Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 10:26 pm Post subject: CD distribution rules and discussion
So we've talked about this off-and-on in various forum topics so far, but now seems as good a time as any to sit down and flesh out what we would like to do, what's legal, and how to do so.
What we'd like, so far as I can tell, is to have some national/regional (some countries are big) sources of Neo/J on CD-ROM so that folks without broadband (lots of the world) aren't deprived of the opportunity to experience Neo/J. We'll then make a list of such "authorized distributors" on the wiki and/or on the website(s).
Ray mentioned what sounded like a good general "solution":
rays wrote:
[On a personal note, I would consider offering my support to such a service if there was demand and we could be sure that a donation of an agreed minimum level had been made to cover personal production and distribution costs with a bit more on top to raise funds for Patrick's efforts.
Am I correct in understanding that as Ray has expressed it, this falls under "permitted" in Ed's definition? [Cost of Neo/J CD]=[Cost of making/mailing CD]+[Donation to Planamesa Software]?
If I've got that right, there's still a question of collecting and disbursing money, which is where things get tricky (particularly if we want to have an international network of distributors to keep postage costs and delivery time low).... How do we set that up?
And then what else, if anything, can be included on the CD? Latest patch is a natural no-brainer, but what is the legality of templates, OOoMacros, etc.?
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 12:03 am Post subject: Re: CD distribution rules and discussion
sardisson wrote:
If I've got that right, there's still a question of collecting and disbursing money, which is where things get tricky (particularly if we want to have an international network of distributors to keep postage costs and delivery time low).... How do we set that up?
My (only) initial thought was that some sort of CD order option would have to be added to Patrick's existing pay-pal page. That way Patrick gets the money up-front! If a 'copy order' can be mailed according to some 'region' or 'country' choice (automated in pay-pal?) to whoever handles the production & mailing for that region/country, would that be sufficient? There's a clear record of payment and I'm happy to submit 'expenses claims' to Patrick against materials and postage used in orders fullfilled.
In one of the related discussions, someone mentioned mass CD production. This was not what was in my mind since we haven't really tested the market for such CDs yet.
Business plans are not my forte. For my part, I was thinking to burn on demand in the background on my work or home Macs. If I found demand exceeded that capacity, I'd use my office CD duplicator to create a small stock if pace of orders was such. True - it's a low-tech effort but more volunteers could register to join in the effort and create a wider network providing to home country, for example.
I have a cafe press account and could set it up fairly easily to sell Neo on CD.
it would be about $10 a CD, which is $1 for Neo (and none for me)
as for what is on the CD. As a big of a pain at it would be, i do not think we should include patches, rather have a 'current build' with the patch encorporated. That would limit CD releases to major builds (or major patches) but would look better (and there is a time delay sending in the master CD to cafe press)
we could see about making a PDF of major Wiki articles, sorta info to go thing for the CD as well.
chances are good that CD's would NOT be a money making option. rather a convience to people who could not download Neo.
Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 8:00 am Post subject: Re: CD distribution rules and discussion
rays wrote:
My (only) initial thought was that some sort of CD order option would have to be added to Patrick's existing pay-pal page. That way Patrick gets the money up-front! If a 'copy order' can be mailed according to some 'region' or 'country' choice (automated in pay-pal?) to whoever handles the production & mailing for that region/country, would that be sufficient? There's a clear record of payment and I'm happy to submit 'expenses claims' to Patrick against materials and postage used in orders fullfilled.
While this process would be nice, it would require a lot of effort to set up and maintain. Not only do I need to handle all of the "where's my CD" questions, but I also would have the administrative hassle of tracking and reporting the CD sales for U.S. tax purposes.
This extra effort is the reason that I have not added a "get a CD" link to my website and, quite frankly, probably never will. I would be willing to put a link to someone else's site, but I do not want to be the primary gateway.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 10:34 am Post subject:
As to the "what's allowed" under the trademark guidelines I tried to develop last night, the proposals for cost structure for CDs are fine. So is charging for overhead or administrative costs since those aren't included in gross margins. I tried to come up with the most flexible terminology I could think of as to what constitutes profit
I can also understand that any type of corporate CD distributor will of course want to get some $$ for their efforts if instead of a community thing we find a company who wants to do distributions. The only request that I have is that the distributors enter into a more formal legal arrangement to license the NeoOffice trademark. I don't have anything egregious in mind, probably just a donation or some percentage of the profits to be donated to keep helping to fund continued development like Patrick was able to do for the past 2-3 months. Thanks Patrick!!
Also note that folks can also ask Patrick for trademark licensing agreements as well I have granted him full rights to use the mark in whatever way he wants.
The whole trademark thing isn't intended to become a revenue stream. It's solely for protection against companies like Luxuriousity who will "freeload" off of a community without giving anything back.
The whole trademark thing isn't intended to become a revenue stream. It's solely for protection against companies like Luxuriousity who will "freeload" off of a community without giving anything back.
ed
Just for fun I did a search for neooffice on ebay and found lots of references.
emphasis mine. My guess is they think they're following the GPL (which they probably are), but don't realize that the trademark issue applies here as well.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 7:22 pm Post subject:
Yup, anyone selling on eBay is in violation of US trademark law if they are performing business within the United States. NeoOffice cannot be used for selling software products.
Looks like if I get bored it's time to file disputed claims with a couple of other folks to get them delisted from ebay.
I don't know a lot about copyright and trademark problems, but I understand that (of course) those who distribute Neo/J, the result of the hard work of dedicated people, should contribute in return, especially if Neo/J is distributed in bundles and makes an added value for the main product(s).
But what I really don't understand is why this is only limited to the US... isn't trademark Neo/J protected globally? (I was involved in the decision-making on protecting a trademark about 10 years ago, and then we "checked" for all major markets, US and Eur, and all related industries... and ended with a dispute with a major California-based company )
And one more thing... since I'm a student and spend some time on campus, I was thinking of making some posters and flyers... And I also concidered to make installer cds on demand, and be a local support hub and hopefully form a usergroup or something... (I have already made a webpage with info about installation of spellcheck and local language settings.)
But making cds and getting expences covered is ok, ins't it? (I'we seen on the native lang OOo pages that you can get a installation cd in the mail for about USD 8 - 10 (depending on exch. rate).
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 9:12 am Post subject:
Oh, the trademark stuff is limited to US pretty much because the trademark is only registered in the US and any countries that have trade agreements that recognize US trademarks. Outside the US all bets are off since there's really nothing that I can enforce. It's bad enough trying to deal with the legal system in this country, much less international law
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 9:14 am Post subject:
That doesn't mean distribution is limited to the US, of course. You can distribute it anywhere.
All that it means is that if you distribute Neo as a product within the United States, you have to either follow the free trademark usage guidelines or negotiate some other arrangement if you want to call it "NeoOffice". Of course, it's GPL, so you can just recompile it, change the name and the artwork t "GreatOffice" or whatever and it's all cool.
My only intent is to make sure that the "NeoOffice" mark that I've invested so much time into remains associated with things that are both free as in beer and free as in freedom.
Since the question of CD distribution has come up again, and since Ed had mentioned in the original trinity news story that perhaps something about trademark usage should go up on the wiki...
I've started a DRAFT page "NeoOffice/J CD Distribution" that first explains the "complexity of the situation", then reprints the NeoOffice Trademark Usage Policy from the trinity news story and finally (still very briefly) lists distributors and "requirements" for being a distributor.
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 6:07 am Post subject:
One suggestion - perhaps generate a README text that also has to be distributed along with the binaries. The Readme would include links to the support forums here, bugzilla and the OpenOffice.org support forums too. This would be for those situations where people are being supplied the CD without having come through this site (e.g. as they were given it by a friend or from magazine cover CDs). _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
I thought about adding a readme section to that list when I was making it, but didn't have any ideas so I left it off then. I've now added your ideas Thanks.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
An explanation of the 'patch check' feature? Users installing from a CD may not expect (or want?) their browser to be attempt to connect to the Internet on first launching NeoOfficeJ.
Especially those with dial-up or no connection who used the CD installer may consider the 'frequent' attempts to connect to the patch page sufficient reason to dump the programme. I know that I get irritated sometimes by Apple's own software update but at least I can configure its frequency myself. An explanation in the readme file (which we all read before installing new software, don't we!) informing users of the default frequency of the check would be helpful. Those installing from the CD are less likely to be candidates for testing and reporting via bugzilla.
Could the patch-checking feature be made user-configurable in the final 1.1 release, after a requisite first launch check? (If it is already user-configurable, how is it done? Could access to configuring it - or just an explanation of how to - be added as a menu item under the Help menu in NeoOfficeJ, for example?)
PS: Having a Patch-5 available with TestPatch-4.1 included will be a major bonus for those MacWorld users as the very first patch they download. _________________ Ray Saunders
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