[Incubator]: Definition of a Project

[Arnulf Christl]

Jason Birch wrote:
>> But I do wonder what the difference is between (tm) assertion and
> registration.
> 
> For the States, the advantages are listed here:
> 
> http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm
> 
> They're strangely quiet about the disadvantages :) 
> 
> Jason

Hi,
yet again this is national, regional, legal and cultural thing. (tm) on 
OSGeo does not make as much sense in the rest-of-the-world as it does in 
The State.

The disadvantage are that by registering (r) you are obliged to take on 
legal action once you become aware of an infringement or else you loose 
the claimed rights. Ask a lawyer to get the details, to me this suffices 
to not want to register.

In Germany you are fairly well protected by standard legislation so that 
most non-profit organizations refrain from registering.

...the most prominent single word on the page 
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm is 
'''No.'''. I love the symbolism in this.

Therefore I would like to reconquer this thread with the old subject and 
concentrate on finding out and eventually defining what we mean with 
"project" and what we are trying to legally protect, copyright, claim, 
defend and so on. One simple thing is the code. It is protected by the 
(as an example) GPL. What about an demo data. It might be protected by a 
different license legally correctly but is it automatically also part of 
the graduated OSGeo project?

Best regards,
Arnulf.