[Pkg-meego-maintainers] Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?

[Ibrahim Haddad]

 Hello Didier,

I am responding to you in relation to your inquiry below. First, thanks very
much for sending the MeeGo Project these questions. We really do appreciate
it. The MeeGo Project members devoted quite a bit of time discussing these
questions to make sure the  responses are fair and most of all work to the
benefit of the MeeGo project, its developers and the users of MeeGo.

To start with, the goal is to avoid any confusion around what is and what is
not MeeGo.  Anything that is or will become associated with the MeeGo
trademark has to be in conformance with the compliance program.  With that
in mind, it becomes clear why none of the proposed uses of MeeGo  mentioned
in your email are in line with the trademark policy and guidelines as they
create confusion around MeeGo project packages, mailing list, project team
name, etc.  For example, when you append MeeGo to a package name, it would
be very reasonable to conclude that this is an official MeeGo package coming
from MeeGo.com, which is not the case and could cause confusion both for
your users as well MeeGo's.

We would ask you to move away from using {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o or any subset of
those letters or sounds in that order, alone or in combination with other
letters, words or marks that would tend to cause someone to make a
reasonable connection of the reference with the MeeGo mark. We specifically
discussed one possibility for illustration purposes – which is to use MG in
the place of MeeGo.  We do not think that a plain text MG, when used in
reference to the code, as in a file or project or team name, would cause a
reasonable person to be confused.

We are available for additional discussions if needed and if you prefer to
have a call to discuss we can certainly do that.

Best Regards,
Ibrahim Haddad [on behalf of The Meego Project]

PS:
We started an FAQ at http://meego.com/trademark. We have added some text
already and Q&A will be added there as they come.


On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <didier at raboud.com>wrote:

> Hi dear MeeGo-dev,
> (some CCs added for convenience and openness)
>
> I am Didier 'OdyX' Raboud, a Debian Maintainer and I am part of the
> "pkg-meego"
> group on Debian. Our (blurry) intent is to allow Debian users to benefit
> from
> the software that comes out of the MeeGo project.
>
> Following the Smeegol release and the "Trademark compliance, name usage,
> etc."
> thread (and in particular Ibrahim's answer⁰), I want to clear up the path
> on
> which we will walk before being too late.
>
> Our work has somehow begun and is more-or-less documented on the Debian
> wiki¹.
> Some ITP² bugs have already been filed and packaging is in progress on our
> git
> repositories (which are linked from the wiki page¹). Debian packages of
> libcontentaction, meegotouch-theme and libmeegotouch will very soon hit the
> Debian "NEW" queue, then the archive. So there is a clear need of sorting
> that
> "issue" right now.
>
> Currently, we use the {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o sequence of letters in the
> following
> places:
>
>  * in our team code (pkg-meego), which is:
>   - a unix group name (in fact two, there is also scm_pkg-meego) on the
>     alioth.debian.org machine
>   - a project name within the Alioth infrastructure:
>     https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-meego/
>   - part of our mailing list name:
>     http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listingo/pkg-meego-maintainers
>  * in our team name :
>   - on the above project page (Debian MeeGo Team)
>   - on the wiki team page (Debian MeeGo stack maintainers)
>   - in the "Maintainer:" field of the not-released-yet packages (in the
>     debian/control file): (Debian MeeGo packaging Team)
>   (There is some uncoherence here, it might need merging.)
>  * (of course, but mentioning for exhaustiveness) in the packages names :
>   - e.g. meegotouch-theme, libmeegotouch, …
>
> In the future, when this work will (eventually) be led to its "end", we
> might
> very well consider releasing meta-packages (as kde-standard, lxde-core,
> gnome-
> desktop-environment, etc) that would be named as meego-handset-ux for
> example.
> Another possibility would be to release live-CDs or installation CDs that
> would
> either launch or allow installation of meego-based environment (as is
> currently
> done for KDE-SC, Gnome, XFCE, …). Their naming is of course not sorted out
> yet,
> but using something along the paths of debian-wheezy-amd64-meego-CD-1.iso
> would
> match what we currently do with KDE or XFCE+LXDE.
>
> [By the way, there is not (at least not currently) the intent/need/whatever
> to
> reach a "compliance" level for the MeeGo software on Debian. Debian is
> (intended
> to be) universal and by such there is no reason (from our point of view) to
> _not_ offer to Debian users the free software stuff that comes out of the
> MeeGo
> project.]
>
> So my questions are :
>
>  * which of the above uses is considered OK (or not) by MeeGo (or whoever
> is
>    entitled to draw a line)?
>  * how should we name ourselves?. In fact we _are_ the "Debian team that
>    handles the packaging for the Debian distribution of the software that
> comes
>    out of the MeeGo project but that's long, would a "Debian MeeGo
> maintainers"
>    team name be Okay ? Is the pkg-meego team code Okay ?
>  * if we are not granted the "right" (whatever that might mean) to use the
>    "MeeGo" trademark to refer to the "software that comes out of the MeeGo
>    project", what are we supposed to use instead? (Please don't make us use
>    things like "the name everyone knows but that I can't write").
>  * Other pieces of advice ?
>
> Thanks in advance for constructive answers, cheers,
>
> OdyX
>
> [⁰] http://lists.meego.com/pipermail/meego-dev/2010-October/006547.html
> [¹] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/PkgMeeGo
> [²] Intent to Package
> --
> Didier Raboud, proud Debian Maintainer (DM).
> CH-1020 Renens
> didier at raboud.com
>
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