what to do about annoying trademark use?

[Sam Kuper]

On Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 02:29:48AM +0000, Daniel Golle wrote:
> So NXP has released something they call NXP Layerscape OpenWrt 20.09
>
> So not only they use the OpenWrt brand name, they have also released
> their fork with a version which looks like it could be an official
> OpenWrt release and will make people think that they should annoy us
> when it comes to getting support for that.
> 
> I'm not suggesting to do anything about that in terms of legal action
> (as that would be even more annoying for everyone involved), but I
> think we should do something to prevent that from happening even more
> in future.
>
> We are closing bug reports (especially for LuCI) on dialy basis where
> people request support for software which looks like it was an OpenWrt
> release but turns out to be a vendor-fork.
> 
> Debian also managed to make vendors name their forks differently, ie.
> Raspbian and such. ASUSWrt is kind of a good example of how it would
> be done the right way for OpenWrt (at least in my opinion).

OpenWrt recently joined the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC):
https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/ .

The SFC is designed to help member projects to deal with problems like
this: https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/ .

So, as a first step, those with standing to act on OpenWrt's behalf
(committers/Decisionmakers? or whoever has been designated as OpenWrt's
liaison with the SFC?) should probably communicate the concerns to the
SFC.  The SFC should then propose possible next steps & state the
benefits or disadvantages of each.

As for legal action: IANAL but I think in at least some jurisdictions,
trade marks lose validity if not enforced.  If so, the SFC may advise
legal action against NXP & other vendors abusing OpenWrt trade marks
(because otherwise OpenWrt would lose those trade marks).

The action might not involve going to court, it might initially just be
a "cease & desist" letter sent to the vendors, perhaps stating that an
acceptable resolution would be for the vendor to rename any forks they
might create (e.g. "NXPwrt" or whatever).  Only if the vendors persist
in abusing the trade mark might stronger action be needed.

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