[maemo-developers] Community council

[From: Paul Bloch]

Well the only point that I agree that one problem here is that maybe
people who would want to develop with Maemo can't sell it on their
devices with the Maemo branding, as that is owned by Nokia.  Unless
Nokia gives rights to the commons so that anyone, including other
companies, to use it on their devices (Which either for free or for
some licensing fee is doable), then Nokia is still within rights to
charge people for using their brand/trademark (an asset of the
corporation).

There are currently a number of "open" projects to create embedded
device operating systems, and currently there are new manufacturers
that are using Linux to drive their devices.  So trademark rights
issues get mushy here.

Here's an interesting example:

I'm a guy who wants to make a fork of all of the current embedded OSes
to create my own super-OS.  So I go looking and start blending
software together, if someone's logo is on their that didn't want it
there, they can sue me for damages.  If I made a device that has a
Meamo fork I call Maemo-is-dumb-don't-use-it.  And if Nokia gets angry
because that contributed to the decline in adoption of the platform, I
could potentially be accountable in court.  People really do sue for
stupid things.

If the software is indeed open then skinning tools need to be done in
such a way for a manufacturer or some other project to switch in their
logos.  Which I think in the end is a prefered solution that the
market will like.  Companies like to have their own OS-wide branding
that doesn't take away from the "basic" experience that most people
have (in most cases this is Windows).  That's definitely what
Microsoft is banking on with their mobile os permeating the market.

So yeah, there are some realistic things to consider, and negotiate
out to gain wider support and adoption.  I think it's good to create a
"value proposition" that is understandable to manufacturers,
developers, and people industry-wide so that they can feel confident
in also contributing to Maemo, or whatever we want to call it, with
ample rights secured so they know they are investing in a good
solution.

I hope this all makes sense, it's high-level communications and
marketing stuff that you need to think about with regards to brand
ownership, copyright, and other IP that businesses have exclusive
rights to (unless stated elsewhere).

Cheers,

P

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:26 PM, David Greaves <david at dgreaves.com> wrote:
> Darius Jack wrote:
> [snip]
>
> Hi Darius
>
> In response to your previous email where you said:
>> Please unsubscribe me from maemo-developers list
>> as I am not interested in your fight for maemo comunity leadership.
>
> You may like to visit:
> https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
>
> Cheers
>
> David
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