The Rust Foundation are doing some serious damage to their brand. I’m sure they’ll get it right in the end but damn!
@ThePaulMcBride What's going on?
@Chronotope they’re proposing a super strict trademark policy for their logo and the #Rust name. You can see more of the discussion on the orange site. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35510987
@ThePaulMcBride brb. Buying lots of obscene rust themed domain names.
@tosbourn lawsuit incoming!
@ThePaulMcBride @tosbourn
IANAL, but after reading a number of trademark policies, the Rust trademark policy is quite ordinary. The same language regarding domain name can be found in the policy of Java (Oracle), Linux, FreeBSD, Apache.
Python and Perl trademark policies do not have language specific to domain names, but they do have language against using them in other trademarks. Most don't realize though that trademarks don't have to be registered -- "common law" rights are conferred in a mark solely by its usage in commerce in the US. "Commerce" is defined very broadly in case laws as encompassing open source too. So it is very likely for a domain name in active use to become a trademark and therefore touch that clause nonetheless.
As for "rust" being a general word mentioned on orange site, "rust" is not a general word for a programming language. You cannot register "rust" as a trademark for an iron oxide product. A brief search on the US Trademark Electronic Search System reveals a handful of live trademarks of the single word "rust", including the game Rust, registered not only for the category of games but also those of several types of merch goods.
@ThePaulMcBride @tosbourn
It is mentioned at the end of the draft that it comes from http://modeltrademarkguidelines.org/ and indeed the draft document does not deviate far from that model. Many controversial terms are verbatim from that model.
@kemuri @tosbourn it’s not so much what they’re saying that is upsetting people. I think it’s more how they are saying it.
I’ve seen members of the Rust foundation itself being shocked by the policies and wondering where they came from.