The current Trademark License Agreement is unacceptable

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 05:15:45PM +0200, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 28.08.2009, 08:30 -0500 schrieb Mike McGrath:
> > 
> > Honestly as someone who's not involved in this at all and just watching
> > from the outside, it seems like y'all are working hard to find ways to
> > make this not work instead of the other way around.  
> 
> First of all I'm not really involved ether, because I do not own a
> Fedora* domain. I am member of the Fedora Project and I work hard to get
> the wider community, e. g. people running sites about Fedora involved in
> the Fedora project or to at least enhance the cooperation between them
> and the project. I *want* them to sign a contract, but unfortunately I
> cannot recommend signing the TLA in it's current form, even as a member
> of the project who believes in Red Hat's good will.
> 
> Second: Please don't use generalizations like "you all". My position is
> different from Robert's or Richard's for example. But I share their
> concerns, at least to a certain degree.
> 
> > After these questions
> > are answered, will you come up with some more?
> 
> Not sure about others, but I cannot tell anybody to sign a contract if
> he still has questions.

Christoph, to what extent have my explanations answered your
questions?  I tried to address all your points, including letting you
know that we intend to eliminate the 3(a) clause you objected to.

I do agree that people shouldn't sign contracts they don't understand,
which is exactly why I've tried to explain the issues you wrote about.
It would be more productive for us to carry on that conversation and
not be derailed by unproductive assumptions about people's motives, or
assuming that overly literal readings of the agreement are the correct
ones.

I know that you are a great community member and the intention of this
agreement isn't, and hasn't ever been, to derail your work.  I think
any such perception can be fixed through a better understanding of
what the text actually means -- as opposed to how you or I might
interpret it, which isn't necessarily how it would be interpreted in
the legal sense -- and the willingness of our counsel to help us find
ways to improve the agreement, which I think you've already seen by
the offer to eliminate the 3(a) clause.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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