LFCS 2012: Trademarks for free software projects

Another more important topic is how that ties into "compatibility designation", particularly in our environment of software modularity: if you're creating, say, a module that works in Paul Davis' excellent Ardour audio workbench, you have to be allowed to say that it's compatible with Ardour or "built for" Ardour (or, in the opposite direction, that your website is "powered by" Apache), and have it legally understood that that's a nominative use, as well -- even if that trademarked name is part of yours; the rules for how such compound names must be constructed to be informative but not confusing/diluting need to be included in project trademark plans.