[okfn-discuss] Open Service Definition (revisited)

Thu Aug 16 23:05:59 UTC 2007

On 8/16/07, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> > In proprietary services this recognition is a large part of what is
> > packaged up for sale or investment often for millions of dollars at IPO
> > time.
> >
> > In the Firefox case the Mozilla Corporation say they are protecting the
> > brand against dilution or appropriation by trademarking it- maintaining
> > public faith in F/OSS.
> >
> > How should these branding issues be handled in Open Services?
>
> As I've earlier stated in relation to the 'identity' issue (i.e. the
> problem of becoming identified with a url controlled by the service
> provider a la gmail/myspace ...) I think this *is* a problem but *not* a
> problem an open service definition should address. In my view this is up
> to the user not the service, and if the service manages to build a big
> brand for itself while remaining open well bully for the
> service-provider :) -- just as I don't mind Firefox getting all
> protective about their 'brand' as long as the code stays open).

While I have my own (strong) opinions on mark/brand in an open
context, I do agree with Rufus here that an open service definition is
probably not the place to handle this particular problem. To the
extent that it is a problem at all, it is probably best handled using
the integrity clauses of the data and software licenses- I've tried to
find examples that would not be covered by those two, but failed.

Luis