[SoaS] Governance & Trademark in the Wiki

[Peter Robinson]

Hi Caroline,

On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 6:11 PM, Caroline Meeks <solutiongrove at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Sean,
>
> What Sebastian means by this is that the Checksum must match.
> That means.

I think your missing the point and understanding of SoaS. Also don't
speak for Sebastian, he does have the ability to speak for himself so
he can do so for himself!

> you can't change the default language
> you can't change what activities are in it or even which are in the favorite
> ring
> you can't add drivers
> you can't add an eBook
> you can't patch a known bug even with an accepted patch

You can add all of these and what ever else you like. But if you wish
to you can't call it SoaS. Running as a standard live cd its static
but as a properly configured 'stick' it has a writeable home directory
as which means the user can add what ever they like. As the user
settings for activities, eBooks, and the ring are stored in the home
directory they can all be changed.

> Also since Sugar Labs does not have a Trademark on Sugar on a Stick, only on
> Sugar, I'm not sure what you are going to ask people who want to do these
> very reasonable things to call it?  I think you have to insist they don't
> use the word Sugar at all.

Well, actually the word sugar isn't able to be trademarked as its a
generic word in common use your wrong there. As for the use of sugar
on a stick I think you are being in-genuine and trying to hop on the
cart to take advantage of it. But if you want to talk about trademarks
your making use of the SugarLabs trademarks and logos and I'm sure
they do have the rights to them so if you want to get into discussions
about trademarks why don't you remove those from your site to start
with? Because people might start to believe your not actually
associated with and endorsed by SugarLabs possibly and that might
impact your gravy train?

> I do see that maybe we don't want the wild west with anyone doing anything,
> but I'm concerned that we are going to force the very thing we are trying to
> prevent by this level of control, the splitting of the brand and dispersion
> of the teachers and parents who want to use and improve on Sugar into
> different silos.

Brand is everything. Look at the way Fedora uses and enforces their
brand. Companies use their product but its not allowed to be called
Fedora. They can use the secondary Fedora Remix brand logos but not
the primary ones. See Linpus for example (http://www.linpus.com/). It
the Linux that ships on the Acer Aspire Ones for example. You can
install Fedora and any other package you like.

You talk about splitting the brand.... you are the one splitting the
brand. What you are doing is taking a product and modifying it. What
your are doing is something like taking a piece of Tupperware and
modifying it and still calling it Tupperware. They would sue your
butt.

> I want to promote Sugar in the geekiest 5% of the PTO (Parent, Teachers
> Organization) and bring those people together under the Sugar Labs umbrella.
>  But to do that we have to give them Sugar with the stuff they want. I don't
> think many of even that 5% care much about Ubuntu vs Fedora.
> I think a lot of people will want a Sugar on a Stick that is "customized"
> for:

I don't see that we're stopping you from promoting sugar, just asking
you to use your own name. Just create a new name for your solution as
the "geekiest 5% of the PTO (Parent, Teachers Organization)" will be
able to work out that what your offering is a supported sugar
environment, after all to use your term they are "geeks".

> Their native language, especially if its not the dominant language where
> they live
> the age of their kids
> has books they like
> actually works on their hardware (remember the official release doesn't
> include any driver that isn't in the Fedora release)

So your solution offers native languages? My understanding of your
previous emails is that your only changes to the SOAS spin is that you
change any servers to point to your own. So what's that got to do with
native languages. The SugarLabs SOAS already offers all the current
supported languages. The changes will remain with a properly
configured stick, just like I mentioned above so please stop spreading
FUD about the official SOAS release.

> I want these people to know they are using Sugar on a Stick and tell people
> about Sugar on a Stick, not some other brand name.  I want them to be the
> ambassadors that bring Sugar on a Stick to their schools.

Yes, you want them to tell all the other people about your sugar on a
stick dot com so you can make money out it. Don't get me wrong. I'm
not against people making money. I like to do so myself :-) Why can't
you make your own successful brand like Linpus has by using the Fedora
product without in-genuinely using the names that are already in use
by SugarLabs. Why don't you go and read the Fedora Trademarks [1].
SugarLabs has used the Fedora processes for other things like the
Feature Process and I personally think those trademark guidelines are
what we should adopt.

Regards,
Peter

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 9:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [SoaS] Governance & Trademark in the Wiki
> To: Sebastian Dziallas <sdz at sugarlabs.org>
> Cc: SoaS <soas at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>
>
> I support these changes.
>
> Thanks Sebastian.
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Sebastian Dziallas <sebastian at when.com>
> wrote:
>> From:
>>
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Sugar_Labs/Governance/Trademark#Sugar_on_a_Stick_Guidelines
>>
>> --Sebastian
>>
>> ------
>>
>> I am herewith proposing the following changes to the section 5a. This
>> has been derived from Fedora's trademark guidelines [1] and might need
>> to be adjusted to cover more cases, as listed in those guidelines. By
>> referring to Sugar on a Stick, the following draft means the project
>> located [2] and hosted [3] here.
>>
>> - You *may* use the term "Sugar on a Stick" whenever referring to the
>> official Sugar on a Stick product and its releases, as well as when
>> distributing unmodified copies of it.
>> -- However, this usage *must not* imply any endorsement by Sugar Labs or
>> the Sugar on a Stick project, unless this is case and an appropriate
>> agreement has been reached.
>>
>> - You *may* modify Sugar on a Stick and create remixes of it.
>> -- However, when distributing or selling this modified version, you
>> *must not* call it Sugar on a Stick.
>> -- When not exposing the resulting product to the public, you *may*
>> still call it Sugar on a Stick, though. A deployment might adjust Sugar
>> on a Stick for its needs and still say it deployed Sugar on a Stick, as
>> long as the modified version is not distributed publicly.
>>
>> [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines
>> [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick
>> [3] http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/soas
>> _______________________________________________
>> SoaS mailing list
>> SoaS at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
>>
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>
> --
> Caroline Meeks
> Solution Grove
> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>
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