As announced, I've been working with the Software Freedom Law Center, lawyers, and the Drupal Association on drafting a public trademark policy for use of the Drupal trademark. We're all happy with the current draft, so this is the time to open it up to the community to get further input and feedback. Please read it carefully, and let us know if you have comments or suggestions. This policy is obviously an important one as more and more people starting abusing the Drupal trademark. Thanks!
Drupal trademark policy
This trademark policy describes licensable uses of the Drupal trademark owned, licensed or controlled by Dries Buytaert. The Drupal Trademarks are managed with help from the Drupal Association (the "DA"). This policy is not a license and grants no permissions, nor does it make any promises. Some of this policy is simply a restatement of trademark law. Use of the trademark in connection with any product, service, organization or event (the "Product") except by permission from Buytaert or the DA and in conformity with the policy described here is expressly forbidden. This policy may be changed at any time with no notice.
Licensable uses of the "Drupal" trademark
You need to apply for a written license if you are using the term "Drupal" as part of your own trademark or brand identifier, regardless of whether the Product is commercial or not. This includes use in: the names of software products (ABC Drupal), domain names (abcdrupal.com), web site names (ABC Drupalzone), web services (ABC Drupal Address Verification Service), books (Drupal ninja secrets: the complete guide), training courses and curricula (ABC Advanced Drupal Administration) and certification programs/exams (Drupal Black Belt Certification) and events (ABC Drupal Confernece).
We would like domain names of the form "Drupal.xx.tld" to take people to local, non-profit Drupal organizations for the appropriate locale. Other uses are prohibited.
Use that does not require a written license
Non-commercial Products that exist solely to support Drupal and its adoption, use and users may use the Drupal trademark in promotional materials, such as posters, books, pins, and t-shirts.
Use of the trademark that is merely descriptive of the Product is acceptable without need of a license. If such description clearly separates your trademark from the Drupal trademark (e.g. by describing the Product as "YourProduct for Drupal"). In other words, you would not need a license to promote the name "TotalTraining for Drupal" but branding your product so it seems like it comes from Drupal (e.g. "Drupal TotalTraining") would not be permissible.
How to use the trademark
Any use of the trademark, whether under a license or not, must clearly indicate, and avoid all confusion about, the true source of the Product. You should mention your own trademark in combination with the Drupal trademark to make the Product unique and identifiable. For example, references to "Drupal Certified Administrator" may be confusing and should be avoided. Rather, please describe such a Product as "TotalTraining Drupal Certified Administrator".
If Buytaert or the DA request, you must accompany your use of the trademark by the following text: "The Drupal Trademarks are owned by Dries Buytaert and are managed with help from the Drupal Association. They are used with permission and do not indicate the approval the Drupal Association or Dries Buytaert of the content or the material herein."
Existing uses of the trademark
The requirements of this policy, including the need to acquire a written license, apply regardless of whether you are already using the Drupal trademark, regardless of how long you may have been using the trademark. All prior permissions granted by the Buytaert to use the trademarks are hereby terminated. If you don't have a written agreement, you have no license, and you'll need to get one or stop using the trademark. Sorry, but it has to be that way.
Applying for a license
To apply for a license, please submit a complete application form to Buytaert (for commercial uses) or the DA (for non-profit uses) that details exactly what use you want permitted and why such permission should be granted. It may take a month or more for your application to be evaluated. Applications may be rejected for any or no reason. You may reapply as often as you like. For commercial projects, a license fee might be required to help defray trademark expenses.
Buytaert and the DA are generally inclined to permit use of the trademarks for products and services that, in their sole judgment:
- Promote expanded Drupal adoption and usage; and
- Are not forks of Drupal and do not promote or encourage forks of Drupal; and
- Are licensed in ways that are compatible with the Drupal open source license; and
- Substantially strengthen and empower the Drupal community; and
- Are highly innovative and differentiated from existing efforts; and
- Are of the highest quality in both form and function; and
- Are priced and packaged in ways that make them highly affordable and accessible to a broad audience; and
- Are created by significant contributors to the Drupal project; and
- Are created by those with a track record of liberally "giving back" to their communities.
Any license granted by the Project is terminable at any time for any or no reason.
Comments
Work history
Kieran Lal provided a history of some (but not all) of the steps it took to arrive at this draft:
I think its important for
I think its important for 'Drupal' to be trademarked, but since you're the TM owner I'm confused what role the DA plays in this. They do the work of approving usage, and pay for legal fees, so shouldn't ownership be transferred to the DA?
Ownership
Dries is our safeguard against a hostile takeover of the association by pirates and/or ninjas. As long as he holds the copyright, we don't have to worry about it. On the other hand, if Dries were to succumb to a zombie attack, we might have a problem.
Trademark fees paid by Dries
The Drupal Association is a new organization. We couldn't do everything in Drupal ;-) At the time, Dries paid for the trademark and the legal expenses. We worked together to get and use legal council from SFLC.
The DA will help to protect the trademark, and may enter into litigation, specifically paying legal fees to protect the Drupal trademark as it's part of our mission. We don't need to own the trademark to help protect it, it's in good hands. This draft policy should make it clear that we are working closely together.
Cheers,
Kieran
I think it would be good to
I think it would be good to clarify just what "the Drupal trademark" is. The examples given imply it only applies to the word "Drupal," but I'm assuming it would also apply to logos. Is that correct?
The Boise Drupal Guy!
It applies to the Drupal
It applies to the Drupal word.
First of all, good job on
First of all, good job on getting this done. Getting registered with the various trademark bodies and putting these kinds of documents in place before serious problems arise is a good idea.
I understand the policy in this thread applies to the word (looking at the supporting documents on the US PTOs website, it appears that you sumbmitted a most generic drawing for the trademark without any reference to the logo), but what is the current disposition of the logo?
I looked around and saw that there as a page devoted to its history: http://drupal.org/druplicon but there's no mention of ownership. I assume it's copyrighted, but by whom? or what? (The Drupal Association? Steven Wittens?) Regardless, given the presence of this page: http://drupal.org/node/9068 it seems like whoever owns the logo has authorized copies to be made as well as the creation of derivative works.
Did the issue of the logo come up in the talks with Professor Moglen, James Vasile or anyone else at the SFLC? If so, what was their advice?
Mascot vs. Logo
We did discuss Druplicon with James Vasile, the result of which is summed up reasonably well (at least I think) here: http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/drupal-org-logo-trademark
In short: We're having Mark make us a new logo as part of the redesign process that can be subject to these rules in ways that we don't want Druplicon to be.
themes for drupal?
There is a convention to call themes/templates as CMS-name + theme/template. For example Drupal theme, Joomla template, Wordpress template.
Does this apply to Drupal themes? Should we call them themes for Drupal? (Is that linguistically correct? I'm not a native English speaker.)
TopNotchThemes have this phrase on their front page: "Real Drupal themes." Is this kind of phrasing going to be considered a violation of your licence terms?
Adjective
IANAL, but I speak to them frequently. :-) My gut feeling is that the terms "Drupal module" and "Drupal theme" are sufficiently generic that they would not pose a problem for the trademark any more than referring to WinSCP as a "Windows program" is a problem for Microsoft. It's just an adjective and does not imply any sort of commercial involvement.
Similarly, saying that there are several companies that offer "Drupal certification" is not itself a problem for the trademark. For one of those companies to imply that their certification is the certification for Drupal is a problem, and that is what we want to avoid. Ideally there will be several companies offering "Drupal certification" -- Foo Inc Certification for Drupal, Bar Corp Certification for Drupal, etc. -- and the market can shake out as the market shakes out.
Thanks for posting this
Hey, Dries -- thanks for posting this. I think it's important enough to be queued for the front page.
And even though it affects me directly, I'm pleased to see:
It really is the only fair way.
Tom Geller * San Francisco
Author/Presenter, "Drupal Essential Training" video series at Lynda.com
GellerGuides.com (Drupal) * SaveMyHomeBook.com (Drupal) * TomGeller.com (not Drupal)
Tom Geller * Oberlin * San Francisco * TomGeller.com
Author/Presenter, Drupal video series at lynda.com
Creator of materials for Drupal-focused companies
Seconded
This potentially has major implications for the entire community and should definitely be posted on the front page of drupal.org
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
James Cross Construction Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
I don't think this is ready for the front page yet.
Maybe after it's been through a few more iterations, and includes a section about nominative use, which is probably the most common way "Drupal" gets used.
Let me do another iteration
Let me do another iteration first based on community feedback from the g.d.o/legal community. I think there are a couple of suggestions that could be incorporated and that would improve the policy, and the clarity thereof.
hmmm....
Unfortunately, this policy is unusable for commercial purposes, as far as I'm concerned. The main problem is the last sentence. I'm not willing to invest time and money marketing a product that makes use of the Drupal trademark at the risk of my license being revoked at anytime for no reason. Brand recognition is too valuable, and such revocation seems unlikely unless a product has become particularly well recognized.
If I'm going to invest in a Drupal-related product, and potentially pay a license fee for the use of the trademark, I need some assurance that my investment won't be wasted. Blanket opportunity for revocation is not acceptable for business.
Should the fact that Acquia's distribution is called "Carbon" and not "DrupalPro" serve as advice to all of us....?
Drupal.org user profile
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000
Piggybacking
I cannot speak for Acquia, but I would say yes. :-) The point here is that we don't want individual companies "hijacking" the Drupal name and the brand recognition it has developed because of the community.
It's better for the community and for your company, too, to develop its own unique brand. Think Acquia, Palantir.net, Lullabot, Rain City Studios, PingVision, DevelopmentSeed, and a dozen others I apologize to for not mentioning. All very well known and successful Drupal companies, but none us the Drupal trademark in their own branding. That's better for your business anyway.
The revocation clause is to protect the trademark, in case someone licensing it starts to do "bad" things, for some definition of bad. Getting into a nitpicky fight over the definition of "bad" is the last thing we want to do in that case, so Dries and the DA reserve the right to define it however they want to. That's to protect the trademark and others making use of it, such as the Drupal project itself.
I hope 'Ninjitsu
I hope 'Ninjitsu Development' will soon be added to such listings. :-)
To my point:
Lullabot offers the "Drupal Podcast"
PingVision lists "Drupal Markup Engine" on their products page
Workhabit has described their product as "Drupal on the Cloud"*
*I can't speak for them, but I doubt they'd claim that as a trademark, though they might be annoyed if they were told they couldn't use that phrase anymore.
Anyway, as far as I know, I expect these companies would all be considered 'good citizens' and certainly have nothing to worry about. But since we can't predict the future, we can never know if corporate interests in limiting competition might provide incentive to exercise unchecked revocation. I think unrestrained competition is a better enforcer/incentivizer of good behavior than any licensing agreement.
Also, I'm not suggesting that anyone or any particular company is untrustworthy or likely to act unfairly toward the community. One can also consider third party concerns. For example, imagine that I am soliciting investors for my Drupal-based product. How will my investors feel if I tell them that our license to use the trademark could be revoked at anytime without cause? That greatly increases their risk, and decreases their likelihood of investing in Drupal, I would think.
Drupal.org user profile
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000
Drupal module/theme in the Drupal community
"Drupal Markup Engine" is not a commercial offering, it's a contributed module in the Drupal repository. I would be rather concerned if we are at the point that the Drupal community cannot use the Drupal trademark.
Laura
pingVision, LLC (we're hiring)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
Alternative?
matt2000, I understand your concern about the license being revocable. Note that I have no intent to revoke a license if people are good citizens. What do you suggest I change it to? Remind that the ability to revoke a license is important. Imagine I granted someone a license to provide Drupal certification but that it turns out to be fraud -- people are tricked into paying hundreds of dollars to take part in a certification program that does not exist. Not being able to revoke the license could be problematic for the Drupal brand ...
Something along these lines
Something along these lines would be a good start:
"License can be revoked without warning if used for fraudulent or illegal purposes. If license is revoked for any other reason, any license fees paid will be refunded in full, and 90 days notice will be provided to licensee before termination of license. In case of termination without cause, upon request of Licensee, in lieu of refund, Licensee shall be permitted to continue to sell existing products which make use of of the trademark, provided that such use and product do not violate the terms of the previous license."
Drupal.org user profile
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000
Also, the Linux Mark
Also, the Linux Mark Institute policy provides a good model:
http://www.linuxmark.org/linux_sublicense.php
See Section 2, Term and Terminiation.
The most valuable portion:
"2.3 LMI Termination. LMI may, in addition to any other rights it may have, terminate this Sublicense upon 30 days' prior written notice upon a breach by Sublicensee of any material term hereof; provided, however, that if the breach is capable of cure, Sublicensee shall have 21 days from the date of notice to cure the breach; provided further, however, that such cure period shall not apply in the sole and exclusive discretion of LMI if Sublicensee has previously breached and then cured, following notice by LMI, the same material term."
Drupal.org user profile
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000
Good example
matt2000, that is a good example indeed. I agree that adding such a statement would be an improvement. I'll discuss with the SFLC how we can add something similar and if they think it is a good idea. Thanks for the research.
This is wonderful.
Dries,
Thanks for this policy. It comes at a right moment as my company is working up on a Certification program. Revoking the license is absolutely necessary as you rightly pointed. I think it is also important to protect the interest of innovators so that others don't take on ideas of community and run with it.
It would be good if there is a mechanism put in place so that those who have floated the ideas and shown real intent to provide value added offering in Drupal are given first opportunity to build product line around that.
I'm sure community would not want to see 100's of companies offering "ABC Drupal Certification". I even volunteered to help Drupal Association for Drupal Certificiation as a part of my membership application http://buytaert.net/applications/ (Site is down for some reason).
Glad that you have announced this policy. Its much welcome.
Thanks Tom for directing me to this link.
Roshan
Can there be a commercial offering with Drupal in domain name?
For example.. http://www.doitwithdrupal.com/ has "drupal" word in domain name.
Here is from the faq section - http://www.doitwithdrupal.com/frequently-asked-questions
Is DIWD presented by the Drupal Association?
The event is presented and curated by the Lullabot team. Several of Lullabot's team members participate in the Drupal Association, but this event is not presented in coordination with the Association. However, $50 from each paid registration will be donated to the Drupal Association to help with Drupal infrastructure, events, promotion and distribution.
So essentially can anyone announce a commercial offering for a fee and give 0.5 - 1% to Drupal Association? e.g can I sell Drupal themes on drupaldesigns.com for lets say $300 and donate ($1.5 to $3) per theme to Drupal Association?
Roshan
can anyone announce a
Sure, why not? I'm sure your donation would be much appreciated.
Again, I'm sure they would thank you for your ongoing support.
This particular quid pro quo of donation for the right to use the domain name drupaldesigns.com, however, is not codified or outlined anywhere in the trademark discussion thus far. Also, your hypothetical supposes and arrangement between yourself and the Drupal Association. The trademark policy (as it pertains to you) is an arrangement between yourself (or company) and Dries Buytaert.
"The Drupal Trademarks are managed with help from the Drupal Association...", but ultimately it's between you and Dries.
Thoughts?
You'd need a license for
You'd need a license for both "Do It with Drupal" and "drupaldesigns.com".
Lullabot organizing a conference called "Do It With Drupal" is something I would approve -- Lullabot doesn't use "Drupal" in their company name, they use "Drupal" in a product name that helps promote Drupal, and they are a well-respected contributor. It is a good thing.
A company calling itself "Drupal Designs" I would not approve, regardless of the fact they donate back to the Drupal Association.
Good
Drupal Designs not as a company but as a site to sell Drupal Themes i.e "Drupal Designs from Cogdina" ? I'll keen to apply for License in this regards.
Using this as a model regarding domain names
So as another example a company with a name and products devoid of the "Drupal" name. Has domain names of helpwithdrupal.com and drupalhelper.com
They would practically be able to submit and get approval for helpwithdrupal.com, but not drupalhelper.com?? Does this make sense?
Great thread by the way!!
Bob Snodgrass
Bob Snodgrass
Examples
Should the fact that Acquia's distribution is called "Carbon" and not "DrupalPro" serve as advice to all of us....?
I intentionally did not use Drupal in the name of my company (i.e. Acquia). I could have called it "Drupal Services", "Drupal Productions" or "Mega Drupal" but I chose not to do so to keep the playing ground open and fair. Companies should not use Drupal in their company name.
That does not necessarily translate to products names though. Given a license, it is OK for people to use "Drupal" in product names as long as they add their own mark (per the trademark policy above). Names like "Acquia Drupal Support", "Lullabot Drupal Training", "Bryght Drupal Hosting", "Palantir Drupal Theming", "Lynda Drupal Certification" are allowed.
So, based on your example, "Drupal Pro" would not be allowed but "Acquia Drupal Pro" would, and so would be "Bryght Drupal Pro".
If you have a distinctive company name, I'm probably not going to reject your license application. If your company is blurry (i.e. your company is called "Best Value" and your product would be "Best Value Drupal Training"), I'm probably going to reject your license application. Of course, other decision factors come into play as well (i.e. history and track record) so it is not because you have a distinctive company name, that your applications get accepted.
Another citation from LMI
Another citation from LMI regarding of using term "linux" in another domain names ( http://www.linuxmark.org/faq.php#I_am_the_registered_owner_of_an_internet ):
I am the registered owner of an internet domain which includes the term "Linux." Do I need a sublicense?
The Linux Sublicense Agreement applies only to trademarks, but we recognize that internet domains are sometimes used as trademarks. If you are using your domain name as a trademark, then you will need a sublicense from LMI. For help determining whether your domain is a trademark, see the questions and answers at the top of this FAQ page.
So, once again ( see http://groups.drupal.org/node/15023#comment-52063 ), it means that if user has agree not to use domain name as a new trademark, then it should be allowed.
Any thoughts on this one?
Dr.Upal
Application form?
One more thing. You write:
Any idea when this application form will be available? Is there anything we could/should do in the meantime?
Tom Geller * San Francisco
Author/Presenter, "Drupal Essential Training" video series at Lynda.com
TomGeller.com * GellerGuides.com * SaveMyHomeBook.com
Tom Geller * Oberlin * San Francisco * TomGeller.com
Author/Presenter, Drupal video series at lynda.com
Creator of materials for Drupal-focused companies
I'm looking for the application too
I'm looking for the application too, if its available at this time.
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
Several comments
A few comments on the trademark policy draft:
Under "Licensable uses of the "Drupal" trademark," I believe that including the names of books, training courses, certification programs, and the events is overreaching. Under United States trademark law, these would generally fall under the classification of "nominative use" -- a use without which legitimate product cannot be described clearly. The book title Drupal Ninja Secrets: The Complete Guide illustrates this; "Drupal" is the one word in the title without which the book could not be described meaningfully.
A case on point is New Kids on the Block v. News Am. Pub., Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992). (USA Today published several reader surveys about the band New Kids on the Block, which sued it for trademark infringement. The court found that there was no infringement because using the band's name to identify a survey about the band was an example of nominative use. The Court's opinion is available on the web, for example, here.)
The last paragraph of this section ("Use of the trademark that is merely descriptive...") and the following section ("How to use the trademark") are accurate summaries of the law, and should be sufficient to deal with this issue. I would suggest simply omitting the books, etc. from the examples of licensable uses.
A grammatical point: in the paragraph under "Existing uses of the trademark," delete "the" in "granted by the Buytaert."
I think it is unfair to terminate existing licenses immediately and require their holders to make a new application which "may take a month or more" to be evaluated. This is an unreasonable burden on an enterprise that is acting in good faith. I suggest that current good-faith users be given a reasonable period of time to apply, and that their existing uses be allowed to continue while their applications are pending.
The provision that "Any license granted by the Project is terminable at any time for any or no reason" is liable to be troublesome. Others have addressed the issue, so I will only add this: there are indeed cases where it makes more sense to leave "Drupal" out of a Drupal-related product's name, but there are cases where it does not. For example, how does one distinguish a Drupal-related product from an otherwise identical product sold for use on other platforms? The license revocable at will is going to scare people off, whether there is good reason to be scared or not, because it suggests and unreliable business environment.
Great post
Here's a relevant quote from http://www.chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq
And..
PS: If Dries wants to be known as The Buytaert, I'm OK with that :)
The Buytaert abides
With those sunglasses, he's starting to look like The Dude.
---
Tom Geller * San Francisco
Author/Presenter, "Drupal Essential Training" video series at Lynda.com
GellerGuides.com (Drupal) * SaveMyHomeBook.com (Drupal) * TomGeller.com (not Drupal)
Tom Geller * Oberlin * San Francisco * TomGeller.com
Author/Presenter, Drupal video series at lynda.com
Creator of materials for Drupal-focused companies
Another good point
I believe it is not right to demand from people to licensing use of theirs domain name just because theirs domain names include your trademark word as long as those people do not pretending to represent you.
Another illustration of my point is that it is sound almost the same as if someone will claim that everyone who is using www. in front of your domain name will have to apply for written permission to do so.
I think that use of 'drupal' word in domain name should not be considered as a threat to Drupal trademark as long as domain name holder will not pretend to be an official representer of official Drupal services.
And BTW, how all of it can be reflected on people who is already register and own domain names with drupal as a part of it before Drupal trademark policy issue was raised?
Dr.Upal
Good feedback
I was not familiar with the term "nominative (fair) use" but I'll research that more, and I'll ask the SFLC to look into this. The book example is a good one. I've been actively working on making more books happen -- it is not my intent to make less books happen. I think this is simply a matter of phrasing things differently as we don't want to restrict "nominative (fair) use" (to the best of my knowledge).
Will fix the grammatical mistake.
Good point. That was an oversight, we'll want to provide some more flexibility there.
Agreed, see also my comment above. I think the Linux example is a good one.
Further point
Just to further the point of nominative use and the examples used for requiring licenses, consider the usage of groups - i.e. "sydney drupal user group" or the announcement of our events "september drupal meetup".
I'm also concerned that for example an annual event like DrupalCamp Australia 2008, would require a new license every year which seems a bit overly burdensome IMHO.
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
James Cross Construction Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
I'm glad you're working
I'm glad you're working towards clarity on this issue. I think that regardless if it's more or less restrictive than the current draft, most people will appreciate there simply being a written policy. And I plan to apply for use of the trademark regardless.
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (book, in October!)
AaronWinborn.com (blog)
Advomatic (work)
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (my book, available now!)
AaronWinborn.com
Advomatic
Let's get it right first
Not be contrary, but on the contrary, I would stress the importance of getting it right before simply pushing out any written policy. I suspect it will require twice the effort the change an existing policy when compared to the effort required to work out an optimal policy now.
That said, I do appreciate the effort to get the process started, and especially the seeking of community feedback. That's why Drupal rocks.
Drupal.org user profile
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000
Some clarifications needed...
The trademark is currently embedded in function names. Under the GPL, any portion of the Drupal code base can be redistributed in other GPL software without modifications.
For example, another GPL software package could include common.inc unmodified. The Drupal trademark is now legitimately (under the GPL) spread throughout that piece of software in the function names.
How is this reconciled with the trademark policy? Since the source code is licensed under the GPL, a programmer can't be compelled to change his or her function names.
Also, what constitutes a fork?
What you suggest would have bigger implications than you suggest
If what you say were true, then Google, Yahoo, Twitter and a slew of other trademarks would also be tossed into the GPL because of modules using their names. This strikes me as a non-starter. (Personally I feel even asserting this kind of claim would be very much akin to Corporation X claiming trademark on "Good Morning" which is the kind of thing happening quite a bit in the corporate world.)
Laura
pingVision, LLC (we're hiring)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
The difference here is that
The difference here is that Google, Yahoo, and Twitter were established brands prior to releasing any open source software. With Drupal, this is the first stab at really separating the brand from the offering. And while I think that's a good thing, my concern is that, without clarification, some people might get skittish about building Drupal derivatives. Corporate litigation has a lot of folks jumpy.
Good question, although it
Good question, although it seems a little far-fetched. I don't know the answer/solution to this scenario -- I'll check with the SFLC. I'd expect that trademark law wins from a license (it is a law after all), and that I'd be able to force them to rename their functions.
I don't think a derivative
I don't think a derivative is far-fetched. After all, you explicitly mention forks above.
Trying to force an open source project to change function names that are released as part of a GPL v2 and later API would create a lot of negative publicity in the open source community. It could be devastating for Drupal. It might also be viewed as a violation of Section 12 of GPL v3 (No Surrender of Others' Freedom).
Wouldn't it be better to work towards gradually removing the trademark from the function names? That would insure that the brand's value isn't diluted by derivatives using the GPL code base.
Wouldn't it be better to
Wow, thats some cracked out logic there. Take the drupal out of Drupal? Come on now.
druptube.com
I was wondering what my options were with a name like DRUPTUBE.com
There is no DRUPAL word in it, but there is the DRUP part... implying drupal.
My intention was to do videos about drupal... Mostly for newbies...
but eventually for more advanced people.
I also have druptube.org.
My intention is to write technical articles, but also to sell adds, market for project as well as setup a job search site. So that would be for profit. I would be OK with returning some revenue back to the DRUPAL association. Perhaps I would use ADBARD as the add engine.
eitherway, I need to get the paperwork in.
'Inflation is the one form of taxation not imposed by Legislation' - Milton Friedman
'Inflation is the one form of taxation not imposed by Legislation' - Milton Friedman
or...
'in an insane world, a sane man must appear insane' - spock
Edge cases are why lawyers exist
I can't speak for Dries in particular on that case. All I'll say is that "that's why lawyers exist". :-) There's always a razor-thin line for such things by law, but "common sense" doesn't get you as fine grained as the law does. For cases like that, I'd suggest consulting with a trademark attorney once the final policy is established. I really don't know trademark law well enough (and I suspect most here do not, either) to say when "Micro$surf", "Drup", and other "almost trademarks" cross the line into trademark issues.
Public comment period on license applications?
I've become aware of some organizations doing shady things around Drupal. Persistently spamming forums, taking money from their clients and not delivering as persistent business practice, banning employees from having their own Drupal.org user accounts, or forcing their employees to sign a contract forbidding them from working with Drupal if they leave their current employer. Some of these examples are just bad business, and some are down right in opposition to supporting Drupal.
Contractually banning employees from using free software is particularly egregious.
Will there be a public comment period on license applications so we can prevent having to revoke licenses at a later date?
Cheers,
Kieran
Non Compete is industry practice
What I think is :
1) An Individual can certainly have own accounts and use their own infrastructure and resources to contribute to Drupal - this is what most individuals are doing and this is very healthy.
2) An organization can certainly have guidelines for its employees if organization is mandating employees to make drupal contributions with its own infrastructure paying salaries and releasing the code back as an organization. Even companies with multi-million dollar funding would not want their contributions(if they release it back) to go under individual names or use Organization's resources for self promotion.
Non-compete and Non-Disclosures are standard practices in industry and honored by legal system in most part of the world.
Taking money from clients and not delivering (as per agreed scope) is certainly a BAD practice - very bad indeed. Also there are posts of Drupal developers and organizations underselling, over promising and underdelivering. They also leave clients mid-way and there are many posts where client have said "My Drupal developer has disappeared leaving me hanging".
Here is another scenario - a Client may not pay a service provider but still use Drupal and Service Provider may have all evidences of work done, accepted and payments promised. Can Drupal License be revoked in this case from the client? Will Drupal Association intervene in such cases?
Another scenario - If Client has Non-Solicitation clause with Drupal Service Provider (that means that they cannot hire resources of Service Provider). If Client discusses the intent of doing so without letting the Service Provider be made aware of this, how to report this to the community?. A policy if formed has to be uniform to address all scenarios but I doubt it belongs there.
Forcing employees to sign contract is wrong but if the contracts are signed willingly then there should be no issues on that and once signed, they needs to be honored.
I don't think any organization in the world today just gets people, locks them, forces them to sign contract, puts them a room and stops them from working somewhere else. What organizations try to do is to see that the new hires just don't jump around to guy next door and create competition after getting all the training at organization's expenses.
These are general contracts and standard business practices. This has nothing to do with Trademark or licensing or maybe it is. I am not a legal expert. Drupal needs individual talent as well as companies - http://buytaert.net/on-hiring-drupal-talent. There are many brilliant individual developers and there are some great companies out there. Each has their own style of working and everyone has their own ecosystem.
What needs to be looked at is long term for interest of everyone. Too many curbs is likely to create a rift in community.
Roshan
Just FYI : There are many individuals in India whose first name start with "Drupal" and if they learn Drupal and provide Drupal Services under their own name i.e "Drupal xxx xxx", it can be another point to consider in trademark law.
Do we really want the Drupal
Do we really want the Drupal Org to be micromanaging lists of naughty and nice developers? It's all subjective, anyway; the other side of "my Drupal developer left me hanging" could be "my client's check bounced" or something like that.
Maybe this could be the job of some Drupal developer rating site or something like that. I'd rather not code in an environment similar to what the iPhone folks are having to deal with - with a single gatekeeper arbitrarily deciding my fate.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
Discourage non-competition and other bad practices
Non-competition clauses in employee's contracts are very bad industry practice and usually don't stand up in a court of law because they involve restricting an employee's freedom to earn a living by exercising their trade. The free market is about not restricting people's freedom to practice their trade as opposed to the way this used to be restricted by guilds and other trade organizations in past eras.
Employees of organisations engaging in dodgy practices should be aware that a contract that violates the law is not valid, whether or not the employee signed it willingly. Also signing a contract willingly does not take away the signee's legal rights. An obvious example of this is: somebody willingly signing a slavery contract can't be forced to addhere to the contract because it is not legal and therefore not binding.
The Drupal community needs good practices - bad practices like getting employees to sign contracts that restrict their rights are more likely to cause rifts in the community. Sustainable marketing and ultimately business models are based on service quality, transparency and customer satisfaction. The license to use a trademark can be helpful to get a business started, but certainly isn't enough to sustain it.
Maybe there should be language in the Trademark that makes it legitimate to withdraw its use to a licensee engaging in poor employee / work practices? Such practices don't belong in an open and civil community like Drupal.
Prodosh Banerjee / Safe Swiss Cloud / Drupal, B2B and Cloud Solutions
Would be difficult to put in Trademark
Not sure what has this to do with Trademark practices.
1) What you are saying is that an employee of an organization that works in Drupal Services business can walk out and solicit business from the same client and According to you that is fair thing.
2) Also on the same lines, if your employee or intern takes away your site code and technology and goes out and starts on his own business with your code this is legitimate as per you?
3) If you train a resource who had no Drupal expertise, you pay the resource for 6 to 8 months to pick up skills and be productive and the resource does not add value of single $ but then walks out and starts a new firm next door - this is legitimate?
I also don't see why this would create a rift in community. This has nothing to do with drupal community, its standard business practices unless someone thinks otherwise.
Non-compete are certainly enforceable and legit and much needed else there will be a chaos all around. There is usually a restriction of 50 to 100 miles radius to my knowledge where you can't compete directly.
Roshan
Now that's a thing :-)
Golly, where does that leave all them? I don't think we can penalize them...
Surely if "DrupalPro" is an inappropriate moniker then "DrupalFan" is not much different?
If DrupalPro is allowed to keep their name and online identity, then it's reasonable they can also market "DrupalPro Web Services" ? ( BTW, looks like that user basically did! I just made up the name to see what would happen )
Tricky :-/
Glad IANAL.
What about local communities?
Maybe I've missed something, but I haven't found anything here that applies to local communities or Drupal user groups around the World.
Since I'm running this Spanish user's group, named "Drupal Hispano", http://drupal.org.es/, I'd like to know whether I should be applying for a written license, or is there anything here that allows such groups or communities to use the "Drupal" name
I think maybe the best solution would be to add some generic permission for such web sites on the line of:
In this case the site would be "Non-commercial" and "exist solely to support Drupal and its adoption", however I don't know whether the above clause may include such usage or not as it just mentions "products"....
Thanks.
Non-compete agreements
I haven't seen the wording that the O.P. referred to, but what he described was more than a non-compete or non-disclosure agreement. It was an agreement not to work with Drupal at all, regardless of what knowledge was used or when or how it was acquired.
Non-compete provisions in employment contracts are common, but in most U.S. jurisdictions, at least, they are strictly limited. An agreement not to work with an entire publicly available technology is near the edge of what a court would be willing to enforce; probably over the edge.
Make drupal face part of the trademark
Can the Drupal face ( also known as Drupal icon ) be trademarked or made part of the logo
as it was originally as pointed by one user in http://web.archive.org/web/20011215004102/www.drop.org/themes/marvin/ima... at http://www.markboultondesign.com/news/detail/cap_d_or_not_splash_or_not/
In the same thread I found some very contradictory statements by Eclipse
"You can’t trademark something that’s GPL’d"
"As for Drupal… the product is GPL’d however the name is TM’d"
(( Is the name out of the arena of the product ? Is the product exclusive of the name or inclusive? ))
If the name 'Drupal' can be used by the community and variants/distortions of it be widely used such as Drupal_Con ( conference) etc, and yet the root name can be trademarked, the same applies to the Drupal face icon or logo - it can be used by the community and yet the root or specific variant of it can be trademarked.
It is strange that the "however" in the above clause can apply to name but not the mark ( face/icon/logo/mascot)
The drupal face that was in the drupal logo integrally and initailly (eg, as it was in Drupal 2 etc) is now wrongly and "suddenly" being promoted as a mascot. Mascots are not just picture files on computer but they are available as dolls or inanimate models or humans dressing up like that in shows and events. The Drupal face never used to appear in these ways - neither it used to be sold as toys or dolls like elePHPant elephant stuffed toys.
Another point to think is that commercial 'products' or even if the same Drupal is distributed or service-packed for a price it would be having a different name like Green Hat Drupal, Duse Drupal or something completely different without the word Drupal .This name/names can then be trademarked and fancy logos be applied.
The name Linux is tradenamed and there is no commercial aspect to Linux kernel ( meaning its a free-of-price download) - similarly Drupal kernel or core can remain as such while the 'product' and 'services' can be called xyz__Drupal or Drupal__xyz or something completely different without the word Drupal . And this name/names can be trademarked. If Drupal is having its own commercial wing will the product be called Drupal or something else that is to be trademarked and tradenamed ?
One more point : GPL does allow ( or it does not ? ) to distribute "Drupal", say, for example the drupal core ( with or without price) from a site which has no mention of "drupal" in its domain or products.
But simply says
"download drupal"
"installation issues solved by us at $0 or $something"
Since this will be under GPL can such site be forced to / do they need to have a licence ?
Druplicon is GPL
Druplicon is GPL. You bring up an interesting point when you mention the new logotype containing drops. One could argue the logotype has become a derivative work of Druplicon, the definitive Drupal drop.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/101.html
If the new logotype is found to be a derivative work of an existing GPL'd work (Druplicon), that could certainly be a problem.
www.Drupal.my for local malaysia community
Greetings!
I am running (just started) a local drupal community in Malaysia but can't seems to find the link to the above application form. Can you make it easy to find i.e have a link from the above description. Well, it has been commented a few time anyway ... For now I just put "Drupal is a registered trademark of Dries Buytaert. "
Thank you.
-najibx -
<a href="http://www.successideaweb.com>Drupal web developer | designer in Malaysia
8 and 9
Hi Dries,
At the bottom of the post, points 1 through 7 look fair and even for everyone. Points 8 and 9 are very different for me and I think they need a lot of strengthening and clarification.
8. Are created by significant contributors to the Drupal project; and
9. Are created by those with a track record of liberally "giving back" to their communities.
Two things make me uncomfortable here.
First thought is that I don't think permission to use the trademark should be granted based on the reputation of the individual. A very reputable person could abuse the trademark. Permission should be granted based on the intended use of the trademark only.
The second is that this looks like people who are "big names" in Drupal get special consideration and possibly get special use of the trademark. It suggests there are different rules for different people which makes the policy a little cloudy.
I can tell you want to place a value on participation within the Drupal community but I don't believe that 8 and 9 should be criteria for granting use of the trademark.
Thanks for seeking feedback on this policy, too.
Druplicon is GPL ...so is Drupal
Druplicon is GPL. - johnforsythe@dr...
So is 'Drupal' - 'Drupal' is GPL ... yet it is trademarked. And yet 'Drupal' is usable by the community/ various users. Similarly Drupalicon can be trademarked also and still be used by the community or various users.
Drupal face has been part of the Drupal logo [ see Drupal logo gif at http://web.archive.org/web/20011215004102/www.drop.org/themes/marvin/ima... ] , and now suddenly saying this as just mascot only does not hold true for many.
Drupal and Linux
Drupal the software is GPL. Linux the software is GPL.
Drupal the word, is trademarked. Linux the word, is also tradmarked.
Druplicon is GPL. Tux is also GPL.
In other words, yes it is GPL, and yes it is trademarked. Not unheard of.
Trademark law is funny in that you have to actively defend the trademark for it to be valid. If you do not defend it, then it sort of lapses and you can't claim it is trademarked anymore.
So Dries has to actively defend the use of the trademark, because the law says so.
In the meantime, non profit use and use for promoting Drupal does not even require written permission.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Don't confuse the code with the brand name
Drupal's code is released under the GPL, but the trademarked brand name isn't. They're two separate things.
The same is true for most major open source projects. Joomla, MySQL, etc. The code is GPL, the trademark is not.
About #2 I am assuming that
About #2
I am assuming that this is to help prevent confusion...
But are actual forks of Drupal discouraged ?
http://www.TrinidadWebmaster.com - My webmaster services
http://www.Motorology.com - My group of business websites and services
http://www.TrinidadAndTobagoFootball.com - Trinidad and Tobago Football
Forks
This is free software, anyone can fork it. This is by desgin in most free software licenses, including GPL.
Forks can be for good reasons or bad reasons. Most common ones are for bad reasons, and cause fragmentation of the effort, duplication of effort, incompatibility and confusion for end users. So, they are discouraged because of that.
In order not to infringe on the tradmark, a fork should not be called "Drupal" anymore. Call it Bob or Jim, and everything is fine. You can even use the Druplicon, which is GPL too.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Forks are cool
Forks are not discouraged, but calling your own special fork by the name of Drupal is prohibited here. It's no longer Drupal and shouldn't dilute the brand or compete with the trademark. Acquia, for example, is calling their special version of Drupal by the name Carbon.
Fork, or base to build on?
My comment was not about legality (forks are allowed), but about practicality (allowed, but discouraged for practical reasons).
A "fork" is where the code diverges and probably never gets merged back in the future. They become two separate code bases. It normally happens due to disagreements of the developers, and some go out and do their own thing.
Contrast that with just being a base to build upon, with custom additions. It is more like a Distro, and not a fork. Redhat, Ubunutu, ...etc. do not fork the Linux kernel. They may add their own patches, but as time passes, they get the standard kernel and add their patches to it. They don't become an independent code base.
Civicspace is/was a distro for Drupal. It started with custom code inside it that made it difficult to merge with Drupal when new releases came out. So, it became a distro in later times.
So go ahead and build your own distro based on Drupal, add your own patches (and hopeful contribute them too). All this is cool. Fork it if you want to, but you have to live with the consequences of stale code and difficult or impossible upgrades.
Clearer now?
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Carbon is a development code name
Carbon is Acquia's development code name, not the final product name. Microsoft called Windows Vista, "Longhorn" during development.
Kieran
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
What determines "non-commercial"
Dries, Thank you very much for explaining the legal usage of the Drupal name and mark.
Can you please further explain the definition of "Non-commercial Products" i.e., in the original post, "...books [such as] (Drupal ninja secrets: the complete guide)" would require a license. While "Non-commercial Products that exist solely to support Drupal and its adoption, use and users may use the Drupal trademark in promotional materials, such as posters, books, pins, and t-shirts."
What determines if a book (or any widget) is commercial?
If I had a site which freely distributed Drupal tips & tricks this would clearly be non commercial. When I take this same information and sell it to a publisher, it becomes commercial (or does it?) Would Drupal Ninja Secrets require licensure because it attaches "Drupal" to the brand of the book or because the book is a commercial product? Is the commercial distinction added at point of sale? What types of books are not commercial? Whenever a book is printed (or any product is generated) expenses are incurred. Can these costs be shared between end users or must non-commercial products be distributed for free? Am I making this more complicated than it needs to be?
Thank you very much. Blessings!
-NP
There are many sites with
There are many sites with Drupal as part of the domain name. Try this Google search to get an idea http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3A%22drupal*.com%22
Many of these sites promote Drupal but cannot be considered non-commercial , e.g. because of offering services or products or display of advertising.
Will there be a fixed license fee for commercial sites using Drupal as part of their domain name or will license fees vary depending on various factors?
--
My Drupal Articles
Grace period
In the event that a trademark license is not granted to those of us currently using it, it would be great if you set a policy for a reasonable grace period in order for us to re-brand our business. This way we wouldn't be in violation of a policy or law as soon as you officially publish it.
A friend of mine had just opened a gardening business and unfortunately picked a name that was too similar to another trademarked company. The other company was kind enough to grant a period of six months to change his business name, print new marketing materials, order new work shirts and hats, re-stencil his truck, change bank accounts, change domain names, and finally inform clients of all the changes. All of these things are a fair amount of time and expense, and comes a risk of losing business in the transition.
I use a domain that includes the name Drupal (drupaltherapy.com), though its not a business name. I'm not certain if this would be approved, and I plan to apply, but a grace period policy would make me fairly comfortable that I could work through a name change transition if I had to.
OK... so...
I have a trivial personal subsite:
http://drupal.coders.co.nz/
Which is simply a drop-box for unreleased module code, random documentation and my own API-generated docs.
Essentially my own unmaintained Drupal blog.
There's not a heck of a lot of technical difference between having it as a subsite
drupal.coders.co.nz/or a subfoldercoders.co.nz/drupal.. Only I like subsites for things like this. Yet the policy here seems to make a distinction. For reasonable reasons.I won't claim to be non-profit, or a community group, as I get paid to provide Drupal services quite regularly.
I respect what's going on here, but I don't get the feeling that the policy was intended to stop me doing what I do with that (sub)domain. Although it reads that way, in fact it says it 'prohibits' my use.
I don't want to rename it, (rebrand) because I don't think that makes sense. Sure, I will if I have to - this name is not worth arguing over to me. I will rename it however (I already have it aliased as api.coders.co.nz) rather than apply for a license, as it is just not that important to me. Equally I may just delete the whole thing if it's going to cause headaches.
BUT the concession I'm most happy to make, and one which certainly makes sense to me, is I can but a nice footer-disclaimer with "Drupal is a registered trademark of Dries Buytaert" onto that site and get on with developing.
Is that good enough, or not?
.dan.
... and I guess that sites that use the word incidentally - like http://drupal.zarafa.com/ - just to indicate internally that that's their 'drupal' subsite compared to their 'iis' site or their 'ubb' site or their 'docs' site or their 'shop' site are now in breach?
A good
A good example:
http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/
What is the status of the application site?
http://buytaert.net/applications/
Indicates it is off line. Any idea when we can start applying for applications? Thanks very much.
http://davidhertzberg.com
Drupal user page: http://drupal.org/user/34423
Feedback from satisfied customers: http://drupal.org/node/180284
http://davidhertzberg.com
Drupal user page: http://drupal.org/user/34423
Feedback from satisfied customers: http://drupal.org/node/180284
Any changes?
Have there been any changes to the policy based on the comments in this thread? Is it ready for broader public consumption and opinion over on the front page of d.o?
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
James Cross Construction Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
Importance of Trademarks
Couldnt agree more re: the importance of the TM. People should be able both to trade off and promote it at the same time. Im looking to incorporate the principles into our site.
James Bateman
Director
http://www.medicaleducator.co.uk
James Bateman
Director
http://www.medicaleducator.co.uk
Questions about my project
I've been maintaining a set of modules and calling them Drupal for Facebook. Along with the modules, I have a site called drupalforfacebook.org, and also an application on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/drupalforfacebook.
My reading of the draft tells me that I need written permission for the module name and the drupalforfacebook.org URL. And also the Facebook Application because it's called "Drupal for FB" (Facebook does not allow the word "facebook" in app titles). Do I also need permission for the apps.facebook.com/drupalforfacebook URL (which contains "drupal" but not in the domain)?
My reading is that my use is non-commercial and I should go to the Association for permission. However, suppose I start to run ads on the site. Would I then have to ask Dries? If so, would it be approved?
Now I also have to see if I'm violating Facebook's trademark...
Applying for a license
Please, clarify how to submit license applications. Thanks.
not currently possible
This is just a draft of the guidelines. It's not currently possible to apply for a license. When the draft is finalized and the process is enacted then it will be announced more broadly (I assume on d.o homepage) at which point a process will be clear.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
Drupal wordmark / Druplicon on business cards?
Is it allowed to use the Drupal wordmark or Druplicon on business cards? Or for instance altered versions of Drupalicon or the "infinite eyes" symbol? So to have the organization's name on one side and the Drupal wordmark or logo on the other side?
With the drupal.org redesign
With the drupal.org redesign well on its way, allow me to bump this once. Does/will the trademark allow us to use the new Drupal wordmark and Drupalicon on business cards? Can we use titles like "Drupal developer" and "Drupal expert"? If this isn't the proper place to post this, can anyone direct me to the best place to put this?
A decision has not been
A decision has not been reached yet on either question, but I will say that the new wordmark is copyrighted by the Drupal Association and unlike Druplicon it will not be released under the GPL.
Thanks, so that would mean
Thanks, so that would mean that we would be able to use Druplicon and the Drupal word (for instance: "Drupal developer") but not the wordmark?
official trademark policy
for those visiting this thread after august 2009, see the official trademark policy at http://drupal.com/trademark
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland