I happened upon some info on the trademark of the Drupal name and must admit, I find it confusing. So, as I understand it, the name Drupal is trademarked by Dries B, fine. So where does that leave the software itself? If we refer to the Drupal distribution, are we using the trademark? It might sound basic, but there is a distinction between the two because the Drupal software distribution is subject to the GPL and we should be able to refer to it freely in principle, however the wording of the Trademark conditions suggests that even by referring to the name Drupal we somehow gain a nominative fair use license, or are required to seek a license(if a commercial operation) potentially at a cost. But don't I already have the GPL license, does this not cover the name Drupal? Whilst the objective of protecting the name is obvious it is unclear as to whether the terms of the trademark conflict with the spirit of the GPL, in my opinion.
I have read the trademark wording and found it to be ambiguous in my humble opinion, if a developer advertises his services as a drupaler, what is the position? Which license applies if a developer mentions Drupal on their website (not in a brand name, and not in the domain name, just as a service) what are we required to do in order to make sure we can refer to the services we provide without infringing the Trademark. Is having two licenses for the same thing not likely to lead to confusion. Is Drupal really completely free?
I would be grateful for your points of view, as I think, of course most of us want to continue to refer to and use the software and to provide services to clients using it, but we have to ensure also that our insurance company is happy too!
Regards,
Mack
note: please refer to the exact terms of the legal jargon if you are interested as my interpretation above may be completely askew with the actual meaning, as legal blurb tends to be open to interpretation in my opinion. Hence the question.