OPNsense and PFsense - Trademark policy

[orgake]

In comparing the two projects, OPNsense and PFsense, the non-code differences seem to be 1) licensing and 2) trademark policy.

Obviously, the first concern should be licensing, because if you need to fork, changing the name is the least of your concerns; you don't want to be stuck in the awkward OpenZFS situation, where some people have to jump through hoops just to use your code because it's CDDL licensed.

But after that, not having to worry about companies revoking rights to the name is a close second. If you look at the trademark policies that OPNsense and PFsense list on their websites,

• https://opnsense.org/about/legal-notices/
• https://pfsense.org/trademarks.html

the OPNsense policy is far shorter and seems to be much less onerous. However, not having a legal background, I can't be sure what the actual result of this policy is.


I bring this up because my understanding of the Netgate/Deciso debacle over the PFsense name is that it was due to a misunderstanding of the trademark and its use.

The PFsense solution appears to have been to have "PFsense" as the exclusive property of Netgate, with the community being permitted to use it at the whim of Netgate.

The wording of the OPNsense policy (to the untrained eye) appears to be far more generous, but it brings up two questions for me:

• Like temporaryuser, who asked about this in March, 2016, I wonder if there is a plan or intention to eventually create a non-profit foundation to hold the trademark and code copyright independant of Deciso B.V.
• Would the policy as it is now prevent a company, other than Deciso itself, from selling OPNsense devices as marketed as "powered by OPNsense" or "OPNsense-based" or "running OPNsense"?

My concern here is that if Deciso becomes as possessive of the OPNsense name as Netgate was of PFsense, will we need to have a LIBREsense project after that? and a NONsense project if the third company becomes possessive of that name in turn?

In short, is the OPNsense/ex-m0n0wall community living under a borrowed name, or does Deciso plan to behave as more of a proxy for the community, like Linus and the "Linux" trademark?

[franco]

Hi there,

I think Netgate has burned many bridges in the past with their Texas sharpshooter fallacy[1] approach to trademark enforcement. That includes thoroughly eroding user and partner trust in reasonable trademark handling.

The software and its distribution is free whatever has been said elsewhere before. In an ideal world people should not pay for it, least of all buy from vendors where authenticity cannot be established. But in the end what good is a name that can't be used in a casual fashion? Feel free to use "OPNsense" anywhere, freely, abundantly and of course openly.

The real trademark infringement occurs when selling a virtual appliance on a cloud market place or a hardware with the trademark as the product name. And I don't mean "preloaded with OPNsense" or the like. It's "Genuine OPNsense Appliance" that is frowned upon.

1. There were plans about non-profit early on, but we don't have the body and donor size to make this a reality. As it is now it creates more work than solving an issue that is nonexistent.

2. No, it will not as stated above.


Cheers,
Franco

--
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

[orgake]

... what good is a name that can't be used in a casual fashion? Feel free to use "OPNsense" anywhere, freely, abundantly and of course openly.

... I don't mean "preloaded with OPNsense" or the like. It's "Genuine OPNsense Appliance" that is frowned upon.

Thank you, that's very reassuring to hear.

I was a bit worried when I saw that old unanswered post since that is what I too was thinking, but I can understand that spinning off a foundation could be a bit excessive given limited resources and limited need. Nice to hear you had it in mind though.