The current Trademark License Agreement is unacceptable

[Matt Domsch]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 02:21:02AM +0200, Robert Scheck wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Luis Villa wrote:
> > In the meantime, it is silly to talk about shutting down your domain
> > or 'extinguishing community' because of this agreement. If you're
> > using the Fedora mark in a domain name, Red Hat/Fedora can already
> > take it from you via ICANN. They're virtually guaranteed to win that
> > case.
>
>
> Did I mention, that it could make bad press, if Red Hat suits a longtime
> Fedora Contributor and owner of a German domain name related to the Fedora
> Project just in order to get and hold that Fedora Project related German
> domain name?

no doubt.  If we were to the point where Red Hat was suing
contributors who are acting in good faith, then I'd argue that the
whole project had failed.  I don't think "bad press" is enough concern
to prevent such a suit - if there was a serious violation of "good
faith" that warranted action, "bad press" would be the least of the
worries.


> Conclusion: If I ever find a plaint by Red Hat regarding a Fedora Project
> related German domain name in my postbox, two of our "Fedora f"s are  a lie.

presumably "freedom" and "friends".  Clearly the "friends" part would
be gone, but "freedom" does not mean "I can do whatever I want".  With
freedom comes responsibility.  In this case, that responsibility (for
all parties involved) includes following trademark law.

This whole thing is not about making enemies of contributors, or
believing any of our contributors are acting in bad faith.  The
trademark license is all about protecting the project from people
(presumably _not_ contributors) who act in bad faith and against the
welfare of the Project, and having a remedy.

One could argue that a "bad faith" actor would likely never have
signed the TLA in the first place; As Luis points out, nothing
prevents the trademark owner from going after them.  The converse is
that the trademark agreement then _protects_ the domain owner who acts
in good faith (as Paul notes, with section 3a being removed).