The appeal of open source is that anyone has the right to copy, modify, and redistribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable open source license (such as MPL, GPL, and so on). While we at NKSoft do indeed make our software available to the world as open source, please understand that we are not thereby providing third parties with the right to use the NKSoft trademarks in inappropriate ways. Nor are we in any way relinquishing our copyright ownership of any of the original NKSoft software or of the collective work that is the NKSoft Collaboration Server.
NKSoft Trademarks
“NKSoft” and the NKSoft logo are trademarks of NKSoft, Inc. and are protected under the laws of the United States and other countries. The NKSoft trademarks identify our company as the source and origin of NKSoft products that we distribute under an open source license. Other companies are not allowed to distribute their own products – even products derived from NKSoft software under our open source license – under the NKSoft trademarks.
In order to preserve their value as trademarks, NKSoft, Inc. prohibits inappropriate uses of these NKSoft trademarks by other companies, organizations, or individuals.
Some trademark uses, of course, are legitimate, such as to properly indicate NKSoft, Inc. software or related services. Wherever you do use the NKSoft trademark to properly indicate NKSoft, Inc. software or related services, you must include the following notice wherever your own trademarks are noticed:
“NKSoft” and the NKSoft logo are trademarks of NKSoft, Inc.
Your ability to produce and redistribute derivative works of or collective works that include the NKSoft Collaboration Server is governed by the open source license under which you received it (unless you enter into a formal agreement with NKSoft, Inc. under which you receive alternative licensing terms). Open source licenses do not include a license to trademarks, and so for you to produce a derivative work of or a collective work including the NKSoft software for distribution consistent with trademark law, you must remove all occurrences of the NKSoft trademark and the NKSoft logo that are visible to users so that nobody can be confused that NKSoft, Inc. is the source or origin of your derivative or collective works.
Moreover, none of the NKSoft trademarks can be used in the promotion, identification, or distribution of
- A derivative work of the NKSoft Collaboration Server;
- A collective work that includes the NKSoft Collaboration Server; or
- Independent software that offers similar function to that embodied within the NKSoft Collaboration Server unless you have received written permission to do so from NKSoft, Inc. To do otherwise would inevitably confuse people about the source or origin of those other works or incorrectly imply that NKSoft, Inc. endorsed them.
NKSoft Copyright
The copyright in and to the NKSoft Collaboration Server is owned by NKSoft, Inc. An appropriate copyright notice is carried within each source file of the NKSoft Collaboration Server, and also on the login screens of the user interface:
Portions © Copyright 2015 NKSoft, Inc.
These NKSoft copyright notices should not be confused with trademarks described earlier. NKSoft copyright notices (and any copyright notices of our contributors that we have placed in NKSoft software) must remain unmodified so that users of derivative or collective works created from NKSoft software always know that NKSoft, Inc. (or, in some cases, our contributor) owns a copyright in the original work.
The NKSoft-owned portions of any collective or derivative works remain available under our open source license. Furthermore, those collective and derivative works are subject to the reciprocity provisions of our license, as described in the NKSoft Licensing FAQ, which may also make them available under the same open source license. For these reasons, we require that you leave our copyright notices wherever they appear in your derivative works of or collective works including the NKSoft Collaboration Server, and to display our copyright notice in the same places and with the same prominence as you display your own copyright notice.
It is generally considered good open source practice to identify in the source code of your derivative or collective works your own copyright notices for the portions of the work you added or changed. We suggest that you also include a change log of the alterations that you have made in order to help downstream users or redistributors identify and distinguish what you have created from what NKSoft, Inc. has created and made available as open source software.
Again, unless you have entered into another formal agreement with NKSoft, Inc. under which you have received alternative licensing terms, your ability to produce and redistribute derivative works of or collective works that include the NKSoft Collaboration Server is governed by the open source license under which you received it and by laws relating to copyrights and trademarks described in this Policy.