Rust Foundation Shares Draft of New, Simpler Trademark Policy

'The Rust trademark policy has been updated and a new draft is available to view,' announced the Rust Foundation this week.

The last proposed trademark policy (in April of 2023) was criticized by open source advocate Bruce Perens in The Register as 'far awry of fair use which is legally permitted.' The Rust Foundation says this new version has 'incorporated a number of suggestions from the Rust community,' in a blog post that summarizes the feedback and enumerates specific ways it's been addressed:

1. We primarily plan to lean on community reports for enforcement and have no intention of spending our limited resources policing the work of small creators.

2. We have removed the non-legal language summary and instead have clarified wording throughout as best we can while keeping the policy valid.

3. The Rust trademark does not cover use of the word 'Rust' in general and instead pertains to its use in relevant technical settings.

4. We have updated the logo usage policy. Color modifications are allowed.
5. The non-endorsement rule is about managing perception of official affiliation with the Foundation and Rust Project, and is thus subjective.
6. We removed restrictions on the use of 'Rust' and 'Cargo' in package names. The crates prefixes 'rust-' and 'cargo-' are no longer reserved to the Rust Project.

7. We will usually allow the community to use the marks on limited merchandise (more details in the updated draft)....
[T]he central purpose of these updates is to empower all Rustaceans to engage with the Rust language ecosystem more confidently. As a final step in this process, we invite you to review the updated policy and share any blocking concerns you might have... Thank you to everyone who weighed in with helpful suggestions on the initial trademark policy draft we shared. The level of engagement and passion within the Rust community is inspiring to all of us at the Rust Foundation.

The tech news site Heise Online writes 'It is noticeable that the language is much clearer and dispenses with a lot of legal jargon,' in a piece which argues the new draft 'should calm the waves and create clarity.'

The new draft is not only formulated more simply, but is also significantly shorter. Some restrictions have been softened in the new rules or have disappeared completely...

Meanwhile, the Foundation has also adapted its logo so that it is clear which logo stands for the programming language and which for the Foundation. The use of the name Rust is explicitly permitted to identify projects that are either written in the programming language or are compatible with it...

Before the new trademark rules come into force, the Rust Foundation is collecting feedback on the current draft. The web form is open until November 20, 2024.

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