Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source

An anonymous reader touts a blog posting up at PC World titled "Trademarks: The Hidden Menace." Keir Thomas asks why open source advocates are keen to suggest patent and copyright reform, yet completely ignore the issue of trademarks, which can be just as corrosive to the freedom that open source projects strive to embody. "Even within the Linux community, trademarking can be used as obstructively as copyright and patenting to further business ends. ... Is this how open source is supposed to work? Restricted redistribution? Tight control on who can compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name? ... Trademarking is almost totally incompatible with the essential freedom offered by open source. Trademarking is a way of severely limiting all activity on a particular product to that which you approve of. ... If an open source company embraces trademarks then it embraces this philosophy. On the one hand it advocates freedom, and [on] the other it takes it away."

Comments

Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[levell]

I disagree with the whole underlying point of the article. I think Mozilla should be able to stop someone taking their source, adding a whole bunch of unstable "improvements" as patches and calling it Firefox. It would damage a brand that is one of the best brands that FOSS currently has. It doesn't stop people getting the browser, if they don't Mozilla's restrictions they could call it, say, EarthHorse.

The article throws around terms like "restricted distribution" and "severely limiting all activity" but gives examples like CentOS where CentOS and Red Hat exist happily together but with Red Hat still able to build up a brand with some protections.

The article ends "just like patents and traditional copyright, it's totally incompatible with the spirit and ethos of open source software.". People here may not like the length that copyright lasts for but the GPL relies on the fundamental idea of copyright. Similarly there may be some issues with trademarks but if so they need patching not a whole sale revolution as this article seems to suggest.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[rolfwind]

I think trademarks are great as it stops the Microsoft's of the world to make it their own, which they could otherwise in a heartbeat. Imagine "Windows 7 integrated with Microsoft's new browser Firefox!" Which sounds great (90%+ marketshare) until you realize that MS can fork it, and continue to embrace, extend, and extinguish it as their own while providing updates through their channels (getting around GPL because most people just don't care and will let the computer do anything for them automatically that it can, having the upgrade channels is a powerful thing) with most nontechy people never knowing.

I can't even imagine the scenario if the Linux trademark was like that as well.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Trepidity]

I agree, but only to a certain extent. It's certainly reasonable to ask those who create forks to choose a different name rather than distributing using exactly the original name. However, it's not unreasonable, I don't think, for the fork to use some derived name that BOTH 1) makes clear it is not the original project; but 2) makes clear that it is derived from the original project. For example, the principal GNU Emacs fork is named XEmacs. Would it really be better for us all if GNU had taken a hard line on that and forced Lucid to choose a name for their fork that didn't contain the word "emacs" within it at all?

So, sure, it's fine in my book if Mozilla doesn't want a modified Firefox to be called just "Firefox". Maybe more distinction than Emacs/XEmacs is also reasonable; e.g. a GtkFirefox or something could imply that it's an official GTK version. But they seem to want to take this to the extent of trademark law, and not even allow derived names that are clearly distinguished, like DebianFox or something. I don't see how that really fits within free-software culture.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[wisty]

Trademarks do seem a little harmful to open source. It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel. Inconsistent terminology can hurt a field - just look what happened to postmodernism.

But "Considered Harmful" is a bloody big call. That's comparing trademarks to "gotos". Ouch. Open source has other worries - like web applications (online data processing), proprietary devices (iPhones), companies turning GPL programs into XML wrapped libraries, the .net framework, walled garden communitites (facebook), and proprietary file / stream formats.

Trademarks? Big deal.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Daengbo]

CentOS does the same thing with the whole of Red Hat. They just strip out the RH trademarks. Should they be allowed to call it Red Hat? No. Does removing the trademarks restrict their freedoms in any way? Also no.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[shutdown -p now]

Trademarks do seem a little harmful to open source. It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel.

Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?

Because that's pretty much where we'd be if it wasn't trademarked.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[xigxag]

Debian may do this with Iceweasel, but Debian doesn't do this with Debian. Parens implicitly acknowledges that on some level, you need a way to establish and verify trust. Debian says, "We'll do the verification for you. If you trust us, you can trust the untrademarked software we use." In essence, Mozilla(TM) Firefox(TM) becomes "Debian(TM) Iceweasel."

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[impaledsunset]

Trademarks are a way to protect the brands of an organization and products. And to help the customers from being deceived. Open source is a tool that you use in creating your product or program, and free software is a way you treat your customers. How would trademarks hurt any of these is beyond me. Really.

Copyright and patent law might need a reform, and workarounds like we do with FOSS, but trademark doesn't. It's arguably doing it's job. When I get get X by company Y I'm given some assurance that this is indeed X by company Y, and not something else someone decided to call that way. I don't see any reason that one should want CentOS to call themselves "Red Hat Enterprise Linux". I would be very happy if they don't.

Nobody restricts distribution or anything. You were allowed to use and improve the technology, but there is no reason you should expect to use the name. Does anybody really want people using FOSS code to create malicious programs and then name them "Linux" and "Firefox"? If somebody wrote a book and put it under Creative Commons license he didn't give you the right to change the content of the book and claim that it is still written entirely by you.

Even if trademarks did hurt (and at worst they cause minor inconveniences), they play an important role which is a bit more important than someone's ability to "compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name". Sorry.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[blowdart]

Except ... Rails. Rails is a trademark, so in theory we now need to write Rails(tm). Now I can understand the Ruby on Rails(tm) logo being trademarked, if you don't want it appropriated, but Hansson has gone a bit further.

On the use of the logo he's said

So I only grant promotional use for products I'm directly involved with. Such as books that I've been part of the development process for or conferences where I have a say in the execution.

This steps out of protection and into control, he's been refusing to allow books to use the logo on their covers. He's even trademarked "Ruby on Rails", taking the name of something he didn't invent or write and using that as part of his mark;

"Rails", "Ruby on Rails", and the Rails logo are trademarks of David Heinemeier Hansson.

Want to have a Ruby on Rails(tm) conference? Better not include the name of the platform in your conference name then, that would be violating Hansson's trade mark. Even more "interesting" is the Ruby on Rails(tm) logo was a community effort (although the wiki pages for that are now gone. The original logo was even open source. The money to register the trademarks came from the community, but the marks are in the hands of Hansson alone.

It's not trademarks that are the problem, it's the person who controls them. If, for example, the Rails(tm) marks were overseen by a committee (made up, as a starting point, of everyone that helped pay for them) then that would be more acceptable than the current situation.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Well, trademarks aren't that hard to get around. E.g, for the conference, I cannot find anything to prevent a conference of "Rapid Web Application Conference for Ruby on Rails users". From wikipedia, that should be ok since you are "using the mark to describe accurately an aspect of its products". Wikipedia gives the example "In a related sense, an auto mechanic can truthfully advertise that he services Cadillacs", which is basically the same thing and is a car analogy, almost ;)

Misappropriating a community designed logo, if that is what he has done, is violation of copyright law. But (again from wikipedia), the license of the logo is MIT, which means that said community chose a license that permits this, much as if Mr. Hansson had bought the logo from an artist. Perhaps they should have considered a copyleft license? Still, the laws of trademarks severely limits what he prevent; e.g., "A book to quickly learn Ruby on Rails [logo]" is again, probably ok.

I do agree, however, that Mr. Hanssons approach is hindering rather than helping ruby on rails, which is a shame because it is a very sweet framework for web services and applications. Especially for people like me who only do web as an aside from our "real" skills :) But of course, the community could fork off and change the trademark (maybe even get a non-ugly logo? :P) in a week, with very little momentum lost.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[ThePhilips]

In other words it is all about identity.

Trademarks are sort of like authorship. You can transfer copyright to your work to somebody else - but you can't transfer authorship. That's doesn't prevent you from using the work, it only prevents you from imposing on somebody else.

Seems pretty logical to me.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Daengbo]

I live in Asia so I'll just have a "Luby on Lails" conference, and no one will be confused at all.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Znork]

And to help the customers from being deceived.

Ah, no, that was the old way. Then it used to prevent Chinese companies to manufacture cheap copies of Western goods complete with trademark name.

Now it's the new way. Now all the goods are cheaply manufactured by Chinese companies, and trademarks prevent Western consumers from getting exactly the same goods for cheap.

that this is indeed X by company Y

Except it's not any more. It's X by company Z, labelled and marketed as A, B, C and D trademarks by companies Y, E, F, and G and available for a tenth of the price in China. The days when trademarks were used to prevent deception are gone with in house production, now they're often used to deceive instead.

I don't see any reason that one should want CentOS to call themselves "Red Hat Enterprise Linux".

That I can agree with. I would, however, like to see a requirement for a clear origination labelling, like CentOS (derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Blu Wear Jeans 1023 (derived from XianPing model Ping134), Coca-Cola Dasani (derived from bromate contaminated tap water).

If someone else made it, consumers should be able to tell who did and what the product originally was.

Basically, the purpose would be enforcing the supposed consumer protection of trademarks both ways; you shouldn't claim your product is someone elses, but neither should be be able to claim that someone elses product is fully and exclusively yours.

Even if trademarks did hurt

They're nowhere near as damaging to the economy as copyright and patents, but I think they certainly have room for improvement. Particularly as applies to their function as consumer protection.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[pdh11]

It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel.

"Because the Mozilla people have done something insane, egotistical, and counter-productive." There, that wasn't very painful.

As you imply, the reason that anyone who forks Firefox should be able to call the binaries their project produces firefox is the same reason that anyone who forks ls should be able to call the binary their project produces ls. Anything else just causes user confusion. If you want to have a trademark because you think you're so darn good that anyone else's version of your code just won't be the same, trademark your organisation name, not your project name. FSF Emacs vs XEmacs, FSF Glibc vs eglibc, coreutils ls vs BSD ls: there's no ambiguity in any of those cases.

By trademarking the name of the product, and imposing restrictions on uses of that trademark which affect people carrying out the normal processes of open-source natural selection, the Mozilla people have placed their own personal egos above the quality of the user experience. That's the sort of behaviour that open-source more usually comes as a blessed relief from.

That such restrictions on trademarked product names are allegedly compatible with open-source licences should be viewed as a bug in those licences, and Debian are absolutely right to call the Mozilla people on not being DFSG-free. If you want to pinpoint the moment they lost their way, it was when they trademarked "Mozilla" and named their foundation after it, and changed the mozilla tree so that it no longer built a binary called mozilla. If when they realised their "mistake" they'd changed the foundation name not the binary name, there'd be the Seamonkey Foundation's mozilla versus everyone else's mozilla, which would be perfectly straightforward, and they'd have generated much less ill will.

Peter

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[kripkenstein]

In other words it is all about identity.

Trademarks are sort of like authorship. You can transfer copyright to your work to somebody else - but you can't transfer authorship. That's doesn't prevent you from using the work, it only prevents you from imposing on somebody else.

Seems pretty logical to me.

And not only is it logical, it's very much at the heart of open source. Even the most permissive licenses (BSD, etc.) have the requirement that you not remove the original author names, and not claim that you wrote the original software (unless you actually did, of course).

In other words, all open source licenses explicitly support the principle of identity - use the code, but know who wrote it. That's the principle behind trademarks as well - to let people know where something comes from. To lop this in with patents as a "risk to open source" is completely incorrect.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to pinpoint the moment they lost their way, it was when they trademarked "Debian" and named their foundation after it

Fixed.

Your argument is stupid and hypocritical. Currently Ice Weasel contains numerous bugs which Firefox has already fixed. So lets assume Debian (TM) were allowed to call it Firefox. Right now they would be redistributing a crappy version of it and who would their users blame for that? Mozilla, not Debian (TM).

So given this situation why do you even care that the name has changed? My guess is selfishness. You want to exploit the popularity of the brand Firefox to push Debian's (TM) inferior Ice Weasel onto unsuspecting users that do not realise that both program's code bases are quite different.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[debrain]

Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?

That's a great example, highlighting the rationale behind trademarks. The purpose of trademark law is consumer protection: reducing consumer confusion when equivalent products have confusingly similar marks. The creation of goodwill by companies in the form of production recognition is incidental.

I wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone would Trademark "First Post"

It's not about Freedom

[GameGod0]

It's about protecting your users, and protecting your project.

Take a large, reputable open source project like Audacity. If some scammer comes along and bundles their own version of Audacity with some spyware and tries to distribute it under the Audacity name, this is damaging to both users and the reputation of the software. Audacity's defense against people like this is their trademark. Nobody will confuse real "Audacity" with any ripoff, because nobody else can use the name.

This also protects the developers, who have worked hard to produce great software, and who deserve to have it recognized as something special on their resumes/CVs. Preserving the reputation (ie. name) of your software project helps ensure their contributions to the project aren't devalued.

Lastly, the Mozilla example in the article can easily be countered by the infamous OpenSSL/Debian fiasco, where a Debian packager incorrectly patched OpenSSL and created a vulnerability. This was certainly damaging for OpenSSL's reputation, even though it wasn't their fault. If Ubuntu decides to patch Firefox and introduces bugs, it's Firefox (NOT Ubuntu) who looks bad to users. IMO this is good justification for exercising ownership of your trademark.

Open source is about SOURCE

[SuperKendall]

Just because source is open does not give you the right to hijack the work of a team and call something by the same name.

It does give you the right to take the source and make something else with it, and that is great. But because so much of the reward of open source is working on something that many people get to use an enjoy, diminishing the power of trademark removes a strong element of motivation by allowing names to mean less through dilution.

Shakespeare said something about this...

[dov_0]

"A Rose by any other name is still as sweet."

Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[jskora]

DRM and copyright protect stuff, technology or data or ideas. Trademark, on the other hand protects a name, an identity.

Kleenex has not been the only brand of facial tissues for a very long time, the name is protected but not the concept. RedHat and CentOS, as already mentioned, are a perfect example of this working, the name RedHat is protected but the open source code is not.

Brand means more in some cases and than in others, as consumers and techies are at times very brand loyal. But when things become commodity items, consumers look less at brand than function, need, and appeal.

Re:Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[Actually, I do RTFA]

DRM and copyright protect stuff, technology or data or ideas

Patents protect ideas. Copyright protects the expression of ideas (and boat hulls). DRM is an extralegal enforcement of copyright.

But, you are right. Trademarks only protect identity.

Trademarks get lost when the identity does. A long time ago a Zipper, was a Zipper(tm). But it became so associated with the idea, that they lost the trademark.

This is ridiculous.

[darkmeridian]

Trademarks are meant to protect the origin of a commercial good. This allows consumers to recognize a product and remember its quality or lack thereof. It's necessary to have trademarks in open source software. Imagine if anyone could create a browser and call it Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is going to get stomped down by "forks" that introduce all sorts of spyware in the source code. Without the protection of trademarks, Mozilla would have to sit idly by as its market share gets split up.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[noidentity]

After reading that article, I agree, and am going to start my own website and magazine called PC World.

Re:Copyright reform?

[noidentity]

In theory, the the idea of the GPL exists only in opposition to copyright... it is a "necessary evil" for an future good. If there was no copyright, there would be no GPL... two sides of the same coin.

Nope, you're confusing that with BSD-style licenses. BSD-style = do what you want with the source, including releasing products without source code. GPL = if you release product using source, you must release source you used to build product. Without copyright, BSD-style is all you'd have.

Trademark = Signature

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, the problem with copyrights and patents is that they restrict the distribution and development of the 'protected' ideas.

The only restriction a trademark places is that you can't represent yourself as something or someone you're not.

I doubt the author would be happy to find the movie he rented for his children Trademarked as "Disney's the Lion King" was actually hardcore porn.

This sounds like sour grapes that some developers can't coast off the work of others.

Your Mark

[OnlyHalfEvil]

I take it all back, I think this is a dumb idea.
Signed,
Keir Thomas

What?
If trademarks are a restriction of freedom, then me using Keir's name to endorse my own ideas sounds like exactly the type of freedom he's arguing for. So what if it breeds confusion and implies an endorsement that doesn't actually exist?

This is the dumbest thing I've read on "IP"

[Nick Ives]

This is what happens when people use the term "IP" - they get things like Trademark and Copyright totally confused.

With FOSS you're free to modify + redistribute. If the project you're redistributing is trademarked then you're going to have to change the name for your modified version.

In fact the GPL requires that modified versions be marked as changed; obviously the best way to comply with that is to change the name.

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[supernova_hq]

The guy who wrote this insane piece is at best a troll, most likely an expendable pawn.

And he was able to find another troll (kdawson) to post it on slashdot!

It's amazing, every time a stupid article is posted, I scroll to the top and guess who poasted it? kdawson!

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[im_thatoneguy]

That's because kdawson doesn't believe in indentity protection. kdawson gave up his trademark and as such any troll is now free to post stories under his name.

Sincerely,
kdawson

Look at the title

[trifish]

Can we please ask the Slashdot editors to avoid tabloid titles?

The title reads "Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source".

but it should read: "A Random [Uneducated] Guy Considers Trademarks Harmful To FOSS"

Thanks for listening.

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[RDW]

'The guy who wrote this insane piece is at best a troll, most likely an expendable pawn.'

Yes, his cover goes so deep his sinister paymasters have even instructed him to write several books about Ubuntu, and even give one of them away for free, presumably as part of a machiavellian plot to undermine other Linux distributions and deprive genuine FOSS-supporting authors of their livelihoods:

http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download_main.html

Back in 2006, his evil campaign of dangerous misinformation apparently managed to subvert a popular technology blog, which went so far as to describe one of his poisonous publications as 'a good book which is both informative and entertaining at the same time':

http://books.slashdot.org/books/06/03/29/1437217.shtml

I can't even hint at the shocking details of the plot that led to this guy being awarded an Editors' Choice Award by the hopelessly compromised 'Linux Journal' - I have a family to think about, and They know here I live...

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[dshadowwolf]

RTFA. Go on, do it.

.
.
.

Done? Now go and re-read the comments.

Oh, done already? Now tell me - where has anyone claimed that the author of TFA was a shill? What has happened here is the guy got in a bit of trouble over use of the Ubuntu trademarks. Rather than just admit that he had made a mistake, he decided to start spewing FUD about how trademarks are bad.

That act - and that act alone - is why he has been called a troll.

Exactly what Microsoft already did

[davecb]

rolfwind writes: Imagine "Windows 7 integrated with Microsoft's new browser Firefox!"

You don;t have to imagine: this is what Microsoft already tried with Java, extending it with MS-only functionality. Only the trademark agreement with Sun protected Java uses from embrace, extend and extinguish. MS had to start an entire new language project in order to copy Java, and give it a new name thus losing name recognition.

MS fanboys use C#: everyone else uses Java, unextended and unextinguished. Now if they'd just add apply... (;-))

--dave