Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] Project Structure - some progress

[Jason Wies]

First of all, I am glad to see the progress that has been made in less than
two days time.  I think everyone has shown that they want what is best for
the project.

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 11:32:06PM -0700, Dan Kuykendall wrote:
> Dave Hall wrote:
> >Oustanding Issues - Not agreed
> >Trademark - i am taking a back seat position on this one for the time being
> 
> Im not really going to back down from this, so if possible lets move on.
> A good example of why it may be useful for me to keep the trademark is 
> that if a company wanted to hijack the project by putting staff into the 
> project and basicly taking control by the system we are putting in 
> place. I would be able to keep the project from being taken over by way 
> of trademark ownership.

I don't think that scenario is feasible.  If the trademark were assigned to
the FSF, then no one could take control of it.  If the trademark were
assigned to the project itself, then a malicious company would have to a)
wait up to 12 months for the elections to come around and b) get elected to
four positions needed for a majority vote.  This situation is easily avoided
by adding a rule that "no more than three representatives from the same
company can sit on the CT at the same time".

> I will not use the trademark to simply get my way, or any such malicious 
> actions. The ONLY time I will use it is if the project becomes something 
> I could not be proud of and want to be involved with. In this case I 
> would use the trademark and leverage to fork the project to allow phpGW 
> to continue down a better path.

I have to say this sounds like veto by another name.  In a community
project, everyone has the ability to fork, but no one has the ability to
kick everyone else out.  That is what makes the debates so productive;
everyone realizes that they have to agree to a single solution.  I trust Dan
not to constantly threaten to kick everyone out, but I also know that anyone
who is at odds with Dan in a technical debate would be restrained in what
they say because they know Dan can pull the plug at any time.  I think if
the project is going to be as productive as possible, everyone needs to feel
completely free to express their ideas to everyone else and know that at the
end of the day it is the will of the community that will decide.  And
unfortunately I think that means giving the community control over trademark
issues as well.

Sincerely,
Jason Wies (aka Zone)