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Guidelines and Requirements for OSGi™ Users' Groups and Users' Forums

Version 2.0

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to outline guidelines and requirements for users' groups and forums that are focused on supporting the OSGi Alliance, its specifications, and technology.

A primary goal of the OSGi Alliance is to promote the adoption of the OSGi Service Platform and the Alliance recognizes the benefit of its users interacting and sharing ideas regarding applications and implementation.

As such, the OSGi Alliance wishes to support the creation and success of OSGi users' groups/forms while at the same time executing its mission to develop and promote the OSGi Service Platform.

The audience for this document is any persons or organizations that wish to launch or participate in a users' group or users' forum.

Process Checklist

Here are the steps for setting up a new OSGi users' group or users' forum.

  1. Begin to organize your users' group/forum. We recommend that a minimum of five (5) charter members participate in the planning and setup of the organization. Most OSGi Users' Groups or Forums to-date have been formed to address a particular broad geographic area such as a country. Examples are "OSGi™ Users’ Forum – Japan", and "OSGi™ Users’ Group – France".
  2. Contact the OSGi Alliance Executive Director listed on the OSGi Alliance public web site to receive the necessary forms and trademark license agreement (per topic 3.2).
  3. Execute the license agreement
  4. Special OSGi users' group/forum graphic logo: after the license agreement is executed, the OSGi Alliance will then create versions of the special logo for your users' group/forum.
  5. Users' group/forum web site: set up the domain and mailing list per Section 5.0 below.
  6. Announcements / marketing: work with OSGi Alliance representatives to create announcements and participation in events.

Trademark usage

The OSGi Alliance is a non-profit corporation with primary offices in San Ramon California. As part of its charter, the OSGi Alliance conducts marketing programs to promote the OSGi Service Platform and maintains the OSGi product compliance program.

In support of these programs, the OSGi Alliance has registered the trademark, "OSGi" in many countries. For mutual benefit, we ask all OSGi users' groups and users' forums to properly use the OSGi trademark and logos. See the OSGi Alliance Trademark Policy for more information on proper usage of the OSGi trademarks.

Trademark license agreement

In order to qualify to use the special logo for OSGi Users' groups and forums (as described below), the OSGi Alliance requires that members of the users' group/forum execute the OSGi Trademark License Agreement. In the agreement, the word, "forum" and "group" should be transposed as appropriate for each users' group/forum.

Who should execute the OSGi Trademark License Agreement?

  • If the users' group/forum is a registered and/or incorporated entity, the agreement should be executed by an authorized agent of the users' group/forum.
  • If the users' group or forum is not a registered and/or incorporated entity, the OSGi Alliance requires that any member that is using the OSGi users' group/forum graphic logo execute the license agreement.

For the start-up of the users' group/forum, the OSGi Alliance requires that at least 3 charter members of the users' group/forum execute the agreement. These 3 members can be either employees of companies or individuals that are not associated with any company, but if they are employees of companies, they must be from different companies.

Special graphic logo for OSGi Users' Groups and Forums

The OSGi Alliance has created a special graphic logo for usage by users' groups/forums.

Examples of the special logo for users' group/forums



Upon formation of the users' group/forum and execution of the OSGi Trademark License Agreement, the OSGi Alliance will create web and print versions of this logo for you.

Web site domains and mailing lists for users' groups/forums

The OSGi Alliance wishes to support a degree of uniformity in web site structure and addressing for users' groups/forums. As such, the infrastructure for the web site domain and mailing list is set up and maintained by the OSGi Alliance and we offer each users' forum the following convention:

[geographic location or country].osgiusers.org

examples:
http://spain.osgiusers.org
http://brazil.osgiusers.org

The OSGi users' group/forum will have access to and be able to edit their own respective web site domain and mailing list after properly executing the OSGi Trademark License Agreement for the special graphics logo for their users' forum/group.

Distribution of OSGi Alliance documents

OSGi Alliance copyrighted documents and web pages are subject to frequent updates and may be discontinued without notice.

Users' groups/forums are requested to always directly link to the OSGi Alliance web site for documents for download and to avoid hosting or printing the documents.

Initial announcements and marketing

Provided that the guidelines and requirements are followed, the OSGi Alliance will announce your users' group/forum on the OSGi Alliance web site. Other marketing activities may include press announcements and joint participation and offers at events.

Operating guidelines and termination

The OSGi Alliance requires that all OSGi users' groups/forums operate with accepted standard business ethics and legal business practices.

Failure to comply with this requirement may result in termination of the OSGi Trademark License Agreement and/or other action by the OSGi Alliance.

Contacting the OSGi Alliance

Should you have any questions regarding the guidelines and requirements for OSGi users' groups/forums, please contact the OSGi Alliance.

Common Qustions and Answers:

Question 1 (See Process Checklist above for reference):

My question is about the suggested 5 charter members minimum. Does it mean that to form our OSGi Users' Group I will have to have a group with at least 5 people participating and managing the forum? Or, do you mean a group of 5 people from 5 different organizations other than my company? Or... these 5 persons need to be part of the Board of the OSGi Alliance?... I am confused�

Answer 1:

It means the OSGi Alliance suggests that at least five separate, independent "interests" be represented at the formation of a new OSGi Users' Forum.
Those "interests" could be ( 5 companies with one representative each ), OR ( 3 companies with one representative each, and 2 individuals ( e.g., each an academic ) representing themselves and only themselves ), OR ( 5 individuals ( e.g., academics ) representing themselves and only themselves ), OR etc. ( hopefully you see the pattern ).
By the way, companies can send MANY representatives if they so desire, but for the purpose of this guideline, they are all together just counted as one "interest".
[ Also, we suggest that any given company get one and only one vote in decisions effecting the governance of the Users' Forum. ]
The basic spirit of the guideline is to have enough separate interests represented at formation of a Users' Forum to insure some long term viability.
Our experience indicates if there is too little diversity in the community at start-up, the group tends to be fragile.
None of the "interests" need to be represented on the OSGi Board of Directors.

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