Hi,
some news on this topic. Now another Apache contributor has filed this
issue:
https://github.com/highsource/maven-jaxb2-plugin/issues/26
My position is: as renaming will damage the community, I will not rename
the plugin unless legally or technically forced to.
Best wishes,
Alexey
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Aleksei Valikov <valikov_at_gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> As many of you probably know, I develop and maintain the
> maven-jaxb2-plugin. I am facing a trademark/naming convention issue with
> Apache and I'd appreciate an advice on that.
>
> I have started my project almost 8 years ago and took the name
> maven-jaxb2-plugin as it seemed to be _the_ right convention back then.
>
> Few years later Apache estabinished the some-maven-plugin convention for
> non-Apache plugins. This is how they define it here:
> http://maven.apache.org/guides/plugin/guide-java-plugin-development.html
>
>
> *You will typically name your plugin <yourplugin>-maven-plugin.*
>
> *Calling it maven-<yourplugin>-plugin (note "Maven" is at the beginning of
> the plugin name) is strongly discouraged since it's a reserved naming
> pattern for official Apache Maven plugins maintained by the Apache Maven
> team with groupId org.apache.maven.plugins. Using this naming pattern is an
> infringement of the Apache Maven Trademark.*
> This became a warning during the build around three years ago. My plugin
> was ~5 years old back then, with an already established user base etc. I
> did not want to rename. This was a mistake, but it is a mistake already
> made.
> I also think I haven't seen this warning for the long time as there was no
> need to update the versions of Maven libraries I used
>
> Now an Apache committer, also a user of my plugin tried to clarified the
> legal terms of this naming. Unfortunately, Apache seems to have a very
> strict position on the issue. Please check this message:
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@maven.apache.org/msg102491.html
>
> And the further discussion.
>
> So in the current situation, using the maven-jaxb2-plugin further on, I am
> * facing a threat of cease-and-desist letter and
> * a probability that my plugin will stop working/compiling any time soon.
>
> I would not speculate on whether this trademark infringement thing is
> legally sound or not. It does not matter. They're an organisation, I'm a
> private person. I can't fight them. An even if the legal threat is unsound,
> they can easily shut down my plugin technically in any next version of
> Maven.
>
> So the thing is that I have no other choice as to rename my plugin.
>
> I have not yet desided on the name. The first choice would be
> jaxb2-maven-plugin, but there is already another Maven plugin under that
> name, from Codehaus. Yes, sure, groupId is different but people will mix
> them up, definitely.
>
> Any other name will disconnect my plugin from its longstanding history
> even more. This will hurt my user base. I don't want this.
>
> Merging the projects is probably not an option.
>
> So my options are:
>
> * rename to jaxb2-maven-plugin or
> * rename to something else
>
> I do not know what to do and would really appreciate opinions and advice.
> (I'm not talking legal advice of any kind, more common sense community
> advice.)
>
> Best wishes,
> Alexey
>