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Proposed Tent Trademark Terms of Use. Comments, suggestions, and corrections welcome.
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usage.md

Tent trademark and logos

Help spread the word about Tent and Tent compatible products!

The basics

Please do nothing that could make someone think your project is official, sponsored, or approved by the Tent organization or the people who created Tent.

Also remember the protocol is called "Tent" or "the Tent protocol", not "tent.io" which is just the address of this website.

Please do these helpful things

  • Use the Tent logo or Marks to link to this site
  • Use the Marks in social buttons to link to your Tent entity or project
  • Use the Tent logo or Marks to advertise that your product has built-in Tent integration
  • Use the Tent logo or Marks in a blog post or news article about Tent
  • Use the Tent logo or Marks talk about Tent at meetups and conferences
  • Use "Tent" in the name of Tent client software libraries
  • Report misuses of the Tent Marks to us and the person or company using them improperly

Please do not do these things

  • Use the Tent logo or Marks for your application’s icon
  • Create a modified version of the Tent logo or Marks
  • Integrate the Tent logo or Marks into your logo
  • Use any Tent artwork without permission
  • Use "Tent" in your company, project, or product name or domain name
  • Describe your project as "the [whatever] for Tent"
  • Display the Tent logo or Marks more prominently than your company or product's
  • Sell any Tent artwork or merchandise without permission
  • Change the colors, dimensions or add your own text/images

Naming projects, products, and companies

Please avoid naming your projects, products, and companies anything that implies Tent’s endorsement. This also applies to domain names.

Why we restrict use of the Tent trademarks and logos

Tent is a protocol not a service, so there is no central point of control in the ecosystem. Because of this distributed nature it is very important to make sure different Tent servers can communicate with Tent apps and each other. Users need to be able to trust that two products with the Tent logo will work together. The only way to enforce standards and compatibility is through consistent use of the Tent trademark. Everything breaks when the Tent name or logo is used on a product that is not 100% compliant with the protocol specification.

Soon there will be special logos and badges reserved for software and services that have passed the Tent protocol validator to make this even easier.

This organization exists to make sure Tent works properly. We do that in three ways: the protocol specification, reference software implementations, and enforcement of trademark guidelines. The trademarks are by far the most visible part of the project and the most powerful tool we have for keeping the Tent ecosystem compatible and interoperable.

Thank you for your help and support of Tent.

Please contact us

  • If you have any questions
  • To report abuses of these rules
  • Before naming your product, service, or company
  • When in doubt

Legal

In short, the Tent logo or Marks represent only Tent and should not be used to represent your products. You may also read the official legal terms, if you’re into that.

Special thanks to Github for heavily inspiring the content and format of this page.

Trademark Terms of Use

TENT™, the TENT™ logo design, the TENT™ logotype, TENT CERTIFIED™, TENT APPROVED™, POWERED BY TENT™, and TENT COMPATIBLE™ are exclusive trademarks of Tent.is, LLC.

The Tent logo design is the exclusive property of Tent.is, LLC. All rights reserved.

No adaptation or use of any kind of any of our trademarks or copyrights, or any other contents of this website except where otherwise noted or licensed, is allowed without the express written permission of Tent.is, LLC.

These Terms may change at any time without notice.

For more information regarding the authorized uses of these items please please email support@tent.io.

@danielsiders
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Oh-- quick note, Tent.is, LLC is the entity that owns all of the Tent IP. The website https://tent.is will be renamed in June, ending the long confusion between https://tent.is and https://tent.io.

@simensen
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Does the Tent protocol work if the emphasis is placed in that way, or would one need to say the Tent protocol if emphasis is used?

Example would be how I have it currently on http://depot.io — wondering if it is OK as written or if it would be better to change the emphasis to include "the."

@tjreo
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tjreo commented May 29, 2013

@danielsiders Thanks for the clarification. I was just about to post that question. The whole tent.is thing certainly is confusing.

DONOT #6 might be difficult to enforce but it certainly works as a guideline.

@simensen
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It seems confusing to me to have Tent.is, LLC ... what is going to eventually live at that URL if the current host/platform is going to be renamed and moved elsewhere?

I know naming is hard, but curious how you plan to have this play out. Seems like Tent or Tent.io would have been better choices for a company name to own the IP than Tent.is.

@danielsiders
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@simensen

The "the" concern is about " the photosharing app for Tent" . " A photosharing app for the Tent protocol" or "a PHP framework for the Tent protocol." is 100% okay. It's about not suggesting that someone's project is official, even if it's the only one that exists.

We'll do a DBA change on the entity at some point in the near future to the Tent Foundation once we get our 501(c)3 paperwork in. It's problematic to call it that before we're a tax-exempt entity. Once that happens, "Tent.is, LLC" will be replaced on the docs and https://tent.io with "the Tent Foundation" or whatever and the https://tent.is URL will redirect to the new hosting website. It only seems messy right now, what we've actually done is move all the Tent trademarks, open source software, and protocol spec and copyright into a new entity so it's separate from the hosting business. Only the name is confusing and that will change for good once we have the cash to get the necessary paperwork together. We don't want to rush through the legal work that sets up a standards organization-- it needs a real lawyer with extensive experience in the area, and they don't come cheap. We might do a fundraising drive with Tent licensed merchandise to raise the necessary cash faster.

@danielsiders
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@tjreo it all comes back to claiming official status that could confuse people. "The Tent host" or "the photosharing app for Tent" is as misleading as calling Nginx "the HTTP server". As far as enforcement, unfortunately, every item on the list is the same, scary legal threats. Sadly they're the only tool available, but every infringement so far has been handled by just asking nicely. This will only get to be a big problem when bad actors enter the ecosystem, so we need to set a good example and strong legal foundation now.

@simensen
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@danielsiders Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't having issues with "the" vs. "a", mostly just wondering if the way I had it emphasized on the depot.io site was acceptable or not.

You have the following options listed as for how to refer to Tent:

  • Tent
  • the Tent protocol

I was mostly asking about whether or not the following is also acceptable:

  • Tent protocol (w/o "the" in the front)

For example, is "this is a Tent protocol library" acceptable, or would it have to be written as, "this is a library for the Tent protocol" to get it to read "the Tent protocol" exactly? (Can "Tent protocol" be standalone?)

I'm probably think about this too much. :)

@danielsiders
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@simensen I'm happy to take the opportunity not to nitpick here. "this is a Tent protocol library" is absolutely fine.

The big ticket items are:

  • don't imply your project is official or approved
  • it's a protocol called Tent, not tent.io
  • be very clear if your server is not a complete implementation of the protocol
  • don't use Tent or the logo in your project's name, domain name, or logo

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