Rust-Trademark: New draft should calm the waves and create clarity

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The Rust Foundation has published a revised version for the Rust and Cargo trademarks – a good one and a half years after the first draft. The Foundation now explains the changes in a blog post.

The first draft of fresh trademark rules from April 7, 2023, which was explicitly marked with the "Call for Comment" tag, meaning that the community should respond with comments, had attracted harsh criticism. The comments ranged from formulations such as "too strict" or "not in the interests of the community" to extreme statements such as "Rust Foundation went Full Oracle".

Fresh draft in simple, clear language

As early as mid-April 2023, the Foundation rowed back with initial revisions to the draft and apologized for the lack of transparency. Since then, there has been a pause, but the Foundation has continued to collect feedback and has now presented a new draft.

It is noticeable that the language is much clearer and dispenses with a lot of legal jargon. 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.

Clear labeling

The Foundation's blog post lists the main changes. Among other things, the new rules clarify that the word marks Rust and Cargo do not apply generally, but only directly in the technical context of the programming language or the package manager.

The word marks may not be used for another programming language or a largely modified version of Rust. Furthermore, they must not lead to confusion regarding the open source nature and free use of Rust.

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. In contrast to the first draft, the new draft allows packages named in Rust Crate to start with rust- or cargo-. The prefixes are no longer reserved for official packages of the Rust project.

In some cases, the use of the word mark and logo requires the explicit approval of the Rust Foundation. This includes the sale of merchandise and the incorporation of the Rust trademark into another trademark.

From Mozilla to the Rust Foundation

Mozilla originally designed the Rust programming language and published it as an open source project. The first stable version 1.0 was released in 2015. After numerous redundancies at Mozilla, the Rust Foundation was founded in 2020, which has since not only been responsible for the further development of the programming language, but has also taken over the trademark rights from Mozilla.

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.

(rme)