[Osmf-talk] 2020/Res29 Grant Cesium permission to use our trademark in their product “Cesium OSM Buildings“

Christopher Beddow christopher.beddow at gmail.com
Tue Jun 9 06:17:07 UTC 2020


I agree with Michael Reichert: there is a net negative effect on granting
permission to use the same "OSM Buildings" name which serves to create
confusion. In the future when this term is mentioned people will need to
clarify if speaking about Jan's project or Cesium's product.

I believe Cesium should be encouraged to use a different name in order to
reduce confusion but otherwise appears to be a good intention.

I would say the same if any commercial OSM related product adopted a name
like Go Map (similar to mobile app GoMap!!), or if someone created Cha OSM
(similar to OSMCha). This to me is not about licensing but about a
pragmatic way to keep things clear, by politely asking Cesium to take steps
to do so. This can effect things like search engine optimization which
caused Jan's project to be overwhelmed by searched for a well advertised
commercial product, even if properly licensed, and would be unfortunate for
people seeking what he offers.

On the other hand, it is difficult to think of a good alternative name
because Jan's is so generic.

Chris Beddow

On Tue, Jun 9, 2020, 00:58 Kathleen Lu via osmf-talk <
osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

>
> It is true that Jan does not have a license for "OSM Buildings" either
>> but granting licenses should not support name grabbing and hostile
>> takeovers of established names.
>>
>
> This doesn't seem accurate. You describe "OSM Buildings" as "an open
> source project". Assuming that description is correct, then OSM Buildings
> does have a license, under Section of the OSMF Trademark Policy: 3.3.6.
> Use in software projects
>
> Use of the OSM marks to name software components, packages, minor tools,
> repositories and similar that process or work specifically with
> OpenStreetMap data is permissible as long as the use follows the rest of
> this policy.
>
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_Policy#3.3.6._Use_in_software_projects
>
> If, on the other hand, "OSM Buildings" is a product or business name, then
> Jan should have requested a license when the Trademark Policy went into
> effect (though nothing is stopping him from making the request now).
>
> -Kathleen
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