Re: [ee4j-community] Open Discussion on the Logo Contest

[David Blevins <dblevins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, let me say I think silence is the real issue here.

This is a good thread and anytime people have questions they *should* be asking them rather than staying silent, so however they surface it is a good thing.  I encouraged Amelia to speak up, though was admittedly not expecting “Tomitribe” to be in the subject. Rather, to ask questions as an individual which I think is a good example to set.  We need more individuals and a little bit less “company.”

Here are some of the complexities and context which I think sheds some light on our current status, overall, not just with logos.  It's not perfect and we can always do better on absolutely everything, but given enough context I think all people usually get to the same or similar conclusions.

# Trademark

Three months, two open source orgs and 7k votes went into the selection of Jakarta EE brand.  As awesome as it is, it does pose a challenge that geographical locations cannot be trademarked in all parts of the world. I don't have the list in front of me, we're good in the US and Europe as far as I understand, but not everywhere. 

While the bare word "Jakarta" cannot be trademarked in some places of the world, in those same places the word along with a "strong graphical element" can often be enough... provided the image does not tie back to the geographical location as if it does then you're going two steps in the wrong direction.  So the image can't just be neutral, but has to actively steer *away* from Jakarta the place. That basically means any logo entry that is a nod to Jakarta the place in any way is a no-go.

Obviously, Apache used the Jakarta trademark just fine for quite a long time, but we will be leaning on it in significantly different way.  We will actually be distributing rights globally for certified implementations to use the trademark so the complexity we face is significantly greater.  We need this part to be as perfect and strong as it can be.

# Legal risk and transparency

Another factor is legal restrictions are inherently extremely difficult to talk about openly.  The more you talk about particular legal weaknesses the more vulnerable you are to them. Anecdotally, I once mentioned API copyright on a prominent open source foundation's internal mailing list (not even public) and was told within seconds to shut the hell up. :)  Should legal action be taken against the org, I was basically making the opposition's case. These things are hard and often the best thing you can say is "trust me."

Any one of these things can be explained openly with enough care, but there's always the risk the conversation gets out of control and goes exactly where you don't want it.  The volume of legal complexity involved and what's at stake makes doing this repeatedly feel unwise. That makes balance very hard.

The fear is that we fall on our face before we can get across the finish line.

# Speed vs openness

Everyone wants to get hacking now.  We're all itching to do some real work.  Going fast and being open with tricky legal topics are conflicting goals.  I can't say we always make the right call, but as long as everyone understands the heart is in the right place, I hope that makes everyone feel a bit better.

As reference, we have a bunch of git repos filled with code.  The flood gates aren't open because the right things are not in place legally.  There was a conversation today on what could be offered to people to get started doing at least something while we still work the legal.  Of course even temporary measures involve some legal constraints and therefore requires a pragmatic conversation on risk.

# Why do we need a logo now?

That's a fair question as is, “couldn't the marketing group do this once formed?”.  Now or later there wouldn't be any change in the restrictions or that some part of this cannot be done openly.  It also wouldn't change that the world at large would still be allowed to submit logos.

The timing and duration might have been affected, which I think is a factor.  There's a strong desire to get out of private mode and everyone in the working groups by end of April.  This includes a website for people to rally around. Before you can build a website, you need a logo to build around, so that's what got us down this path.  That and the above desire to firm out legal standing on the Jakarta EE trademark globally. 

If we want to use MicroProfile as a comparison.  100% of creating the logo and website was done privately with no logo contest whatsoever.  It was also lightning fast and put together in record time. So there's the tradeoff. On MicroProfile, we fixed it by having a logo contest a year later.  That contest start to finish was at least 3 months. I think the second logo is significantly better than the first and they were designed by the same person.

If the same happened here, I don't think it would be the worst thing.  I think it'd be far worse to not have a website for 3 months or one that was all text and no images.  We need to get something there we can rally around that isn’t a wiki page or a mailing list.

My personal opinion is that if what comes out of this process is something we like, we keep it, and if we really overall feel it should be changed we let the future Marketing Committee handle the feedback.  As long as we're not changing the name again, I think we can handle changing the logo if needed.

Now bare in mind I haven't been sitting on all this information for the last month.  Some of it is new to me as well and came up because of this thread. Again, questions are always good.  Relaying what I know and leaning towards the risk side of the equation. This also means I now have to be glued to email for the next few days and own the follow-up questions.  Mike has kind of been doing that alone, which is an issue. Not an issue that Mike should shut up, but that more of us should speak up and help.

Attempting to do that.