[asterisk-biz] Open letter to digium, asterisk developers and consultants

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 19:53 -0500, John Todd wrote:
> Brett -
>     Sorry for the delay on this - many of us were off-site yesterday, 
> and today has been catch-up while writing snippets of this throughout 
> the day.
> 
>     You've brought up some good points, but I think they are issues of 
> perception instead of issues of intention.  While Digium does keep 
> control over the Asterisk and Digium trademarks, I think it is not 
> our intention (or ability) to lock them down quite in the way you 
> describe.  I will admit that after closely reading our policy and 
> comparing it against your described concerns, there does seem to be 
> some ways in which we can re-word that document so as to become more 
> clear and allay your fears. 


Thanks, that is all I was asking for.


>    Let me just say again that while it is our intention to prevent 
> confusing and dilutive use of our trademarked terms (most notably, 
> the term "Asterisk") we do not intend to prevent the legitimate use 
> of our trademarks when it comes to basic descriptive uses.
> 

I understand that, and I dont think the goals are mutually exclusive,
why I suggested phrases such as "Asterisk compatible" and "based on
asterisk" to be allowed as they make a separation from digium and
themselves along with still allowing the word.


> It is my belief that this is the case already, and that if you use 
> the term in a descriptive manner the word "Asterisk" can be used 
> without requiring Digium's permission.  

I think in general you are right in the way you think about 3M or Exxon
and disclaimers, at least as I understand it.  However, its the
influencing search engine results that I am addressing with this.  See
below for more on this thought.

> >Uses that are not approved by this policy
> >"Use of a Trademark in a web page title, TITLETAG, META tag, or other
> >manner with the intent or the likely effect of influencing search engine
> >rankings or results listings."
> >
> I would agree that we have failed to make this as obvious as we 
> should, and that will be a topic of discussion and possibly 
> clarification in the document.  Our intention has never been to lock 
> the word "Asterisk" so that it is impossible to use - that is not our 
> goal, nor is it possible legally.  If you are a consultant who works 
> with Asterisk, by all means please put that on your website and in 
> your CV!  We encourage that type of use;

By stating that its encouraged, does this mean that the trademark policy
prohibited use on having the "likely effect of influencing search engine
rankings" is removed?  Content is the largest method for indexing, and
some particularly bad ones rank solely on content.  

I eagerly await the changes to the trademark policy and/or disclaimer
that you mentioned earlier.
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!