>We plan to transfer that ownership to an appropriate, independent protocol governance organization in the future.
I never realized there is no independent governance org that should have registered this. So AT is governed by a single for-profit entity, that also runs the only viable instance?
It segments the network differently (into "hosting" and "apps"), and on both axes anyone can run their independent app-agnostic hosting, as well as an independent hosting-agnostic app.
Thanks, this is informative. I had meant 'instance' from more of a general user adoption perspective (i.e. Bluesky app user plus Bluesky PDS tenant), but based on other comments here that may not be too accurate either.
I can’t imagine being a first time bootstrapped founder running a business without a trademark and not knowing that someone with bad faith would just register a trademark and just sue or order you to change your name.
These are the things that most startups account for when raising capital.
> Bluesky recently acquired the rights to the trademark for “ATPROTOCOL” and its variants—including “AT Protocol” and “atproto”—from another company that was threatening to take legal action preventing the company and others from using the term. Now that Bluesky owns it, the atproto community’s continued use of the mark can be protected.
The policy around usage is shared in the rest of the post but the goal is to make this very simple for everyone
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadI never realized there is no independent governance org that should have registered this. So AT is governed by a single for-profit entity, that also runs the only viable instance?
This is a category error. There are no "instances" in atproto.
https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/
It segments the network differently (into "hosting" and "apps"), and on both axes anyone can run their independent app-agnostic hosting, as well as an independent hosting-agnostic app.
These are the things that most startups account for when raising capital.
The policy around usage is shared in the rest of the post but the goal is to make this very simple for everyone
Single vendor owned & controlled standards always turn out badly, just a question when.
Not only do we run a fully independent stack (https://docs.blacksky.community/readme/list-of-our-services)
Not only are we getting paid by other orgs to stand up independent app view servers.
We also received a license from Bluesky for the atproto trademark.
There are no qualms in the ecosystem from people making money, getting users, and providing new experiences about this.
It’s not “AT Protocol fans” who aren’t taking issue with this. It’s business with employees and organizations making a positive impact.
It’s easy to criticize if you’re not actively shipping things.
Is that license irrevocable/permanent from their side?
(It really needs to be, except for clauses against misconduct from your side.)