Trademark Approval and Spin SIG (was: Request for Trademark Approval (Fedora AOS Spin))

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 5:27 AM, Jeroen van Meeuwen <kanarip at kanarip.com> wrote:
> If a spin is not approved for trademark usage (for whatever reason), can it
> still be in the kickstart pool (rebranded of course)? Futhermore, can we
> distribute it (in the spin-kickstarts package)?

I would say that under the current structure where trademark approval
comes after the Spin SIG technical assessemnt, yes... this sort of
organization of the kickstart pool is a legitimate choice that the
Spin SIG could make.

Under the current workflow, there are essentially 3 different technical levels.
1) Spin SIG best practices to get into kickstart pool
2) Technical issues which are associated with trademark approval
3) Technical requirements for RelEng for 'release' of a spin.

These can be layered technical hurdles, which  the kickstart pool
could be structured to mimic.

I would however suggest making a deliberate effort to distribute
kickstart files in such a way that trademark approved kickstarts were
not easily confused with non-trademark approved contrib kickstarts.
Separate srpms/rpms for each sub-collection of the pool would make
sense to me personally.

Now you maybe holding back on such a structuring of the kickstart pool
because of the new trademark policy draft would essentially make the
2) in that list disappear, thus making a need to structure the
kickstart pool very unnecessary.  But if I were you, I wouldn't wait
for the trademark policy process to be done. We've got no affirmative
date by which to bring this to a vote at the Board level..unless I
missed something.  If this interests you go ahead and get the Spin SIG
to decide on the approved/contrib split in the kick start pool or not
regardless of what the trademark policy re-write decision is.

There's always been a simmering interest in Fedora on small footprint
hardware..and people have been sort of playing around on how to deal
with that. Maybe a contrib kickstart area would help people in our
community organize compelling usage case arguments and act as a
centralized basis for work towards official project support of nowe
usage cases down the road.

-jef"If I take my laptop to a public event, and have selinux tools
removed..can I still call it Fedora when I show it to people?"spaleta