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"Open Source" needs your help! ("Eric S. Raymond")




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From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Subject: "Open Source" needs your help!
Date: Wed,  5 Aug 1998 08:45:00 GMT

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                  "OPEN SOURCE" NEEDS YOUR HELP

In February of this year, we started the "Open Source" initiative as a way
of marketing Free Software to the world. It seems that after only six months,
the words "Open Source" are on everybody's lips!

Before we announced the initiative, we registered a Certification Mark
with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the words "Open Source". A
Certification Mark is a special form of trademark that is applied to other
people's products to certify some attribute of the product. In this case
it certifies the freeness of a software license. There were two purposes in
registering the trademark:

1. We didn't want the phrase "Open Source" to become as vague as "Free
   Software" or as mis-used as "hacker", so we established guidelines for
   its use and a legal right to enforce those guidelines.

2. An individual who was not involved in the Linux development had registered
   a trademark on the word "Linux", and was attempting to obtain payment from
   Linux distributions for use of the name. It took a lot of time and money
   to fight that.

It would be a shame for "Open Source" to become as mis-used in the media
as "hacker" has been. We need your help to keep that from happening:

1. If you use the words "Open Source" to describe a product, please make
   sure to acknowledge that Open Source is a trademark. Use the (R) mark,
   or a small footnote like "Open Source is a Registered Certification Mark
   of Software in the Public Interest."

2. Everybody is licensed, in perpetuity, to use the trademark "Open Source"
   to describe a product that is entirely in conformance with the Open Source
   Definition, below. By all means, use "Open Source" if your product fits the
   definition. If you want to use the words another way, please get permission.
   SPI is administering the mark under the direction of Eric Raymond, he has
   the final deciding power over its use.

3. If you know anyone who is using the mark "Open Source" inappropriately,
   please direct their attention to this document and to our web site at
   http://www.opensource.org/ .

Thank you for supporting Open Source!
- -- 
                <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a>