I can't believe this petty, in-group absurdity. It's Home Owners Association-level bullshit the likes of which I've never seen before in the software community.
They've created thousands of ways you can't create Rust events or even associate yourself with the language. It's 100% exclusionary and seems to go well beyond trademark protection.
The language doesn't belong to them.
I'm half minded to fork Rust and call it "Crust" or "Crab Language".
The article starts with the desire to attend Rust conferences while strapped with firepower. Unfortunately, that's a loaded (ha) topic, which I'd guess will alienate maybe half the readers of the article, before they learn that there's things in the draft that do bother them...
Just flipping around the draft, I see things like this:
> 5.1.2 Websites
> You may use the Word Marks and Logos, but not the Trade Dress, on your webpage to show your support for the Project as long as:
I think anyone will use these terms and senses of "Rust", "Cargo", and "Clippy" on Web pages for most whatever purposes they want, not only to "show [their] support for the Project".
There's more in the draft like that.
At first glance, this Rust Trademark Policy looks like it could function like a treaty amongst a handful of megacorps. It could also be used to carve out of a fiefdom.
Rust is clearly designed for systems programmers. Systems programmers learn to be savvy about standards and vendor dependencies, and (when they have a choice) to weigh what they invest in.
Personally, I'm all for open standards, building solid systems, and "defending the Internet". I don't yet know what to make of this document.
I know a couple streamers/youtubers have made a big fuss about this (idk about actual developer sentiment), but I don't see why this situation is anything exceptional or to be worried about.
But one wonders: the same criticisms can be levied at these other cases, yet one finds that googling about controversies regarding them (well except Oracle) turns up little. Considering how well-established these are, one would expect that if trademarking it were truly unreasonable, we'd see a similar argument already.
The more obvious reason is that you have a couple loud voices who don't know what they're talking about and see that these actions actually either do little harm or even benefit the community (regarding the latter, e.g. making it obvious when a couple blessed and vetted, officially supported high-quality resources are being provided).
Am I the only one that feels a lot of parallels between Rust's trademark policy and Mozilla's trademark policies in general? IIRC the Mozilla Public License is very restrictive on usage of logos, branding, etc. to the point where patching software to run on your OS would violate it[1].
So I am not too surprised by what Rust has been doing. I definitely don't like it, but whatever, there's enough fights out there to choose from, and Rust's trademark policy is not one I'm picking.
Pale Moon has no relation to Mozilla at all; other than being a fork of Firefox of course. It's a pretty small niche project, and I found the Pale Moon people in general to be rather, ehm, off-putting, to put it nicely, and that Tobin guy who created the issue particularly unpleasant (IIRC he managed to get banned from Pale Moon).
Either way, I think the situations are a bit different; naming libraries "$langname-foo" or variations thereof is common in many languages; and I don't think anyone is really confused by this. Attempting to ban the usage of $langname in package and domain names is unheard of AFAIK. Ruby on Rails, godoc.org, gobyexample.com, and many others would be disallowed under this policy.
And as much as I disagree with the author's stance on guns, putting it in a Trademark policy seems ... weird.
The below language in the draft seems to indicate that the R@$! foundation will have a lock on all paid training courses, meaning professional trainers will need to get a license agreement to operate (presumably with a fee of some kind). Personally, I think we should all start using R@$! in place of the trademark, until this debacle is dead and buried.
"I am running an event for which I am charging attendees for tickets. Can I use the Rust Logo on my promotional materials?
If your event is for-profit, you will need approval to use the Rust name or Logo. If you are simply covering costs and the event is non-profit, you may use the Rust name or Logo as long as it is clear that the event is not endorsed by the Rust Foundation. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission."
Not being a lawyer I can only hope that this is simply embarassing and unenforceable. The logo, maybe, but the name? I don't see how anyone can prevent anyone else from simply referring to them by their factual name. It's absurd. Which makes it embarassing and enlightening that they try.
Weird gun moans aside, what about the rest of it? I'm not familiar with usual T&C's for this kind of software foundations, but they seem excessive. Can't use the word "rust" in a conference name, product name, can't sell swag... I mean, I get they need to protect the name and want some kind of exclusive stewardship but this seems OTT for an open source software project. Or am I wrong?
"You may make promotional goods for free giveaway at open source conferences and events provided that the goods are in good taste and compatible with the values of the Project."
Readit News
Here's a fantastic video on the controversy: https://youtu.be/gutR_LNoZw0
I can't believe this petty, in-group absurdity. It's Home Owners Association-level bullshit the likes of which I've never seen before in the software community.
They've created thousands of ways you can't create Rust events or even associate yourself with the language. It's 100% exclusionary and seems to go well beyond trademark protection.
The language doesn't belong to them.
I'm half minded to fork Rust and call it "Crust" or "Crab Language".
Please do. I'll use it.
The article starts with the desire to attend Rust conferences while strapped with firepower. Unfortunately, that's a loaded (ha) topic, which I'd guess will alienate maybe half the readers of the article, before they learn that there's things in the draft that do bother them...
Just flipping around the draft, I see things like this:
> 5.1.2 Websites
> You may use the Word Marks and Logos, but not the Trade Dress, on your webpage to show your support for the Project as long as:
I think anyone will use these terms and senses of "Rust", "Cargo", and "Clippy" on Web pages for most whatever purposes they want, not only to "show [their] support for the Project".
There's more in the draft like that.
At first glance, this Rust Trademark Policy looks like it could function like a treaty amongst a handful of megacorps. It could also be used to carve out of a fiefdom.
Rust is clearly designed for systems programmers. Systems programmers learn to be savvy about standards and vendor dependencies, and (when they have a choice) to weigh what they invest in.
Personally, I'm all for open standards, building solid systems, and "defending the Internet". I don't yet know what to make of this document.
Java logo and mark guidelines (also cf. javascript/ECMAScript, mysql): https://www.oracle.com/legal/trademarks.html https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/java-licensing-logo-guide...
Google's attempt to trademark Go: https://trademarks.justia.com/881/00/go-88100955.html
Python trademark usage guidelines: https://www.python.org/psf/trademarks/
Perl trademark usage guidelines: https://www.perlfoundation.org/trademarks.html
Ruby is a counterexample!: https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/about/logo/
PHP seems to be a counterexample!: https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/about/logo/
PostgreSQL: https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/trademarks/
Linux: https://lmi.linuxfoundation.org/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage
there are many more, but you get the idea
I know a couple streamers/youtubers have made a big fuss about this (idk about actual developer sentiment), but I don't see why this situation is anything exceptional or to be worried about.
The more obvious reason is that you have a couple loud voices who don't know what they're talking about and see that these actions actually either do little harm or even benefit the community (regarding the latter, e.g. making it obvious when a couple blessed and vetted, officially supported high-quality resources are being provided).
So I am not too surprised by what Rust has been doing. I definitely don't like it, but whatever, there's enough fights out there to choose from, and Rust's trademark policy is not one I'm picking.
[1] https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86
Either way, I think the situations are a bit different; naming libraries "$langname-foo" or variations thereof is common in many languages; and I don't think anyone is really confused by this. Attempting to ban the usage of $langname in package and domain names is unheard of AFAIK. Ruby on Rails, godoc.org, gobyexample.com, and many others would be disallowed under this policy.
And as much as I disagree with the author's stance on guns, putting it in a Trademark policy seems ... weird.
"I am running an event for which I am charging attendees for tickets. Can I use the Rust Logo on my promotional materials?
If your event is for-profit, you will need approval to use the Rust name or Logo. If you are simply covering costs and the event is non-profit, you may use the Rust name or Logo as long as it is clear that the event is not endorsed by the Rust Foundation. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission."
A quick google: "simply because the use of another’s trademark is unauthorized by the trademark owner does not make it an infringing use" https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/publications...
So even the logo doesn't grant quite that level of control.
Basically someone needs to get over themselves.
Wow. "Good taste". No rusty dildoes?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html