Handling the Git trademark

Handling the Git trademark

[Christian Couder]

Hi everyone,

The Git PLC (Project Leadership Committee) is responsible for handling
the "Git" trademark and the Git logo with help from the Software
Freedom Conservancy. And we would like at this point to report about
how we have been handling it, and to open the conversation about this
subject.

We have a web page about our trademark policy on
https://git-scm.com/about/trademark. There, we list our guidelines for
others who would like to use our "Git" trademark. Unfortunately a
number of people don't respect our guidelines and use the trademark
without asking us first (sometimes in ways that we might not like).

If we don't enforce our trademark, there is a risk of us losing any
right to it. So far we have tried to enforce it, especially in cases
where people want to register a name based on it.

The issue we have with enforcing the Git trademark is that we don't
have much resources to enforce it. And in general we want to avoid
spending time and money enforcing our mark in all possible instances.
Legal discussions, going to court, etc can be very time and money
consuming, and we would prefer doing more productive things with our
resources instead.

So, as much as possible, we don't want to take legal action. For
example, we would much prefer to respond to a disagreeable use of our
mark by first contacting the party and asking politely for them to
change their use. Usually this is sufficient to deter infringing uses
of our mark.

We would be Ok if necessary to publicly say that for example one
company is using our trademark in a way we don't like. We think that
the threat of us doing that (if the company doesn't agree to change
the way they use it when we ask politely) is in most cases enough to
deter people from using it.

This way of handling issues has worked well so far. The reason we
think it works well, is that people think about the "Git" name as very
cool, and that's why they want to use it in their product or company
names. If the Git project would say that it doesn't like the way this
company is using the Git trademark, it would likely create some bad
buzz about that company and would go completely against their goal of
being perceived as cool.

Now we cannot be sure that this will always be enough to enforce it in
the future. We might have to go to court in some cases. Also we still
spend some time on this, so another possibility would be to stop
enforcing the trademark and the logo altogether.

We also would like to thank the Conservancy and the layers they have
hired for all the information, help, advice and guidance they have
provided on this.

Now we are open to your thoughts about this.

Thanks,
Christian for the Git PLC

Re: Handling the Git trademark

[Phillip Wood]

Hi Christian

On 13/09/2022 13:11, Christian Couder wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> The Git PLC (Project Leadership Committee) is responsible for handling
> the "Git" trademark and the Git logo with help from the Software
> Freedom Conservancy. And we would like at this point to report about
> how we have been handling it, and to open the conversation about this
> subject.
> 
> We have a web page about our trademark policy on
> https://git-scm.com/about/trademark. There, we list our guidelines for
> others who would like to use our "Git" trademark. Unfortunately a
> number of people don't respect our guidelines and use the trademark
> without asking us first (sometimes in ways that we might not like).
> 
> If we don't enforce our trademark, there is a risk of us losing any
> right to it. So far we have tried to enforce it, especially in cases
> where people want to register a name based on it.
> 
> The issue we have with enforcing the Git trademark is that we don't
> have much resources to enforce it. And in general we want to avoid
> spending time and money enforcing our mark in all possible instances.
> Legal discussions, going to court, etc can be very time and money
> consuming, and we would prefer doing more productive things with our
> resources instead.
> 
> So, as much as possible, we don't want to take legal action. For
> example, we would much prefer to respond to a disagreeable use of our
> mark by first contacting the party and asking politely for them to
> change their use. Usually this is sufficient to deter infringing uses
> of our mark.
> 
> We would be Ok if necessary to publicly say that for example one
> company is using our trademark in a way we don't like. We think that
> the threat of us doing that (if the company doesn't agree to change
> the way they use it when we ask politely) is in most cases enough to
> deter people from using it.
> 
> This way of handling issues has worked well so far. The reason we
> think it works well, is that people think about the "Git" name as very
> cool, and that's why they want to use it in their product or company
> names. If the Git project would say that it doesn't like the way this
> company is using the Git trademark, it would likely create some bad
> buzz about that company and would go completely against their goal of
> being perceived as cool.
> 
> Now we cannot be sure that this will always be enough to enforce it in
> the future. We might have to go to court in some cases. Also we still
> spend some time on this, so another possibility would be to stop
> enforcing the trademark and the logo altogether.
> 
> We also would like to thank the Conservancy and the layers they have
> hired for all the information, help, advice and guidance they have
> provided on this.
> 
> Now we are open to your thoughts about this.

Thanks for taking the time to start a discussion on this. My immediate 
reaction is that it would be a shame to lose control of the trademark by 
not enforcing it. If it is taking up too much of the leadership 
committee's time perhaps we could consider asking for more volunteers to 
handle some of the load. Would a few people volunteering a couple of 
hours a month make a useful difference?

One other thought is that there are a number of companies which use 
"git" in their name that benefit indirectly from the git project 
enforcing the trademark and thereby ensuring the name "git" is trusted. 
If we were ever in the unfortunate position of having to take time 
consuming (and presumably costly) legal action perhaps we could approach 
them for support?

Thank you to all the leadership committee for the time you spend 
handling these administrative issues.

Phillip

> Thanks,
> Christian for the Git PLC

Re: Handling the Git trademark

[Christian Couder]

Hi Phillip,

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 10:38 AM Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for taking the time to start a discussion on this. My immediate
> reaction is that it would be a shame to lose control of the trademark by
> not enforcing it.

Thanks for your opinion on this!

> If it is taking up too much of the leadership
> committee's time perhaps we could consider asking for more volunteers to
> handle some of the load. Would a few people volunteering a couple of
> hours a month make a useful difference?

Yeah, I think that would make a difference. Thanks for the suggestion!

> One other thought is that there are a number of companies which use
> "git" in their name that benefit indirectly from the git project
> enforcing the trademark and thereby ensuring the name "git" is trusted.
> If we were ever in the unfortunate position of having to take time
> consuming (and presumably costly) legal action perhaps we could approach
> them for support?

Yeah, we have already thought about this, but we haven't needed such
support yet.

Best,
Christian.