[OSM-talk] Draft Trademark Policy

[Jochen Topf]

On Thu, Aug 03, 2017 at 11:07:44PM +0200, Simon Poole wrote:
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Trademark_Policy#OpenStreetMap_Trademark_Policy

Can you say something about the rationale behind the split between
"Community members" and "Unrelated organizations or individuals" in
section 1.3? It seems to me this distinction is difficult to make in a
legally strict form. Is one edit enough to be a community member? Or if
you come to a mapping party?

Traditionally the OSM community has been defined as "everybody who feels
like they are a member is a member". But even if the new rule is somewhat
stricter, "at least 3 edits" or whatever, this isn't something you can
easily build legal distinctions on, because anybody who wants to subvert
the policy can easily become a member by making this necessarily low
hurdle. (And, by the way, I have seen much more activity from OSM
community members than from outsiders that is giving OSM a bad name...)

So the distinction has to come not from what you *are* (member or
unrelated) but what you *do*.

This distinction is used for two things in the document, one is about
*what you are* "Community members are generally free to use all OSM marks
for community-focused events" (1.3.1) etc. The other is about who the
*objects of your activity are* (Community-focused events 3.1 etc).

I think the second use makes sense, but the first use is a bit
questionable and hides the fact that the community members have the same
restrictions on what they can actually do than the outside people have.

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  https://www.jochentopf.com/  +49-351-31778688