Branding and Fedora question..

[Warren Togami]

Margaret Lum wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> As we are in the process of open sourcing, there were some questions 
> that came up.  In particular is the issue of branding.
> 
> It is my understanding from a few IRC conversations (#fedora-admin) that 
> no project may use the Fedora brand WITHOUT undergoing the review 
> process, or being subject to the restrictions (ie, building/running with 
> GCJ for java components) of Fedora's packaging guidelines.  A 
> Fedora-branded package is one that will eventually be in the operating 
> system.
> 
> While I realize this may seem obvious, please clarify this mandate, so I 
> can propagate the information to the right channels in my team.
> 

Given an understanding of your goals after our talk today... you don't 
need to have it pass the package review process as a prerequisite for 
calling it Fedora.  The trademark guidelines were written mainly to 
limit the activities of outsiders from misusing the Fedora trademark.

Consider the case of how Fedora Directory Server was named for the 
nearest comparable situation.  FDS was named such as a business decision 
when it was revealed to the public under a FOSS license.  It was many 
months later when it became technically possible to package FDS into a 
RPM suitable to pass review by Fedora's packaging guidelines.

For your certificate related software that is in the process of opening, 
I would recommend treating that as an internal business decision too. 
You will want to think about trademarks of the product, whether the 
names should be different between the Enterprise and Fedora versions 
like it is with FDS and RHDS.  The names chosen can be used within the 
preparations of the new instance of a community project website that we 
discussed earlier today.  Then it is only a matter of bringing the 
business-side approval to get the blessing of the Fedora board, which 
shouldn't be any problem because the new release will be FOSS.

Of course there are many more details here, but this is the basic idea.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com