[Board] FOSS4G Trademark

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I see one of the agenda items for the board meeting today (in about 90
minutes) is:

"""
Board, please clarify (brief) - is FOSS4G a trademark? Does the OSGeo Logo
and brand appear at FOSS4G events ? --darkblue_b 08:20, 6 June 2013 (PDT)
"""

I thought it might be helpful for me to provide my opinion in advance, and
we can correct that in the meeting if someone thinks it is otherwise.

1) I do not believe FOSS4G is trademarked.

2) I believe Venka came up with the FOSS4G naming back around the time of
the GRASS user meeting in Thailand (2002? 2003?).  It has been used ever
since for the events in Japan.  He offered to let OSGeo use this for OSGeo
events.

3) I do not believe that OSGeo ought to be trying to control what is or is
not a FOSS4G event though we try to use this naming/branding for at least
some OSGeo events.

4) We certainly would like OSGeo's logo, and branding to appear at FOSS4G
events such as FOSS4G (Nottingham), FOSS4G NA, FOSS4G CEE and the Japanese
FOSS4G events though we aren't necessarily in a position to force it.

>From my perspective I consider FOSS4G as closely related to OSGeo but think
it would be counter productive and possibly overreaching to claim ownership
or control of the name or events operating under the name.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Software Developer
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