[osg-users] The naming of VulkanSceneGraph

[Chris Hanson]

  Something came up in a conversation earlier this week that I thought I
would point out.

  Is VulkanSceneGraph potentially opening itself to
trademark-related hassle by incorporating the trademark "Vulkan" name into
its own name?

  The Khronos trademark guidelines are here:
https://www.khronos.org/legal/khronos-trademark-guidelines

  They mostly center around freely using the work Vulkan descriptively and
NOT using it when referring to an actual Vulkan implementation (which is
different from VSG's situation). The incorporation of the Vulkan word-mark
into a novel software product name (even a F/OSS package) seems like it
could run afoul of Khronos' intentions and lawyers.

  The historical example is that I doubt SGI and then Khronos would have
ever been ok with a prominent software package calling itself
"OpenGLSceneGraph" because they protect the word-mark "OpenGL".

  I am not a lawyer, but I think this is in a muddy area and it concerns
me. I don't think anyone here can answer this, probably the only way to
know is to ask Khronos directly for their interpretation in writing. But I
suspect the answer will be "find a different name that doesn't embed the
Vulkan" word mark".

  Just hoping to avoid future pain here. I can reach out to Khronos if that
is what seems best to do.

-- 
Chris 'Xenon' Hanson, omo sanza lettere. Xenon at AlphaPixel.com
http://www.alphapixel.com/
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