"Open Source" trademark consultation

According to http://www.spi-inc.org/news/1998/19981124 :
>The consultation period will end at midnight at the end of the calendar
>year 1998, UTC. All consultation responses will be made public by SPI after
>the consultation period has closed, unless the respondent specifically
>requests otherwise.

I have seen no responses made public yet, nor any statement from SPI
regarding the "Open Source" trademark situation, nor any indication if (and
if so, how) the trademark situation is affected by Bruce Perens' statement
regarding his resignation from OSI (widely publicised and discussed in free
software news media, e.g.
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/02/18/0927202.shtml), in which he accuses
OSI (and Eric Raymond in particular) of having lost the free software focus,
and hints at unconscionable abuse of the Open Source mark.

The opensource.org domain still has "Software in the Public Interest" as its
registrant, and http://www.spi-inc.org/trademarks still says "The Open
Source trademark is managed by Eric Raymond on behalf of the free software
community". However, http://www.opensource.org/osi-launch.html still claims
SPI transfered the "Open Source" mark to Eric Raymond and that OSI's
"mission will be to own and defend the Open Source trademark, [...]".

In short, the "Open Source" trademark situation is still a mess, and there's
a distinct possibility of it getting even messier, and I've seen no signs of
activity by SPI to untangle this mess since the announcement I quoted
earlier.

Needless to say, I find this extremely disappointing. I can only express my
(unfortunately increasingly dwindling) hope that SPI will act now, and act
in an open fashion to resolve this issue.

Ray
--
Tevens ben ik van mening dat Nederland overdekt dient te worden.

On Fri, Feb 26, 1999 at 10:11:16AM +0100, J.H.M. Dassen wrote:
> I have seen no responses made public yet, nor any statement from SPI
> regarding the "Open Source" trademark situation, nor any indication if (and
> if so, how) the trademark situation is affected by Bruce Perens' statement
> regarding his resignation from OSI (widely publicised and discussed in free
> software news media, e.g.
> http://slashdot.org/articles/99/02/18/0927202.shtml), in which he accuses
> OSI (and Eric Raymond in particular) of having lost the free software focus,
> and hints at unconscionable abuse of the Open Source mark.
>
> The opensource.org domain still has "Software in the Public Interest" as its
> registrant, and http://www.spi-inc.org/trademarks still says "The Open
> Source trademark is managed by Eric Raymond on behalf of the free software
> community". However, http://www.opensource.org/osi-launch.html still claims
> SPI transfered the "Open Source" mark to Eric Raymond and that OSI's
> "mission will be to own and defend the Open Source trademark, [...]".
>
> In short, the "Open Source" trademark situation is still a mess, and there's
> a distinct possibility of it getting even messier, and I've seen no signs of
> activity by SPI to untangle this mess since the announcement I quoted
> earlier.
>
> Needless to say, I find this extremely disappointing. I can only express my
> (unfortunately increasingly dwindling) hope that SPI will act now, and act
> in an open fashion to resolve this issue.

Agree, agree, agree, in general.

Having been subscribed to the SPI board list for some time I think the
problems center around:

- The board being generally too busy with personal matters to draft or
decide action on the mark.

- A general hesitance to piss ESR or OSI in general off.

I think that getting more people involved would help raise confidence
in taking independant action and would create more calories of human
energy to attack these problems with.

--
___________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler As above
Novare International Inc. so below
--- Some or all of the above signature may be a joke

>>>>> "Ean" == Ean R Schuessler <ean(at)novare(dot)net> writes:

Ean> I think that getting more people involved would help raise
Ean> confidence in taking independant action and would create more
Ean> calories of human energy to attack these problems with.

The announced "Consultation about the Open Source trademark", posted
on Nov 24 1998, states:

The consultation period will end at midnight at the end of the
calendar year 1998, UTC. All consultation responses will be made
public by SPI after the consultation period has closed, unless the
respondent specifically requests otherwise.

Being well after new-year, I believe time has come to clean up this
mess one way or another. It does seem like SPI can expect solid
support for its position - at least if the only other alternative is
to legally transfer the mark to OSI.

-tor

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, J.H.M. Dassen wrote:

> According to http://www.spi-inc.org/news/1998/19981124 :
> >The consultation period will end at midnight at the end of the calendar
> >year 1998, UTC. All consultation responses will be made public by SPI after
> >the consultation period has closed, unless the respondent specifically
> >requests otherwise.
>
> I have seen no responses made public yet, nor any statement from SPI
> regarding the "Open Source" trademark situation [snip]
>
> In short, the "Open Source" trademark situation is still a mess, and there's
> a distinct possibility of it getting even messier, and I've seen no signs of
> activity by SPI to untangle this mess since the announcement I quoted
> earlier.

I agree with Mr. Dassen regarding the urgency of resolving this situation.
Inaction by SPI will only increase the anxiety many people are
feeling about this matter.

Given the lack of public comment about the trademark, despite early
promises of action, it would seem that the disposition of the mark is not
really important to SPI. I, for one, would like to see the trademark
managed actively and without dispute. While the community is divided over
this issue, education and outreach about Open Source will retain the taint
of the dispute.

----
Richard L. Bullington III <rbulling(at)microstate(dot)com>
Chief Technology Officer, The Microstate Corporation
Phone: 703-591-9797 URL: http://www.microstate.com/
PGP key IDs: RSA: 0x93862305 DH/DSS: 0xDAC3028E