Ruby on Rails All rights reserved - DHH
Posted on December 22, 2007
Filed Under Ruby on Rails, Media and advertising
Few weeks ago while talking with my RoR buddies we happened to have a small discussion about David Heinemeier Hansson clearly instructing everyone not to use logo of Ruby on Rails for any commercial purpose where he himself is not being involved or you may say not being benefited. While going through an article about the same I came across really interesting facts and aspects. Like Ruby on Rails identity was community funded. Undoubtedly DHH is responsible for the heights to which Ruby on Rails have reached today.
As a matter of fact on the Ruby on Rails official web site a copyrights message can also be found stating:
"Rails", "Ruby on Rails", and the Rails logo are trademarks of
David Heinemeier Hansson. All rights reserved.
Ruby on Rails I believe is one of the most successful open source projects ever and that is because of its policies especially for contribution. Rails source code is available under MIT license but the Rails identity is covered by trade mark rights. Basically a trade mark is used for a lot different purpose and it is really debatable if Rails identity should be covered under a trade mark policy or not. A trade mark is used in trade of goods to indicate and distinguish source.
Around the world already there is lot of confusion going on about trade mark for open source projects for example for overcoming Linux sub licensing and trade marking problem an entirely new concept of Linux mark was coined.
Rails is neither a product or a service its just an open source project, at least that is what everyone thinks of it, not sure about DHH. So how can one obtain trade mark or service mark for Rails. If to DHH believe, source of Rails is of himself as the usage rights remains with him and he is just sharing a few rights with others, then are all the Rails contributors crazy to be contributing in the Rails framework so that it can be distinguished as a DHH thing. Does DHH wants the world to work for him for free and yeah he doesn’t owe us a shit!!
Article by Peter Cooper on Rails trademark rights of DHH
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