[OSM-talk] HOT using the OpenStreetMap-Foundation trademark

[Amanda McCann]

Hi,

I can provide some details here. I did some early work on part of this. Yes, HOT (formally “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team United States Inc”) has no formal trademark licence to the term “OpenStreetMap” from the OpenStreetMap Foundation (which holds the trademark on “OpenStreetMap” etc.). Personally I'm not opposed to granting a general “Yeah you can (continue) to use the name as your doing now”.

HOT proposed a pretty standard MoU. Myself & Ben Abelshausen had several productive phone calls. I started talking to the OSMF's LWG, since this is their expertise. Upon their advice, we paid a legal firm £1,800 to look at the trademark grant, and they've suggested a different document. The LWG & Board has been looking at that. That was a few months ago. Remember that sometimes people get busy & distracted by other things in life.

Guillaume did meet with Tyler Radford (HOT's Executive Director) recently. It was mostly a social meeting, rather than anything formal. It's good to have these sorts of meetings, so long as you have board members in places like New York! I have heard some very promising provisional breakthroughs. But I won't steal Guillaume's thunder.

Remember:
• “OpenStreetMap” is intentionally a vague and open project.
• the OpenStreetMap Foundation “supports, but does not control, the OpenStreetMap project”. OSM ≠ OSMF. So, IMO HOT *is* an “OpenStreetMap project”. But it is not an “OpenStreetMap Foundation project”. IMO that's no problem.
• There are other organisations, and people, which are active in “humanitarian OpenStreetMap”, HOT is not the only one. But I think HOT is by far the biggest.
• None of the other organisations have asked for a trademark grant for an “[humanitarian] OpenStreetMap” based name.

One can view all OSM mapping as “humanitarian mapping”, since we're trying to improve the world.

On Fri, 06 May 2022 12:24 +02:00, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> it has been a while that HOT and the OpenStreetMap-Foundation are 
> discussing about an agreement which would allow HOT (in case you do not 
> know, it is a completely different organization, unrelated to the 
> OSMF), to use the OpenStreetMap-Foundation registered marks.
>
> There is some documentation in the minutes, unfortunately it often does 
> not cover what was actually discussed, just that something was 
> discussed, that the discussion was not minuted on request, that it was 
> discussed in the non-public part, and similar.
>
> If you want to dig yourself into this issue, the board and LWG minutes 
> provide some referrers, e.g. 
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2022-03#HOT_draft_trademark_agreement
>
> here is some recent summary content, in the collaborative notes section:
>
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/Board/Minutes/2022-02-S2S/Humanitarian_OpenStreetMap_Team
>
> first mention of the issue in the minutes I found is an email 2 years 
> ago: 
>  * 2020-04-17 AOB - Email from HOT about agreement on trademark use 
> <https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2020-04#Email_from_HOT_about_agreement_on_trademark_use>
>
>
> What really puzzles me, they are talking about this for 2 years, but in 
> all this time no effort for clarification on behalf of HOT was made 
> public, there is no hint at all on the HOT website that HOT does not 
> own the OpenStreetMap mark and that HOT is not affiliated with the 
> OpenStreetMap-Foundation, on the contrary, for an uninformed visitor it 
> rather looks as if HOT was indeed a part of the OpenStreetMap 
> organization.
>
> https://www.hotosm.org/ <https://www.hotosm.org/community/>
>
> in the title bar, there is no hint about the trademark status. There is 
> no disclaimer on any page as suggested by the OpenStreetMap-Foundation 
> guidelines on trademark:
>
> 2.2. Required notices
>
> Please include this notice, or something similar, when you use a mark 
> outside of the OSM projects:
>
>> `[Wordmark / name of logo]` is a trademark of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and is used with their permission. `[We / this product / this project]` are not endorsed by or affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>
> I understand that unless there is an agreement, it may not be possible 
> to state that the mark is used with OpenStreetMap-Foundation 
> permission, but it should be prominently pointed out, for the avoidance 
> of doubt, that HOT is not endorsed by or affiliated with the 
> OpenStreetMap-Foundation.
>
> Omitting such a statement while having OpenStreetMap in the company 
> name clearly will lead to confusion (even with such a statement there 
> is room for confusion, one might overlook it for example). This 
> misleading impression is reinforced by the footer, which reads:
> “ Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit 
> organization and global community. Learn more about OpenStreetMap 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/about>.“
>
> to me this suggests that HOT is some kind of OpenStreetMap organization.
>
> What do you think?
>
> It should also be mentioned that HOT is not the only organization which 
> deals with humanitarian mapping in the context of OpenStreetMap.
>
> Cheers Martin 
>
> sent from a phone
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
A. McCann
Secretary
OpenStreetMap Foundation

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