June 26th, 2007
Does open source need a trademark?
The logo to the right is a lie. The term “open source,” by itself, is not the trademarked property of the Open Source Initiative or anyone else.
So Centric CRM is ready to fight for its right to stay at the open source party. Who is to say they cannot? And make it stick?
SocialText, while trying to get approval for its Common Public Attribution License, is also wondering what it should call itself in the meantime.
Much of the fight is over the question of mandating “attribution,” telling users where the software you’re using came from. It’s not part of the Open Source Definition, but a subset of firms which call themselves Commercial Open Source think it should be. (Maybe they need a trademark, too.)
Right now, the trademark held by OSI is for “Open Source Definition,” and for the logo itself, not the term open source.
When Linux faced this question several years ago, the answer was for Linus Torvalds to trademark the term. Linuxmark now controls its use.
An older version of the OSI’s Web site, still cached by Google, says it is “Dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source trademark for the good of the community.”
But is it? Should it be? Does the Linuxmark story provide a guide to the future, or a cautionary tale?
Loading ...
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Linux and Open Source via Email alerts or RSS.
| 06/26/07
