Hi Matt, Matt Madia wrote:
I'm in favor of it being a case-by-case basis and not ok for any HUG under the sun. Simply for the fact that each HUG, 3rd party site would be maintained by a different group of people, and no two HUGs are exactly the same. More importantly it'll be a chance to ensure that each individual HUG complies with the trademark policy -- particularly with the referenced name to "Haiku" & making sure that any incoming money is clearly displayed as not going to the Haiku Project/Haiku Inc.[1] Just to be clear, I do not expect nor desire rigorous checking of the HUG-site to give the ok. For instance, the existence of http://www.haiku-os.gr came to my attention a few days ago. (My apologies in advance for singling this website out. Earlier, I have contacted them to open a dialog.) This website was recently registered & created. On at least one of the pages, it refers to Haiku as "Haiku OS" and "Haiku Operating System", which is not the name of the project. The fact that it is a new site with little content would make me personally hesitant on allowing them to use the themes. To be clear, I am talking of the site today and not for all time. On the other hand, sites such as the ones you mentioned instill more confidence due to them being established and easily recognizable. Though, being able to tell a particular site something to the effect of "their portrayal of Haiku is not consistent with that of the project and is reason to not allow the use of the theme" should be well within our rights. Maybe the trademark policy should include something that allows a HUG to be officially recognized, but legally tied to the Haiku Project nor Haiku Inc.? Honestly, I don't know the perfect solution and I'm content with something that's incrementally better than today. 1: The only people who should be generating income from Haiku's trademarks are the owners of it: Haiku Inc and that is to ensure that said money goes directly into funding Haiku and not a community-provided site, a private individual, or separate business entity. (The case of business endeavors, such as Dane wanting ship Haiku & its trademarks as part of TuneTracker is something to deal with another day)
I think there needs to be a HUG strategy, that is, a definition of what role is expected from the HUGs, how they will be positioned relative to the project, whether they will be viewed as synergistic parties of the project or mere third parties, etc.. Outlining the HUG strategy would not only give direction to those people who want to start a HUG, but it will also tell you how your trademark policy needs to be.
If I am allowed to opine, my view is that the community will be very important to the future growth of Haiku; so I feel that having an HUG strategy that embraces regional efforts and make them part of a bigger whole is fundamental. In that respect, Ubuntu's LoCo and trademark policy two-pillar approach is pretty smart IMO; there are some philosophical differences between Haiku and Ubuntu, but I still think that we could learn from them.
If you want to can draft a rough HUG strategy outline for discussion purposes, although it may be wise to wait until after R1A2 release to avoid distractions.
Cheers, -- Jorge/aka Koki Website: http://haikuzone.net RSS: http://haikuzone.net/rss.xml