Update on trademark strategy

[cwgoes]

@john-light

To me, the agreement doesn’t make sense as a “2-of-2” unless agreement by both “signers” is required to make any enforcement of or changes to the trademark (i.e. “transactions” using the “multisig wallet”). So agreement by both signers would be required to:

• Enforce use of the trademark against a team claiming to develop Zcash software (metaphorically, this would be a “transaction from multisig wallet”)
• Change control of the trademark from a 2-of-2 agreement to 3-of-5, or some other arrangement (metaphorically, an “update to the signing policy of the multisig wallet”)

If we’re going to use the metaphor of a multisig, and that’s the mental model that’s been sold to the community for this agreement, I think the actual agreement should behave like a 2-of-2 multisig wallet and require agreement from both signers for any use of the wallet. Otherwise the result is no action.

This was also my interpretation (when the subject was mentioned at Zcon1), as I recall, and it matches this statement (from this thread) pretty clearly:

@zooko

ECC had previously publicly stated that we would sign the Zcash trademark into a novel legal agreement which effectively provided “2-of-2 multisig”, or double-veto, where either the ECC or Zfnd would have the power to unilaterally prevent use of the trademark.

Attempting to interpret @zooko’s original post in this thread:

@zooko

with the additional understanding that neither organization would unilaterally use their veto power to override the community’s decision (as represented by the Community Advisory Panel).

I read this as requesting the addition of a clause that would prevent either organisation from failing to vote for trademark enforcement against a software version which was not decided upon by the Community Advisory Panel - @zooko is that accurate?

@zooko

This gave me misgivings about increasing the number of organizations that have the power to veto the community’s decisions by using the trademark.

… but I am not totally sure what veto scenario this refers to - the same one, where the trademark is not enforced against a software version which was not decided upon by the Community Advisory Panel? That scenario doesn’t involve using the trademark, however, which is confusing, so instead this could refer to a case when one of the two entities enforces the trademark against a software version which was decided upon by the Community Advisory Panel - but in a 2-approvals-required multisignature agreement no individual entity could unilaterally use the trademark, so that doesn’t make sense either.

@acityinohio

Why don’t we mutually agree to publicly share an updated term sheet which led to the legal negotiations after we meet privately @zooko? I understand the confusion and suspect it could have been allayed if these agreements were shared earlier.

This sounds like it would be very helpful.