ANN - Jenkins Trademark is transferred to the Linux Foundation

[Oleg Nenashev]

Dear all,

Just to follow-up on the old topic, the Jenkins trademark has been recently transferred to LF Charities Inc. which is a subsidiary of the Linux Foundation. This concludes the long process of Jenkins assets transition from the Software in Public Interest (SPI) to the Linux Foundation. This started when we voted to join the Continuous delivery Foundation in 2018, and I am excited to see it finally completed.

What changes?

• Trademark Usage. The Linux Foundation Trademark usage policy is now required for the project. We won't be approving new trademark usage requests violating this policy. https://github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins.io/pull/4030 updates the trademark documentation on the website. I suggest reviewing and approving it at today's governance meeting
• Trademark Attribution. The Jenkins trademark attribution changes, hence all users are expected to gradually replace attribution to "Jenkins® is a registered trademark of the Linux Foundation" in the resources (websites, marketing materials, etc., etc.). There is no strict deadline for this update
• Reimbursements. We still have some assets controlled by SPI, most notably the old treasury which still has some money there. If someone needs to request reimbursements from the project, please follow the SPI Reimbursement Process ann CC the Jenkins Governance Board in the requests. Once we use all SPI money, we will switch to the LFX process documented in JEP-15.

More changes to come.

Best regards,

Oleg Nenashev

Jenkins Governance Board

[Oleg Nenashev]

Quick update about the trademark references. The official guidance from the Linux Foundation is to use "Jenkins is a registered trademark of LF Charities Inc." attribution. They needed a 501(c)(3) legal entity to hold the trademark due to some legal obstacles the LF hit during the trademark transition.

The guidelines will be updated accordingly

[Oleg Nenashev]

Another quick update: The Linux Foundation has no process for sublicensing the trademarks except the "Linux" one.

In proactive we have never fully followed the sublicense process, so I will remove the documentation for it entirely.