apache.org> wrote:
> Robert Burrell Donkin wrote:
>> Martin Cooper wrote:
>> >
>> > The status page template includes a bullet item that states, in part:
>> >
>> > "check www.nameprotect.com to be sure that the name is not already
>> > trademarked for an existing software product"
>> >
>> > How do we go about this? The CSC web site wants me to call them to have an
>> > account set up, but surely we're not all setting up accounts for one-time
>> > use, are we? I just want to complete the check for the PhotArk podling.
>>
>> i'm not sure that we have a good answer to this question ATM
>>
>> maybe we need to rephrase this - how can the incubator ensure that a
>> name is not already trademarked for an existing software product?
>
> I agree. I took the liberty of changing the subject
> of this thread.
>
> Recently i tried to summarise the various discussions
> on this topic.
>
> See the page:
> "Choosing names for ASF projects"
> http://www.apache.org/dev/project-names.html

thanks for starting to take a stab at this

<blockquote cite='http://www.apache.org/dev/project-names.html'>
> When people conduct an internet search after hearing about an ASF project,
> they will use some technical terms and a name. We want to appear near the top
> and not get confused with someone else in the same technical space.
</blockquote>

IMHO this is the opposite of the problem:

apache projects are often very quickly highly ranked when conducting
internet searches. an apache project with a similar name to someone
else in the same technical space may quickly come to dominate searches
in that space. If someone else holds a related trademark then this may
lead to a legal dispute.

> I have passed it by the legal-discuss mail list,
> but only received some general comments so far.

might need to raise a JIRA if you want some sort of formal approval

- robert

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org