You, yes Y O U have been CHALLENGED !!!

[Sami]

I challenge everyone who is reading this forum to donate for ReactOS.

There can be no reason for not to participate. So if you would love to see ReactOS 1.0 release in some day, do something about that

If you can not contribute by coding, then this is your change. Go to http://www.reactos.com and push the paypal button. DO IT NOW

I donated 15$ myself, and it makes me happy, when I can do something to help

So stop the moaning and do something now, no excuses is tolerated!

[Dr. Fred]

The money is used for making ReactOs name and logo a registered trademark.

[Harteex]

I have already donated.. not that much, but I just sent what I had on my paypal account at the moment: $5.51

[cmoibenlepro]

I personally donated 10$. I hope it helps!

The money is used for making ReactOs name and logo a registered trademark.

That's important, it makes the project offically and legally acknoledged.
Also this registration cost 500$, so if they get more than that in donations, they will be able to buy other material that will help the project (hardware, software, etc).

So please everyone donate something! (even if it's not a lot, it makes a difference when there're a lot of people)

[Sami]

The money is used for making ReactOs name and logo a registered trademark.

That's important, it makes the project offically and legally acknoledged.

Yes, I also think that is important task. I am sure there is more that kind of tasks that need to be funded, so every cent is counted.

So, if everyone will donate 5$ it will R E A L L Y help!

[Sami]

What is the status so far? Do you have enough money for registrating the name and logo of ReactOS? Could somebody update the foundation page:
http://reactos.com/wiki/index.php/ReactOS_Foundation

Keep up the good work

[re-mind]

82 USD from here

you get a mill. when i can play Half-life in Ros ... and have earned a mill.

thumbs up ReactOS

[jl]

I would donate if I was convinced the money would be wisely used.

Right now I think it is more important to use the money helping the developers (new machines, make living, whatever) rather than wasting the precious resources to register trademarks.

I am not sure I like the ReactOS brand anyway. I think what ReactOS is trying to achieve is to replace closed windows with open gates. I think OpenGates (with no bills) is a much better name.

That being said, I've been following ReactOS since 2001 or so and support it 100%. If a developper can guarantee my money will not be spent on trademarks I hereby promise to donate twice as much as the biggest donation so far (limited to $50 :-).

[chris319]

I would donate if I was convinced the money would be wisely used.

Right now I think it is more important to use the money helping the developers (new machines, make living, whatever) rather than wasting the precious resources to register trademarks.

So far I am in agreement. There are much better uses for $500. I will donate money when the bug I submitted is fixed

I think OpenGates (with no bills) is a much better name.

Don't even THINK of going there. We don't want a Lindows lawsuit on our hands. It's bad enough that we're cloning their OS; don't invite trouble by calling it that.

[Headstrong]

i think that is is time to do the trademarks. reactOS is getting quite mature and needs a legal legs to stand on.

I once worked on a community project that had its name, ideas, business plan and evently logo stolen. the B******d that done it even used our photos to sell "his project".


so get it done NOW!

[Dr. Fred]

From mailing list.

Hi All,
We have now reached our goal of $500 to file the paperwork to register the Trademark name and logo
of ReactOS in the state of South Carolina. The next step will be filing for the entire US which I
have to go to another lawyer on. I expect to do the federal paperwork, it will cost us about the
same but I don't know when that will happen so if you were just going to make a donation for the
Trademark stuff you can hold off. If anyone in the user community would like to make donations to
support general development causes let me know and I can start allocating funds for bounties. On
another note I have opened up a bank account for the foundation so if you don't want to use paypal
but you want to make a donation contact me and I can provide routing information.

Thanks to everyone that has helped with this! Even if you are not able to write code, your
donations, testing, translation, promotion and artwork for ReactOS help the project!

-Steven

[chris319]

i think that is is time to do the trademarks. reactOS is getting quite mature and needs a legal legs to stand on.

I once worked on a community project that had its name, ideas, business plan and evently logo stolen. the B******d that done it even used our photos to sell "his project".

All a trademark would protect are the name and the logo, viz.:

What types of trademarks or service marks are entitled to legal protection?

As a general rule, trademark law gives legal protection to names, logos, and other marketing devices that are distinctive.

It is not a patent and it is not a copyright. It does not protect the entirety of your intellectual property (such as source code and documentation) or confer any other "legal legs" than name and logo protection. Are we concerned that the developer of SkyOS is going to wake up one day and decide to change the name of his project to ReactOS? It doesn't seem likely. There are dozens of garage Linux distros with distinctive names and logos which could be trademarked but I doubt many of them are (perhaps Red Hat is but it is big and corporate). Sure, a lawyer will be happy to take your $500 and fill out trademark application forms which a paralegal could probably do for less, or you might even be able to do it yourself (I haven't looked at the forms so I don't know). Bottom line: I don't think paying a lawer to do a trademark registration is a wise use of $500 unless it can be demonstrated that there is a real risk of someone ripping off the ReactOS name and/or logo.

If the concern is that ReactOS itself will be ripped off, it should at least carry a copyright notice; then you have to decide who the copyright holder(s) are. As ReactOS is not open source, I don't know if any of the GNU licenses are of any use.

Correction: I don't think trademark registration is a wise use of $1,000: one for South Carolina and one for the federal. Question: Why do you need a separate registration for South Carolina? Wouldn't the federal registration cover South Carolina?

Trademark article

Copyright article

[Meklort]

If the concern is that ReactOS itself will be ripped off, it should at least carry a copyright notice; then you have to decide who the copyright holder(s) are. As ReactOS is not open source, I don't know if any of the GNU licenses are of any use.

ReactOS is open source, and it is distributed under the GPL.

[chris319]

If the concern is that ReactOS itself will be ripped off, it should at least carry a copyright notice; then you have to decide who the copyright holder(s) are. As ReactOS is not open source, I don't know if any of the GNU licenses are of any use.

ReactOS is open source, and it is distributed under the GPL.

So it already has "legal legs". Are all of the proper notices in place?

GPL Notices

[GvG]

As ReactOS is not open source, I don't know if any of the GNU licenses are of any use.

Perhaps you should check the homepage, the first thing it states (right there near the top) "ReactOS is an Open Source effort" and in the next paragraph "ReactOS is licensed under the GNU General Public License." I really wonder how you could miss that.
The source code is available (together with the binaries) via SourceForge. You can also use anonymous SVN to retrieve the sources.