Rust Foundation Solicits Feedback on Updated Policy for Trademarks (google.com) 41
Crate, RS, "Rustacean," and the logo of Ferris the crab are all available for use by anyone consistent with their definition, with no special permission required. Here's how the document's quick reference describes other common use-cases:
- Selling Goods — Unless explicitly approved, use of the Rust name or Logo is not allowed for the purposes of selling products/promotional goods for gain/profit, or for registering domain names. For example, it is not permitted to sell stickers of the Rust logo in an online shop for your personal profit.
- Showing Support of Rust — When showing your support of the Rust Project on a personal site or blog, you may use the Rust name or Logo, as long as you abide by all the requirements listed in the Policy. You may use the Rust name or Logo in social media handles, avatars, and emojis to demonstrate Rust Project support in a manner that is decorative, so long as you don't suggest commercial Rust affiliation.
- Inclusion of the Marks in Educational Materials — You may use the Rust name in book and article titles and the Logo in graphic components, so long as you make it clear that the Rust Project or Foundation has not reviewed/approved/endorsed your content.
There's also a FAQ, answering questions like "Can I use the Rust logo as my Twitter Avatar?" The updated policy draft says "We consider social media avatars on personal accounts to be fair use. On the other hand, using Rust trademarks in corporate social media bios/profile pictures is prohibited.... In general, we prohibit the modification of the Rust logo for any purpose, except to scale it. This includes distortion, transparency, color-changes affiliated with for-profit brands or political ideologies. On the other hand, if you would like to change the colors of the Rust logo to communicate allegiance with a community movement, we simply ask that you run the proposed logo change by us..."
And for swag at events using the Rust logo, "Merch developed for freebies/giveaways is normally fine, however you need approval to use the Rust Word and/or Logo to run a for-profit event. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission... If your event is for-profit, you will need approval to use the Rust name or Logo. If you are simply covering costs and the event is non-profit, you may use the Rust name or Logo as long as it is clear that the event is not endorsed by the Rust Foundation. You are free to use Ferris the crab without permission."
User groups? (Score:2)
We want to support and facilitate Rust User Groups. You can use the Word Marks as part of your user group name provided that:
- You formally adopt and enforce a robust Code of Conduct appropriate to your specific User Group;
- The main focus of the group is discussion of and education about Rust software;
- Any software or services the group provides are without cost;
- The group does not make a profit;
- Any charge to attend meeti
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I'm an avid Rust user but honestly I've never read nor particularly care about the Rust code of conduct, despite the anti-rust crowd here on slashdot always throwing it in my face as if it even matters to me. For pretty much any technical work that involves collaboration, I only really observe two simple rules:
1) Stay on topic
2) Don't be an ass
And that's in the sole interest of getting shit done while keeping my personal shit personal. People can bikeshed over pronouns or whatever gay shit they want, just I
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You should care about it because you are bound to their CoC
I don't know what your experience is, but that certainly in no way applies to me.
There is a reason there are so many people are pushing Rust and it is not because of technical reasons.
Again, not my experience. Not even once. And I've probably been around more Rust users than you, both on the internet and IRL.
That sounds like that idiot narcc that insists that, because he repeatedly gets kicked in the face by his boss at mcdonalds just after licking the dog shit off of his boots, surely everybody else must be experiencing the same thing. As far as I'm aware, that experience is entirely unique to him.
Re: User groups? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. This is an attempt at a hostile takeover of large parts of tech culture. These people trying to creep into the kernel is just one route of attack. Since most of the tech community has been asleep at the wheel and let it happen, often with an utterly naive stance of "does not affect me", the cancer now spreads further.
Re:User groups? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, yes. And no. What if at some point the non-techie fanatics (which are clearly at work) decide to upgrade and go, for example, the legal route to exclude people like you? The problem is that at this time, Rust is deeply tainted. The poison is not yet very aggressive but that can change without warning. Letting this thing in and using it makes you vulnerable. So yes, "I do not care about the CoC" is a sane stance, but it may well not be a sustainable one. I do get that politics is a boring and somewhat icky topic, I feel the same way. But it may not be smart to ignore it here.
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You want to go your way and ignore the code of conduct? Be yourself, the code is open source so you can exercise your freedoms as you wish and use it however you like.
You want to participate in the group, benefit from its contacts and influence their behaviour? You have to abide by the rules of the group.
Seriously guys, freedom in a society is not that difficult to understand.
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How could a CoC exclude someone from merely using the software? I’m waiting for a rainbow to appear on the rust website and then the real sparks will fly!
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Are you sure? It just takes one court decision. And the court are notoriously incompetent about technology.
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Obviously a cult. At this time staying away from Rust is a moral obligation.
Re: User groups? (Score:2)
Dude the code is dual MIT and Apache licensed. Everything else isn't even relevant.
Well we're certainly full of ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do these people think they are, Disney?
I worry more about mrustc (Score:2)
Trademark law encourages this sort of diligence to prevent the brand name from becoming generic, as has arguably happened to Xerox photocopiers or Kleenex tissues or Laundromat self-service laundries.
Based on the policy as written, one project I'm aware of that would be considered infringing is the mrustc compiler [github.com], intended for bootstrapping rustc (the official Rust compiler).
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Rust's marketing is to C's as Rust is to C (Score:5, Interesting)
Who do these people think they are, Disney?
C doesn't need a marketing team. It doesn't need a trademark. C isn't bothered if someone sells a t-shirt with its logo on it. C doesn't even need the logo. C doesn't need to stand in front of a mirror and admire itself. C doesn't tell you what you can or can't do with it. C just wants you to code.
Rust's marketing is to C's marketing as Rust is to C.
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Well said. If somebody needs to use a programming language as a political tool, the only sane response is to stay away.
Focus on your code. (Score:1)
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Is that leftist as in "left evaluation order"? Or does it have genderneutral operators? Or do you have to start sentences with "Comrade: "?
Are these people being paid? (Score:1)
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You don't want anything you want to hang on to, be appropriated by a company, registered as *their* trademark, and then banned from using it. That has happened before, in trademark law. Companies can use a century old trademark if someone else finds out they didn't register it properly.
If you like your project name, mascot, icons and styleguide to remain the same and not have to forcibly change it because someone grabbed your trademarks, paying some attention to IP law is useful. Not paying attention to it
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Re: Are these people being paid? (Score:2)
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Gee, that makes sense doesn't it? You see the difference here? C is about code. Rust is about... fuck knows what. Fat salaries for people who call themselves sofware engineers, but all they do is attend zoom meetings to discuss corporate bullshit.
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This is politics. It is work, but it is the kind of work that turns everything to crap. Rust should have gotten the finger when they did their CoC. It did not because too many people are asleep at the wheel and falsely believe it does not affect them. Now these people extend their cult.
non-free (restricted use) (Score:5, Interesting)
this comment i am dividing into two parts: carrot and stick. more like "roasting" but hey. first the stick. and before you hit "-1" - if you think below is quotes bad quotes, look up what other people are saying, first.
the biggest problem with the original rust trademark is that whilst the source code is a proper free license, if you want to even distribute it *and also keep using the words rust and cargo* - and of course placing even just a copy on a public git repository constitutes "distribution" - you are forced to read and comply with the trademark license... which, no point beating about the bush here, that license was draconian, naive, burdensome and very stupid in the extreme.
bear in mind the caveats above which can be circumvented by removing *all* mention of the trademarked words - which of course is extremely inconvenient given that git revision history *also constitutes distribution* and could thus cause confusion by having what's termed "continuity" between the trademark and {insert-your-legally-required-to-be-unrelated-word-here}.
what was genuinely genuinely stupid was that the rust foundation *prohibited* modifications of any kind in distributed works [bear in mind caveat above when reading that statement].
after i complained loudly about this on both debian and gcc mailing lists - on behalf of both debian users, debian *forks and derivatives* and gcc users and developers - they put in yet another stupid phrase which allowed distributors - only with permission - to make distro-related modifications. that of course does *not apply* to the *derivatives* of a given distro (of which there are dozens in debian alone), who are required to also contact the rust foundation for explicit permission.
if that does not sound like a free software project, that's because it really isn't.
and remember the context: everyone's going "ya ya rust is great rust is great let's put it in the linux kernel" which ultimately would make *building a linux kernel critically dependent on a non-free toolchain*!
that said... now the carrot.
the actual intent here is honorable. think about it: Trademarks in FOSS are a perfect tool to protect people from malicious intent, such as inserting trojans and distributing them (yes this has really happened in the past, and was only terminated due to the FOSS project having a Registered Trademark), and in this particular case it is perfectly reasonable to expect a distributed tool to not be messed up by introducing security holes, failures, or other problems, intentionally or unintentionally.
there exists a branch of Trademark Law precisely designed for this exact specific role: it's called "Certification Marks".
and it just so happens that the perfect candidate qualifying as a "self-Certification" suite is, yep, you guessed it: the software's very own Test Suite!
fascinatingly, Certification Marks have been used in the past on programming languages: Ada.
http://archive.adaic.com/pol-h... [adaic.com]
https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/das... [ntis.gov]
thus it becomes a simple matter to state, in the Certification Mark License,
You may distribute modified versions this software (and retain the word "rust") if and only if
the release contains the version numbering (debian distro release naming suffixes allowed)
and You have run the *UNMODIFIED* Test Suite of the EXACT same version associated with
your release.
in particular that also happens to fit when people distribute via git repositories: if you make
a release on a git repository that fails the unit tests, and people start copying it, that's clearly
a serious problem.
so there is a way out, here, one that has both precedent and is perfectly reasonable.
but - back to the stick aga
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This becomes even worse if you are a system outside the Big Three that Rust cares about. So, does anyone have a good naming suggestion for rust distributions with patches yet? My personal favorite is "Death Cap" since it properly reflects the intentions here.
rust alternative: irony.
cargo alternative: cult.
First of all, I want to be the Dad (Score:2)