PHP Projects: Getting Started With SourceForge, Open Licensing

[Google Mike]

Okay. Let's say that at night from home I just wrote a web-based work
order management system that uses LAPP (Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, and
PHP). Now I want to:

1. Copyright it under a different name besides my own, such as an
organizational name. I think this is a fairly straight-forward form in
the United States.

2. Trademark the name. Again, a straight-forward form in the United
States.

3. Bill it as an SDK to a final product, not the final product in and
of itself.

4. Permit updates to it by the SourceForge community.

5. Permit commercialization of customized and enhanced versions of it
as long as the original source and documentation is shipped with it,
listing the copyright holder, and as long as the product's About
window (of some sort) lists that this product is based on the SDK and
lists the SDK's copyright and trademark(s). Or perhaps you can suggest
something more suitable and common than this?

6. This is not a virus-like license -- commercial versions that have
proprietary code are not going to be required to make their own
personal code as open source. They can have closed source for their
items.

Do you have any advice on any of this?

[Hastur Batato]

Google Mike, obviously a huge fan of Crosley Bendix, wrote:

>
> Do you have any advice on any of this?

Get a lawyer, and don't believe what anyone on Usenet says.

Btw, if you are talking about getting an actual registered trademark,
it's more than just a simple form. It's a long process with an expensive
fee. I've gone through it once, and it wasn't too hard to do by myself.

However, you can self-trademark just by putting a TM on the name of your
product (or SM for a service) and using it in commerce. This gives you
some amount of legal protection, but it's usually localized, and the law
is fuzzy when it comes to enforcing non-registered marks on the Internet.

The above is all assuming you're in the U.S.

/joe
--
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[Google Mike]

Hastur Batato <scag@moralminority.org> wrote

> Get a lawyer, and don't believe what anyone on Usenet says.
>
> Btw, if you are talking about getting an actual registered trademark,
> it's more than just a simple form. It's a long process with an expensive
> fee. I've gone through it once, and it wasn't too hard to do by myself.
>
> However, you can self-trademark just by putting a TM on the name of your
> product (or SM for a service) and using it in commerce. This gives you
> some amount of legal protection, but it's usually localized, and the law
> is fuzzy when it comes to enforcing non-registered marks on the Internet.
>
> The above is all assuming you're in the U.S.
>
> /joe

Geesh. I don't know if I want to go through with this. It's a miracle
that open source software actually makes it out there. I was hoping to
follow on the success of HSQLDB, a project that I admire and which I
wish to emulate, as far as a licensing model goes.

[Hastur Batato]

Google Mike, doing a poor impression of The Taco Bell Chihuahua, said:

>
> Geesh. I don't know if I want to go through with this. It's a miracle
> that open source software actually makes it out there. I was hoping to
> follow on the success of HSQLDB, a project that I admire and which I
> wish to emulate, as far as a licensing model goes.

Yikes, I'm not trying to discourage you, buddy!

Personally, if I was going to do an open-source project that I wanted
the public to use, I would do it all myself but not very formally. I'd
just put a self-copyright on the source (Berne convention.. google it
if you want more info). I'd put the self-trademark TM on whatever I
named it. I'd write up my own license, deriving it from whichever
existing license(s) I liked. And then I'd depend on the good faith of
people not to abuse my wishes :)

/joe
--
In Bunger-Henry, Kurt Eiselt is cuddly. The slick, cutest RAM from the RIAA
will go to Student Services. In the Highlander, alexdata always demolishes
the stereo. Greg is nauseating.