[OpenID] On the OpenID trademark

[Martin Atkins]

Stephen Paul Weber wrote:
> My 2¢ on this:
> 
>> 1. we need to define the requirements that a product must meet before
>> it is allowed to use the OpenID trademark, such as the specifications
>> that it needs to conform to
> 
> I would say that anything implementing, documenting, or discussing
> technologies outlined at <http://openid.net/> is fine.  A news site
> about OpenID with no login of any kind should still qualify to
> callitself openidnews.com or similar.
> 

That is exactly the sort of situation that would get troublesome: 
openidnews.com is likely to be confused as the "official" news source 
for OpenID, while in the case you describe it would not be.

If they were to call themselves "News about OpenID" rather than "OpenID 
News", then that would remove the confusion.

The same sort of issue exists with The OpenID Directory, which is — I'd 
expect, at least — currently thought of by many as being an "official" 
OpenID resource given its use of the mark. I'm not necessarily calling 
that out as a bad thing, just as an example: "directory of 
OpenID-enabled sites" and "The OpenID Directory" have very different 
connotations.