Does anyone have insights into the issue of trademark ownership for names used in open source projects? OASIS policy has long been to avoid using trademarks owned by others, just so that we can ensure our project names are safe for the community to use.Â
Currently, we have a fewÂprojects in our OP pipeline where the proposers want to use names they have trademarked. In some cases, the proposers are non-commercial entities but in others, they are for-profits. Is it enough to require them to give OASIS (and the community) perpetual usage rights for the marks, or should we require them to transfer all rights to us? Certainly, the latter would be safer, but we want to respect the sensibilities and expectationsÂof the open source community as well.
What do other foundations do?
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