Posted by carpenter.490 on January 7, 2011 at 7:58pm
I have a web service built on drupal which I would like to release as a bundled package with drupal core and a set of modules which I've created. I would release this code under the GPL, but would like to maintain a trademark on the name of the web service. Are there any legal issues with this? Do I need to make mention that the service is built on drupal? Thanks ahead of time for any help
Comments
Just a non-lawyer's opinion
As I understand it there is not (and cannot be) any legal requirement that the phrase Drupal be in any modified code under the GPL.
You say webservice and that is where I am unclear .. by this do you mean:
(A) you will run your new software on your own servers ? or
(B) you have written software that others can run a webservice using your sofwtare on their servers ?
If the answer is "A" then the GPL does not apply unless you start distributing the actual code to others in some form. Client software that runs separate from your servers (only talks to Drupal over the net) would also not fall into the GPL.
Of course you are always welcome to volunteer your software to the GPL community.
Like I said, I am not a lawyer and you should hire one to be sure but this is my understanding.
Basically I want to be able
Basically I want to be able to distribute my code for public use as a stand-alone application. Many of the people who might want to use the software will not likely have a drupal instance already in place. I would like to package my modules with drupal core so that after installing drupal the site is already configured with the theme, modules, menus, etc. already in place.
I would be distributing this code under the GPL, but would like to brand the distribution with my own trademark.
Sounds like a distribution
There are a growing number of Drupal Distributions already. Open Atrium, Managing News, Drupal Commons, and various others come to mind. That's totally fine, and you're free to brand the app however you like (provided you don't violate the Drupal trademark itself, which it doesn't sound like is an issue). I don't know off hand if Open Atrium or Managing News are trademarked terms, but I see no reason they couldn't be.
You don't have to go out of your way to say that the distribution is built on Drupal, but you do need to leave any copyright and licensing statements in the code intact. (E.g., LICENSE.txt, COPYRIGHT.txt, etc.)
Drupal.org is working on support for building distributions directly on the site for you as well. I'm not sure off hand if there would be a trademark issue there, but from a technical and code licensing standpoint that is an option I would encourage you to consider. It would get you a lot of extra exposure, too.
Which license?
Shouldn't the drupal license that is distributed with the code be amended to include the terms of the trademark. I refer to my post here http://groups.drupal.org/node/132694. By introducing the trademark to the Drupal distribution, isn't it now a gaping omission to not have the terms of the trademark included with the distribution of the same name. In my opinion, the association has effectively amended the GPL by adding the terms of the trademark for the same name. And so don't we now have a situation where the president of a not-for-profit association has an economic interest in licensing the trademark to those who wish to use it commercially?
For the sake of transparency, I believe people downloading the Drupal Open Source software should have a copy of the trademark license included and should be informed that the name the association uses for its software is not owned by the association, effectively creating a two-tier license, one which refers to the software and another which refers to the name of the software.