darwinports.com legal action

[Blair Zajac]

Another possibility is the Apache Software Foundation.  We just moved the Subversion project, which had its own corporation, into the ASF and we're currently in the process of dissolving it.

Blair

On Mar 7, 2010, at 4:58 PM, James Berry wrote:

> When we last looked into forming a legal entity for MacPorts, we decided that creating our own legal entity was probably too onerous and too expense, both in terms of up-front money and in terms of annual costs and legal/accounting maintenance.
> 
> One of the options that we considered then, and should perhaps consider again, is something like the Open Source Conservancy, which basically operates as a legal umbrella organization for open source projects:
> 
> 	http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/overview/
> 
> We started discussions with them then, but they seemed to get pretty bogged down details that had no end, so dropped the discussion for lack of a significant driver.
> 
> James
> 
> On Mar 7, 2010, at 4:28 PM, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:
> 
>> LLC is probably the wrong approach.  The X.org foundation has been having issues updating their status from an LLC to a Non Profit Corporation.  We should probably incorporate, then make ourselves an NPO.  I'll look up what's involved with this.
>> 
>> Registering a trademark does not mean we would need to be aggressive about enforcing it.  In fact, we DO have marks for DarwinPorts and Macports, but they are not registered.  In order to take legal action, we would be required to register those marks.  Registering the mark just gives us more legal footing to stand on.  It does not in any way force us to take action against individuals.  It allows us to do so if we want to.
>> 
>> I will ask Apple Legal before taking any action, since I am an employee of Apple and don't want to in any way appear as though my actions in making this protest are representative of Apple (unless it is the decision of Apple Legal to take that route).  As I mentioned, I am just doing this from a consumer protection standpoint.  If anyone else wants to get onboard (The MacPorts Project or Apple Inc.), that would certainly be welcome.
>> 
>> I'm getting the impression that The MacPorts Project would be interested in pursuing this so long as it was not costly, so I'll start looking into options along that front.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jeremy
>> 
>> On Mar 7, 2010, at 16:01, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mar 7, 2010, at 17:36, Joshua Root wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thanks for taking this on. The MacPorts Project is, legally, just a
>>>> collection of individuals. MacPorts is not a registered trademark.
>>>> (Neither is/was DarwinPorts.) We're not really happy about that being
>>>> the state of affairs, but when we looked into creating a legally
>>>> recognised organisation, we concluded that it would be too expensive.
>>> 
>>> I haven't looked into nonprofit organizations, but for comparison, to start an LLC in the U.S. only costs a couple hundred dollars, as does registering a trademark. And I understand we have some money available from past Google Summer of Code projects.
>>> 
>>> Of course, if we registered a trademark, we'd have to enforce it and go after everyone who uses the name without permission. (There are probably a half dozen sites I've found that use MP or DP in their names and are confusing e.g. in that they don't say they aren't an official site.)
>>> 
>>> My impression is that Apple is interested in having MacPorts be useful and successful. It has therefore occurred to me to ask if Apple Legal would be interested in taking on this issue for us. But I have not asked them.