There are a few people writing about the Moodle trademark in a few threads but I thought that the nice and cumfy lounge would be the best place to suggest this.
I know that in the past Martin has allowed hosting and support providers to use the word moodle but more recently there has been a more rigorous protection of the Moodle trademark.
As someone who does not (yet? my teaching assistant wants to) want to provide Moodle hosting or support for a profit, I like to think that I am sympathetic to both sides of this argument, which does not seem to be clear cut.
Should only moodle partners be able to use the word moodle on a commercial hosting or development site? How strict is it a good idea to be? I think that there is a continuum and a comfortable comprised can be achieved.
As a part time language teacher, I was reminded of the famous English language test TOEIC® and their trademark policy statement. They give strict guidelines about how the word TOEIC® can be used (please see the page).
They say that TOEIC can only be used as an adjective - E.g. TOEIC® Test.
Perhaps Moodle might be restricted in its adjectival use.
Moodle Hosting®
Moodle Development®
These adjectival uses concern the service that Moodle Partners provide, and that should be protected.
On the other hand there is the entity (a cooperatively produced product and a community) that we all know, love and are a part of, which people may like to participate in and support. So the statements
We suppport Moodle
We host Moodle
might be allowed, of course outside of company and doman names again as required by the TOEIC producers. This might be nit picking, but it is a way of reaching a compromise that may keep Martin's family in a nice house and the community comfortable.
Additionally from the TOEIC® page
1) The use of the ® on commerical uses, (Hence on a commercial page "We support Moodle®")
2) As in the CC By attribution licence, a link to moodle.com or .org might also be stipulation. Hence, "We support Moodle(®)"
3) The use of the disclaimer again from the TOEIC website, thus at the foot of a commercial page, possibly
"Moodle® is a trademark of the Moodle Foundation. This (commercial) [publication/ product/website] is not endorsed or approved by Moodle Foundation.
Timothy
I did wonder if there was much difference between we host Moodle® and Moodle Hosting®. Perhaps a better term might be Approved Moodle hosting® (qualified and adjectival ). This would allow non-partners to say we host Moodle® in your scheme.
It is not my field of expertise either of course, but needless to say, I don't think that one needs to be an expert to think about the issue.
First of all the bit that one needs to be an expert to reach a conclusion, but may nonetheless be of interested.
The point of whether it will be possible to refer to prevent people naming the entity Moodle by the trademark Moodle or not, is perhaps a tricky one. It may well be possible to defend ones trademark in that way. However, at the same time see this into to trademark law and the Internet, where it says:
"4. Accurate Statements Regarding Qualifications, Awards or Compatibility. Resellers and servicers may use third-party trademarks to describe their inventory or expertise. In all cases, the third-party mark must be properly credited and no current affiliation or endorsement should be stated or implied."
To the above, there is the rejoiner that Moodle Hosting is a service and competitors are not "reselling" it, and thus can not able to use the trademark in a "fair use" way. However it is not clear to me whether the existance of the service and the trademark refering to that service, one is then capable of preventing people from refering to the product of the same name, by its name. This may well be possible. If there are any experts that can point to cases I would be interested to read about them.
At the same time, I don't think that one needs to be an expert to consider is the whether it might be a good idea for to allow some uses of the trademark Moodle, such as the noun, as per the following diagram, in a similar way to that which educators and authors are allowed to use the trademark TOEIC.
The policy about use of the trademark for commercial services is clearly spelled out on the Moodle license page.
There are very good practical, legal and business reasons for the way things are set up and it simply is not changing in the near future.
If you have specific trademark questions or cases to discuss please use the Moodle helpdesk. If you or your assistant want to start making money selling Moodle services using my trademark to advertise it, please ask via the Moodle helpdesk. If you just want to fill the forums with speculation and handwaving then by all means feel free to continue doing that too, though I can't see anything good coming of it.
When you create *your* own trademarks you can make your own choices about how to use them.
Dear Martin
Thank you very much for your reply. If you have time please correct me if I make any mistakes which of course I will try to avoid. And also please, as always, do not feel the need to reply unless you feel the need to correct my mistakes. This post is addressed to you, but it is also designed to be read by the community at large so I don't know whether to say "you" or "the Moodle Foundation," but I have used "you" for simplicity.
I am very grateful for your (The Moodle Foundation's) allowing me to fill the forum with speculation and handwaving. I don't see it that way of course, rather as valid socially constructive expression and debate, but either way, I am grateful that I am allowed this opportunity at all.
I would like to handwave slowly and in stages so that I don't get out of hand. The things I would like to talk about are:
Clarity
Changes
Limitations upon trademark usage
Limitations upon trademark users
Your use of "*your*"
In this post I will try and stick to clarity.
But hold on, before I do, please let me retract. I do not have plans to set up a moodle hosting business. I said that bit in brackets above to align myself neutrally, both with Moodle as it stands and with the would-be-hosters, but really I can only guess at their situation. I like to think that I am even more neutral.
Back to clarity.
You say that the Moodle Licence Page is clear. But it seems to me that it is not as clear as it might be, and that people may have misunderstood it. I am not sure when the licence page took its current form but I know from the perusing the Steve Hyndman thread that he and I at least did not understand the licence.
The important part (as it seems to me) of the licence page is quite short
"If you are intending to use the name to promote commercial generic Moodle services (eg Moodle Hosting, Moodle Support, Moodle Certification etc), then you must seek direct permission..."
And that seems to contain things that may be misunderstood - by the commercially unwashed like myself - and these are
1) In the examples given Moodle is used *adjectivally* "Moodle Hosting, Moodle Support, Moodle Certification"
2) The word "generic" seems to qualify (and thus reduce) the limitation on the use of the trademark.
3) The meaning of "promote"
I.e.
1) With respect to the adjectival use, people might think that offering "Moodle Hosting/Support/Development" is not on because that is the domain of the Moodle Partner, but perhaps saying "I will support you in your use of Moodle" or "I can host your Moodle installation" etc is allowable.
One may think, "Eh? who would split hairs like this?" but as was brought up elsewhere, I believe it is not allowed to call oneself a "Ford Dealer" (unless one is an approved Ford Dealer) but it is allowed to mention that one sells or deals with Ford cars. This misinterpretation(?) of the Moodle licence is not obvious, IMHO.
2) With respect to the word "generic" this may encourage people to think that they can not offer accross the board hosting/support/training but if the are only in a limited market segment (e.g. primary education) then it may be okay to say on publically accessible media, "I will set up a Moodle LMS for your primary school."
3) When does a word "promote"? From a brief persual of the literature, it seems that in some circumstances mention the trademarks of others is not seen as promotional. Using the trademarks of others in urls, metatags(disputed) or business names is generally seen as promotional. But again, mentioning a Moodle-inclusive inventory may not be seen, by some, as promotional. If you mean (and I woudl agree) that any use of Moodle is promotional then I think that this needs to be made clear.
So in the interest of clarity it may be a good idea to expand the licence description to say such things as perhaps (to be honest I don't know!):
"As a general rule, you may not use the word Moodle at all on any site or publically accessible media that offers hosting, support, trainging, or certification"
I think that it would be a good idea to go to town on this and really make the licence plain, with lots of examples of what one can and can't do in at least as much detail as the TOEIC page I referenced above, even if every example is a list of "You can't do this" "You can't do that." E.g. *perhaps*
"You can't say 'I will train you in the use of Moodle'"
"You can't say 'I offer courses in how to use Moodle'"
"You can't say 'I will host your Moodle installation'"
And then to recommend alternatives, such as perhaps (and some of these may or may not be acceptable)
"You can say that you offer support/hosting of 'an open source LMS'"
"You can say that you offer support of 'the most famous open source LMS'"
"You can say that you offer support of 'the major open sorce competitor to Blackboard®"
"You can (not) say that you offer support of 'the Australian open source CMS'"
etc.
Well anyway, that concludes my post on clarity.
I can think of good reasons not to be clear by the way, but I skip that.
Timothy
Possibly it may help to note that the Moodle *trademark* is NOT community property, and is not open source to be voted on or changed by the community (whereas Moodle itself surely is).
The trademark is the foundation of my business and things were set up that way so that Moodle business has the LEAST restriction on the purpose of Moodle itself (which is to help people educate each other better). Development, sharing, free hosting and education are not affected by the trademark. Probably 99.99% of all users are not affected at all by the trademark, yet anyone visiting moodle.org wouldn't think that from the amount of words written and hours spent on the subject by a vocal 0.01%
If anyone does want to use the trademark as part of offering commercial Moodle services and they are in doubt of the rules, they should do exactly what they should do for any trademark holder, and what it says in the license: ask me! Lots of people do, and I often say yes, go for it! It's impossible to write down an exact list of what can or can not be done without risk of mis-interpretation now or in an ever-changing future, but I usually make a call on each case fairly quickly.
Dear Martin, everyone, friends
Martin is right, I have been spending a lot of time on this trademark issue, in that I have been thinking about it a lot on and off for about 18 months, and almost continuously since I started this thread. I don't think however, that I have written all that much about it. I find a total of 6 posts (of about 2400) which mention "trademark" under my name. Since as Martin says, the trademark is the foundation of the Moodle foundation, and very important to some other people then it does not seem to have been discussed too much.
As a salaried educator, the issue of the trademark does not have a financial impact upon me. All the same though it has been eating at me, and it is something that I find I feel strongly about. It is not a light issue for me. The fact that I have a salary is relevant, however, because when I suggested to someone who was financially concerned, that they raise the issue on the forums they said that they were scared to since they depend upon the goodwill of the moodle community. And to be honest, the reason why I have not mentioned it before is because I felt scared. I also depend upon the goodwill of the developers. "What if central moodle developers think I am being unreasonable by suggesting this?" I asked myself, and I was scared. So I did not say anything, and now I feel a little bit ashamed about my silence. But upon reflection I think that it was uncharitable of me to be scared, and if on the outside chance that voicing this opinion results in negative outcomes for me then that seems to me to be all the more reason for me to voice it. Surely we want to have a community where people can voice opinions relating to central issues of the community.
Furthermore it seems to me that I am suggesting only a minor change. I got it wrong at the start of this thread when I suggested making a distinction between noun and verb.
The distinction I want to make is between Moodle as service and Moodle as product.
I do NOT think that anyone should be allowed to offer "Moodle Support, Moodle Development, or Moodle Certification" without permission, since these things are offered by the Moodle foundation and partners and no one does it better. The good name of these services is entirely a product of the excellent service provided by the Moodle Partners.
However, when it come to the product, the Moodle LMS, it seems to me that it would be reasonable to allow people to use the name in statements of inventory such as:
"We support Atutor, Moodle®, and Doekos..
This site is not approved by Moodle® in anyway."
I feel this way because I believe that the product, Moodle LMS, was produced collectively, by a great number of people and the good name of the Moodle LMS, and the value of that trademark is a product of the cooperative efforts of a great number of people: principally Martin and the central developers, but also a great many others.
I am not an expert on trademark law, and mainly I am going on my sense of what is reasonable but from my limited reading and reasoning
1) One does not have to register a trademark to have some measure of ownership on that trademark. E.g. if ten people create a product, lets say the "Doodle Chair" and it sells well but they have not registered that trademark, then if another company or even one of the ten people were to register the trademark "Doodle Chair" then the original collective would be within their reasonable (as I see them) and perhaps even legal right to say "hold on a minute..." In other words, registered or not, trademarks I feel belong in part to those that have traded under that mark.
2) I think that "trade" also applies to charities and not for profit organisations. In the early days of Oxfam or Unicef, if someone had taken out a trademark on these names then I think that the organisations may have been awarded similar rights.
I believe that considering these two points combined seems to me to be relevant to the trademark on the product the "moodle lms" or just "moodle"(?).
Hence, when Martin (who seems to me to be a reasonable man) says that that it is not "*your*" trademark, and that is not community property, I am surprised by this assertion. It seems to me that the good name of the Moodle product (NOT service) does to an extent belong to the community, and the trademark likewise. Hence, the strict control of that trademark by the Moodle Foundation/Partners, seems somewhat out of place.
I for one, and a great many others feel grateful to Martin and the Moodle developers. It is important to me that they are financially secure. Why? Again, that just seems reasonable. If they are not yet financially secure, then I would vote for great control over the trademark. At such time as the Moodle developers are financially secure however, it seems reasonable to me that the trademark should be treated in the way that I suggest above.
Above is the meat of what I wanted to say.
Going back to earlier points, it has been suggested to me that I have got the licence wrong. I am truly sorry. I wish to repeat that I am still not quite clear on the licence. As my present understanding stands, from having read the above and the licence page, it seems to me that
ANY mention of the word Moodle on a publication (site, printed or other) associated with hosting, support, certification (and perhaps training?) is not allowed without permission.
I am not sure.
The current (at the time of writing my preceding post on this thread) licence page mentions the use of moodle *for promotion* and *generic* services. It does not seem clear to me when the mention of moodle becomes "for promotion" or when a service is "generic". I think that bearing in mind that people like Steve Hyndman, or N Hansen (very knowledgeable moodlers) misconceived the licence indicates that the nature of the licence should be made clearer.
Flexibility is good, but the point from which one is flexing from should be made clear. If the bottom like is "NO use of the word moodle on commercial sites offering hosting is permitted without permission" then at least the licence page should be very clear.
Finally, the point about the use of the trademark only becomes relevant when combined with the important fact about Moodle partners -- that their number is severely curtailed.
In the past, I was under the misapprehension that anyone could become a moodle partner if they had the resources and acumen but in fact, it seems (again I am not sure, but I believe) that now that there are three Moodle partners in the USA and two in Japan, further applications are not being accepted at least for the time being for these countries.
I think that this fact -- "if you are in the US and Japan.. don't apply for partner status because we already have enough" -- should also be made very clear.
Flexibility is good, but people need to know the base limits in advance. And the base limit seem to me to be a bit too strict at the moment.
There, I have said it. I am not suggesting such a big change. But I think that the change I suggest will benefit Moodle as a whole. The little possibly inexpensive companies will also be allowed to exist, and this will benefit users. The community members will feel more included and happy in the knowledge that they can mention the name of the product (but NOT service) with with they are involved even should they decide to sell their expertise. Those that are trying to make a living supporting moodle will be allowed to mention that which they support.
Sincerely
Timothy
1) Please read the license again - it's the Moodle Trust (the Moodle Foundation is a charity and not active yet).
2) Steve Hyndman never contacted the Moodle.com helpdesk like the license explicitly asks him to.
My conclusion is that people never read anything closely anyway, so a detailed explanation of what is and isn't allowed would not help.
If you have a case you aren't sure about, just ask at the Moodle.com helpdesk for approval.
I have no interest in jumping back into this debate, but you know you are trying to confuse the issue once again Martin. Read your own cease-and-desist email...you make the parameters very clear in that email.
For anyone who really wants a crash course on the REAL issues here, you only need to read the the cease-and-desist email...it is in the first post here. Also, you may want to read Martin's post at the link below for more "really interesting" insight on this issue.
On a side note, you will see that Martin defended his trademark enforcement in that discussion (the schoolforge discussion) by comparing Moodle to McDonalds and Blackboard, but a couple of weeks later when I compared his trademark enforcement to Microsoft (in the Moodle Trademark Email thread), he claimed:
"Comparing Moodle to Microsoft doesn't make sense and to do so is misleading. They sell their software, Moodle doesn't."
I guess what is misleading depends on who you are trying to convince.
Martin, rest assured that I have no interest in becoming a partner or having any type relationship with your moodle.com business, so I won't be sending a request to your helpdesk to ask your permission for anything. But, if what you say above is REALLY the bottom line issue here:
"Steve Hyndman never contacted the Moodle.com helpdesk like the license explicitly asks him to."
Then, it was my mistake for not asking your permission.
Since that is the issue, I take it that others can learn from that, and ANYONE who wishes to use the Moodle name on their for-profit site only needs to ask your permission via the moodle.com help desk. So if there is anyone out there who is interested in using the Moodle name on their for-profit site, then just contact Martin via the Moodle.com help desk and ask permission...that is all there is to it. Glad you cleared that up for us all Martin...thanks.
By the way...I will not respond to your posts via the private message system here...what I have to say, I'll say here in public.
As I said, I'm not going to jump back in and lead this discussion, but I will reply if I think necessary. Like was already pointed out, there are several prominent members of this community who don't like what you are doing but are afraid to post about it....fortunately, some of us are not afraid. I still believe that one day Martin will realize that creating a monopoly off the hard work of a volunteer community is NOT the the best way to approach this and that there are other, more reasonable, and more productive approaches...but I could be wrong.
By the way Martin....I have saved this post as well, so if you delete it, I will repost it...but I'm sure you already know that 
Steve
The demoted PHM
You seem to have taken some things I've said unusually hard. You seem quite bitter and antagonistic, even. I'm sorry for that, I really am, but no explanations I've tried seem to help you.
I'm impressed you have so much devotion to the project I started and continue to lead, to the point that you feel compelled to track everything I say and attack it.
I hope you can find some understanding in yourself soon and move on to a happier phase of life.
I feel that the TOEIC trademark use guidelines demonstrate that it is not a legal necessity to forbid trademark usage, so long as one makes sure that others mention that the trademark is a trademark, and write a disclaimer.
However, I can't think of good reasons why the Moodle Trust (sorry) should allow Moodlers the same rights.
Upon reflection my take is that the Moodle community reaps considerable benefit from having a strong leadership, and the leaders pay a big price in terms of organisational costs and risks, so the balance that we see in place is probably entirely acceptable to the vast majority of participants.
However when it comes to making a buck, which is a good thing, it is important to be clear about it. No one minds a licence if if is clear and up-front. Participants can take it or leave it.
The trouble only arises when people misunderstand things. And I believe that Steven Hyndman misunderstood the licence. And not only Steve, if you look at this post, N Hansen (irreproachably honest and knowledgeable moodler) for instance, and I, in my ignorance, misunderstood the licence too.
I take the point about "people never read anything closely" but the more direct and to the point wording in the email referenced below:
"You may freely refer to Moodle in your website in most instances, however, you may not do this if you are providing commercial services AND charging fees for these services.
The word "Moodle" and the Moodle logo are legally protected trademarks. The use of Moodle trademarks is restricted to Moodle Partners when advertising commercial services that relate to Moodle. Moodle services include activities such as Moodle hosting, consulting, maintenance, and training." (add "Certification" from the licence page)
This makes it clear that one can't use the word "Moodle". One could probably be even more pithy and to the point:
"No use of the word 'Moodle' on commercial sites offering XYZ is allowed without permission from the Moodle helpdesk"
That would be crystal clear (if XYZ are stated).
A clear statement about what the licence will not extend to, or whether it may in future be extended e.g. to Moodle content provision, would IMHO be a good idea too.
Licences are fine as long as they are clear enough for folks to understand them.
Timothy
I don't want to play devil's advocate here, but seriously, if the license doesn't _explicitly_ allow something, then you *don't* have any right to do that something. If in doubt, ask the right's holder or an intellectual property lawyer.
Saludos. Iñaki.
Dear Iñaki, all
I guess you are right. My assumptions were off the mark. It seems furthermore that there are few people who got the wrong idea. Steve says that 'several prominent members of this community...' presumably because people have contacted him, but no one has contacted me, and no one has said that they were at all surprised or confused on this thread.
Also, upon self analysis I think that I have issues. I worked on Moodle for the past three years because I was given my salaried job as an e-learning-person. In my own mind, I thought that my 10,000 student strong university would take up my recommendation - Moodle. I thought, and think, that my suggestion is spot on, and that I would be showered with brownie points. But in the event, it seems that our esteemed vice principal had bigger plans and had already decided to create a LMS of his own. We have a full time programmer and a nacent LMS under development. Between you and me (! I hope that the VC and programmer are either not reading or not discouraged) I think that this LMS will flunk. But it will take quite a while. There is grant money for at least 18 months.
So I am left with a lot of Moodle knowledge and no real reason for having it. Moodle is sort of a hobby. All that Moodling, Moodle researching I did ends up being for my classes alone.
These circumstances combined with my unreasonable (unpleasant?) personality has created in me, I think, jealousy toward the deserved success of the Moodle Trust, and a desire to make something out of my (piddling) expertise, for which there is no outlet.
Most users of moodle are simply users. They are very happy with the software and happy that the creators reap rewards.
All the same...
Now that the Moodle revolution is in motion, I still think that being very, extra specially, open about the business model would be a good idea. There is even a course for this What is Open Source Software.
If keep grinding my axe, I will grind it there.
Timothy
We are busy here and expecting to get busier. We could use some extra help. If you are interested in working for us, even on a contract basis, let me know off list. We will be more than happy to discuss this with you.
Bill
However, I firmly believe that no-one (that I have ever met anyway) in any way resents Martin's position to 'make a buck' from his invention, promotion and support of Moodle. And, of course, let's not undervalue Martin's shear charismatic enthusiasm for the project.
However I do sense a slight, but growing, unease regarding the desire of others to pay the rent by selling Moodle services and the use of the Moodle name. To be positive, there are those of us that would also like to make a living promoting a product that we support and love to work with. We would like to be clear about our intentions, especially considering that in many parts of the world the Moodle partners program has reached near saturation point.
I would ask Martin to consider allowing some sort of boiler plate to be permitted on web sites along the lines of "we sell Moodle services, but we are not an official provider. Moodle is copyright Martin Dougiamas etc etc". I'm sure it can be put better than that. Any other use would require (as it does now) explicit permission.
I am concerned that the separation of Moodle the open-source software project from "Moodle" the trade mark may not be as clear cut in the minds of the community as it is in Martin's and I would hate to see this fester.
First off, you have to defend your trademark in order to retain it. If you don't take any actions when some one infringes your trademark, you may loose it. At least it works this way in many jurisdictions. So I can see why Martin D. has taken some actions in the past.
Second, I think there is a clear distinction between allowing Moodle(tm) to be hosted at your site and supporting Moodle(tm) sites. I mean, if you are a hosting company which shells hosting services (for any kind of web apps), and as a _free_ bonus you provide Moodle(tm) (as in CPAnel, or fantastico), then that should be ok. You are charging your clients for your hosting services, and Moodle(tm) is not a way to get more income.
But on the other hand, if you intend to offer Moodle(tm) support (of any kind) and you get money from that fact, then I think the license (or in a more precise way, the Moodle(tm) trademark use conditions -as the GPL license says nothing about this-) is crystal clear: you need to ask for permission from the trademark owner.
But nothing stops you from selling those same services, using the same GPL licensed code, using a different name (that is not trademarked, of course
Saludos. Iñaki.
First off, you have to defend your trademark in order to retain it. If you don't take any actions when some one infringes your trademark, you may loose it. At least it works this way in many jurisdictions. So I can see why Martin D. has taken some actions in the past.
...good point. Hadn't thought about that - I stand corrected (see, I said I'd regret posting in this discussion )
P.S. OMG, am I encouraging debate..something is changing in me
"For consultant services, you should be an active, useful participant in the Moodle.org forums"
I wonder how this works out in the long term. Does the Moodle partner name the person(s) who do this?
It is something I was curious about when i noticed some new Moodle partners but could not identify the related active participants.