[talk-au] Local entity

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 7:24 PM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Last week it was discussed briefly from what I understand, I was
> hoping to participate in the call but something came up at the last
> moment and I received an email a couple of days later with the
> following reply:
>
> "About the use of the name OpenStreetMap and logo. We cannot give a
> formal consent for the use of the name and logo. There therefore we
> need to have an agreement.
>
> However, we will not forbid you to use it at this moment. If your
> intention is to become an official local chapter then your problem
> will be solved in due time.
>
> Hope this will answer your question."
I don't understand all those ambigious terms - "an agreement" "your
problem" etc. Are they saying an agreement form/contract does not yet
exist and that is why they will not give permission?

Plenty of open source projects like OpenMoko and Ubuntu have clear "no
permission required for community use" trademark licences. Ubuntu even
offer their policy as CC-BY-SA for other projects to use:
http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy

> I'm getting to the point where I'm considering some other name and
> just doing our own thing until OSM-F gets their act together...
>
> Maybe something like "Cartography Society" which is ambiguous enough
> to cover things more than just OSM, although it might be useful to be
> a non-Australian specific so we can cover New Zealand, South East
> Asia, and Pacific Island nations.

OpenStreetMap has a lot of name recognition and I'd much rather say
I'm a member of OpenStreetMap Australia/Oceania than the Open
Cartography Society, the representative/local/supporting organisation
of OpenStreetMap in Australia. But as long as our charter is in tied
to the work we do with OSM, it's fulfilling the same objective.