Logo

[eldruin]

I think a logo for this community would be nice.
With my extremely limited GIMP fu I came up with this:

Although I do not know if we should use the EWG logo here as well or it would be confusing for users. We can also ask for the EWG approval once we have decided on a logo.
I thought of something like the Rust-lang org logo vs Rust-lang-nursery logo, but this is not a nursery.
Anyway please feel free to send other proposals!

Licensing:
This logo proposal is based on the Rust Embedded Working Group logo which was designed by Erin Power and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License and is itself based on the Rust Language logo.
See here for further licensing information.

EDIT (@jamesmunns): Corrected Erin's name

[thejpster]

I like it

[eldruin]

@Disasm, @jamesmunns opinions?

[jamesmunns]

Looks good to me! Probably need to include the license from the main logo, which I think is cc by sa?

[eldruin]

Good point. If we choose this logo, I will make a proper PR including the license notice from here.

[Disasm]

Wow, this looks great!

[eldruin]

Given that the logo contains the Rust logo, which is a trademark of Mozilla, we would need to take this to the Rust core team, as the EWG did.
However, we are not an official team, so maybe a logo based on ferris is preferrable.
Here a couple of alternatives (but keep in mind that it will usually be rendered much smaller):

What do you think?

[thejpster]

We should ask about the logo. My recollection of the EWG conversation was that the response was "of course, that's exactly what the logo is for". Ferris is a good fallback but it's not my first choice.

[therealprof]

I tried to reach @pietroalbini about the proper procedure to run this by the Rust core team but no response so far.

[thejpster]

"If you have any doubts about whether your intended use of a Rust Trademark requires permission, please contact us at [email protected]"

https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/media-guide

[pietroalbini]

I tried to reach @pietroalbini about the proper procedure to run this by the Rust core team but no response so far.

Uh, I didn't see any notification. Where did you ping me? Anyway, emailing [email protected] is the right approach.

[therealprof]

@pietroalbini The same way you've contacted me last time, via Element (nee Matrix). 😅

[pietroalbini]

@therealprof oh that's why, I don't actually monitor Element/Matrix much 😅

[eldruin]

I just sent the email and will post here when I hear something back.

[eldruin]

Niko Matsakis sent me this response:

We discussed this in the core team meeting today. Our sense is that the name/logo are actually quite likely to cause confusion. If you want to create a group that is independent from the rust-embedded working group, then we think you should pick a different logo but probably also a different name.

However, we also wanted to ask a bit about your motivations here -- it seems like the membership of the group is overlapping significantly with the rust-embedded wg, so why make a distinct group? If the idea is to avoid the problem of "blessing" crates, that probably makes sense, but that's all the more reason to avoid looking official.

I have asked if the Ferris-based logo is fine from a trademark standpoint now.
However, a name change to avoid looking official would require some update work and also some further Bikeshedding to find a new name.
Thoughts?

[Disasm]

I think this org can be considered a dependent org, probably this will solve problems with naming and logo. If I understand the purpose of this org correctly, then it becomes clear that we use a separate org partially for technical reasons: to maintain different membership and maintenance policies from those we have in the rust-embedded org. If this aspect is important, then I don't see a problem to be a "part of r-e org" and have a separate org at the same time.

[eldruin]

Niko confirmed that the Ferris-based logo would be fine from a trademark point of view.

[thejpster]

Does the Rust Embedded logo apply only to the Working Group, or to any Embedded Rust development? Could, say, Ferrous Systems use the logo to describe something they'd written outside the auspices of the working group? I don't know, but what I've read above suggests the core team think not.

It's also hard to know what we could call it that didn't involve the words rust and embedded. In terms of GitHub, it seems fine that here's a Rust Embedded (Working Group) org, and a wider, looser, Rust Embedded Community org. The latter is a superset of the WG, and the logo seemed to reflect that, but it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.

[Disasm]

ferris-embedded-community
(jk)

[thejpster]

@eldruin perhaps we could go back and ask what relationship github.com/rust-community has with github.com/rust and under what terms are they allowed to use the trademarked device? Just so we understand what the rules are.

https://github.com/rust-community

Edit - oh, no, that's the offical WG/team for community stuff. Ignore me, it's not what I thought it was.

Edit 2 - Ah, I was thinking of https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery

[nikomatsakis]

Niko confirmed that the Ferris-based logo would be fine from a trademark point of view.

I just want to elaborate: while Ferris is not trademarked, I think it would be better to design a logo that is more different from the rust-embedded logo, if the goal is not to appear official.

[thejpster]

@nikomatsakis is rust-lang-nursery official in any way? Only they use the official Rust logo on their repo.

[pietroalbini]

@thejpster rust-lang-nursery is indeed official (we're slowly retiring it though).

[eldruin]

Alright, a summary of the options going forward would be:

• Adopt REC as a child REWG org
  • Membership requirements TBD.
  • Maybe the original logo proposal would be acceptable (needs re-evaluation by core team)
• REC stays as a separate org.
  • Needs alternative logo to original proposal.
    • Ferris-based one may be too similar to REWG's.
  • REC name deemed confusing w.r.t. REWG.
    • New name necessary.
  • REC name deemed fine w.r.t. confusion with REWG.
    • Name stays as-is.

I will cross-post this to rust-embedded/wg#482

[nikomatsakis]

That summary sounds correct. Is there somewhere I can read up a bit on the motivations for creating the REC org? I was under the impression that part of it was a desire to take an "opinionated" view on the packages that people should be using, and hence there was a desire to avoid appearing official to avoid giving the impression of the packages being endorsed by the Rust org. Does that sound about right?

[eldruin]

I am not sure where you got that information. AFAIK, the motivation was to offer a place for half-finished projects for which the author does not have time (anymore). There is more in the readme.
However, there seems to be interest in the community for a more centralized although not "blessed" org (See #5 , #6, #7) on top of that. In the last REWG meeting we preliminarily tended to marking REC as a "child" org or subproject of REWG. I am preparing an RFC to REWG defining the concrete terms.

[nikomatsakis]

OK I think I must've been mis-remembering. Thanks @eldruin for the links! Can you let me know if/when this RFC is available?

[eldruin]

@nikomatsakis Sure. It is already up at rust-embedded/wg#504

[eldruin]

It seems the REC will stay as a separate organization at least for the time being. See: rust-embedded/wg#504
@nikomatsakis is fine with the ferris-based logo, however, he found the name rather confusing since we are unofficial.

In my opinion the name is fine. So far I could not come up with an alternative name which looks less official and is still purposeful and short. e.g. having rust-embedded and embedded-community-rs seems even more confusing. Also, embedded-rs seems like a competitor of rust-embedded.
The criteria for this org being just: Rust, embedded, useful, open-source.

A totally new made-up name is also a possibility, but it would not be great to choose a name that we need to explain to everybody or that does not make clear that this is "less official" than rust-embedded.
Another alternative is rust-embedded-unofficial but I do not know if that would be fine for the Rust core team since that is only slightly more explicit.

Any other alternatives or thoughts?

[eldruin]

For completeness, here is the reasoning from the Rust core team via @aidanhs:

Hi, thanks for your patience! We had a look at this and discussed within the core team - right now, we think it’d be better placed as an unofficial group unless it becomes clear that being official will help both the rust organisation and community.

To elaborate a little on our thinking:

• given core team focuses at the moment, we want to limit ourselves to considering teams where impact is overwhelming and 'obvious'
• we’d prefer not to have official teams accumulating repositories (given confusion this can cause if efforts dwindle)
• we could imagine multiple independent 'trust groups' of co-maintainers being formed - no reason for only one!

As a result, we think using the trademark (and current name) is too confusing - but we do think it's pretty cool that you're all finding ways to build a community around this, and look forward to seeing how you get on!

As stated before, the ferris logo would be fine but the name is not.
What do you think about rust-embedded-unofficial? I have asked @aidanhs about it now.
Can you think of any other alternative?

[jamesmunns]

Hi @nikomatsakis and @aidanhs, weighing in a little late, but I got pulled in on the potential renaming of the organization of rust-embedded-community, of which I am a maintainer of, after the closing of the associated e-wg RFC.

Over the past years, we have specifically (as part of the WG, and as individuals) been working on the "brand recognition" of "Embedded Rust" and "Rust Embedded" as the use of the Rust language for the development of Embedded Systems. I am somewhat unclear why the use of "Rust Embedded Community" would be in violation of the Trademark/Media policy. In particular, I'd like to quote a couple items from the current Media Guide, which is as far as I know, the only public "normative" guidelines.

I believe that the primary issue (please correct me if I am off-base) is:

The most basic rule is that the Rust trademarks cannot be used in ways that appear (to a casual observer) official, affiliated, or endorsed by the Rust project or Mozilla, unless you have written permission from the Rust core team. This is the fundamental way we protect users and developers from confusion.

However, this section goes on to say (emphasis mine):

Since this rule is about managing perception, it is subjective and somewhat difficult to nail down concretely. There are some obvious ways to avoid problems, like including the word “unofficial” in a very prominent way

Additionally, under the section of "Uses that do not require explicit approval", the following items are stated (emphasis mine):

• "Stating accurately that software is written in the Rust programming language, that it is compatible with the Rust programming language, or that it contains the Rust programming language, is allowed. In those cases, you may use the Rust trademarks to indicate this, without prior approval. This is true both for non-commercial and commercial uses."
• Using the Rust trademarks in the names of non-commercial products like RustPostgres or Rustymine, or in the name of code repositories in e.g. GitHub, is allowed when referring to use with or suitability for the Rust programming language. Such uses may also include the Rust logo, even in modified form.

It seems (in my opinion) that "rust-embedded-community" falls squarely into the cases described by "Uses that do not require explicit approval", other than this is an organization, rather than a single repo. Could you please confirm that this is the distinction that matters in this case?

Additionally, at the moment, the main meta readme of the community organization states (emphasis mine):

The Rust Embedded Working Group is an official working group of the Rust programming language. This organization is not. This organization should be seen as separate and "non-blessed".

Is this insufficient to meet the request to "[include] the word 'unofficial' in a very prominent way"?

The main challenge here is choosing a name that is:

• Succinct enough to be reasonable, e.g. "unofficial-embedded-rust-organization" would be a bit unreasonably unwieldy, in my opinion
• Descriptive that this organization is intended for embedded projects written in the Rust programming language, e.g. if we just call this organization "geoffery", it has very poor discoverability.
• Not confusing or conflicting with existing projects, e.g. does embedded-rs compete with rust-embedded?

It would be good to clarify if the issue is that the "Unofficial" disclaimer in the readme is not "loud" enough, e.g. it should be in the title, or is required to be in the name of the organization itself. In particular, would switching the organization name to any of the following names be a sufficient Remedy to your requests?

• embedded-rust-community
  • Differentiates from the rust-embedded wg
• rust-embedded-unofficial
  • Includes the "unofficial" disclaimer in the organization

Thanks for following up here, and happy to resolve this, though it seems that we are unable to select a new name that meets the three criteria I listed above without explicit approval from the Core/Trademark teams, as we are unable to use the Trademark guide itself to pick a name that is suitable, and seem to require explicit cooperation from the core team in order to resolve the naming dispute.

Edit: tweaked some emphasis to be more clear

[aidanhs]

Hi @jamesmunns

An up-front clarification - the response was not intended to touch on trademark/media policy at all! To give some context, the questions received were (roughly):

• “can we use the rust logo as an unofficial group?”
• “if not, can we become an official team and use the rust logo?”
  • implicitly: “is the name ok?”

The response was intended to give overall thoughts on these different pieces, rather than a prescriptive assessment of naming specifically in the context of trademark guidance. On this advisory line of thinking I was intending to come back and observe (from a personal perspective) that there’s no reason why you couldn’t use rust-embedded-unofficial or similar - but an unconnected group of people could reasonably use exactly the same name for a totally different purpose.

I hope this helps frame things in the response.

Totally separately, and to actually touch on some of your questions - it seems straightforward that an organisation with ‘unofficial’ in the name would be fine. Is this enough of an answer, or would you still like something more complete (for transparency - this may take a while and/or not be able to answer all of your questions in the medium term)?

Aidan (on behalf of the Core Team)