Now, Rust is a well-known programming language. According to the Stack Overflow Survey Rust is the most desired programming language. This means that, although not many people want to learn it (30.56%), 84.66% of people who have used it before want to use it again.
Now, although this is true, there are some bureacratic, institutional problems in Rust, and one of them is the topic of this blog post. The foundation’s new trademark policy (draft).
Because I am lazy, and do not want to segue into each problem, this section will be in the form of a listicle.
According to the draft, modification of the Rust logo is against their trademark policy, unless you have written permission (getting written permission from the Rust foundation to change the Rust logo for your profile picture would be kind of difficult). To quote the Rust foundation:
In general, we prohibit the modification of the Rust logo for any purpose, except to scale it. This includes distortion, transparency, color-changes affiliated with for-profit brands or political ideologies.
So no, you are not allowed to open photoshop and make a cute image of Ferris the Crab dancing on top of the Rust logo. That would literally be illegal.
You cannot, without written permission from the Rust foundation, sell stickers with the Rust logo on them.
As this would be a commercial use of the Rust name or Logo, you would need our approval to do this, and would need to develop a transparent arrangement for donating the funds.
Using the word “Rust” in a crate is not allowed, as the foundation says that they want use of the word “Rust” in a crate to imply ownership by the Party Project. Here’s a quote from the draft:
Using the Marks in the name of a tool for use in the Rust toolchain, a software program written in the Rust language, or a software program compatible with Rust software, will most likely require a license. The “RS” abbreviation can be used instead.
The marks being the word “Rust” or the Rust logo.
A lot of people have said this, but in adopting this policy, Rust will go from foundation to corporation. Rust will have ruined itself. On the original tweet by the Rust foundation, many replies said things such as “I genuinely think I’ll stop learning Rust right now.” If they want to grow a community, this is the way to shrink it.
To finish, I would like to show you, that in writing this post, I myself am violating the Rust new policy:
We will likely consider using the Marks as part of a domain name or subdomain an infringement of our Marks.
Here’s the link for the draft to read it yourself. This is pretty hard to find, so here: The Link. If it doesn’t work, you can just use this link (it’s an archive).
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AFFILIATED OR A PART OF THE RUST FOUNDATION. THIS CONTENT WAS NOT CREATED BY, OR WITH HELP FROM THE RUST FOUNDATION OR IT’S SUBSIDIARIES