From: Richard V. <rtv...@ma...> - 2005-04-20 13:52:06
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Folks, I just had a long chat with Matthew LaFary, Director of Software at MobileRobots (the re-branded ActivMedia). I'm cc'ing him on this mail. MobileRobots have started to mention Player/Stage in their marketing materials, because of a Player wrapper for ARIA that gives them access to Player/Stage. Presumably, they actually mean Player, so they'll be able to do Player/Gazebo too. This is largely the work of our good friend and colleague Reed Hedges, and definitely a Good Thing. It will allow MobileRobots' customers the ability to use the software bundled with the robot together with P/S/G code, rather than having to choose one or the other. Still, it raises two points that we (the developers) need to consider: 1) Player, Stage, Gazebo and their combinations are our trademarks. I'd like to retain control of the trademarks so we can prevent them being used for evil. The MobileRobots stuff is not evil at all, but we have to actively protect the trademark or we default to losing control of it forever. 2) The exact wording of the P/S stuff in the marketing blurb is slightly wrong (I'm certain that this is marketdroid tweaking, and not Reed's choice). They say "Player-Stage" when it should be "Player/Stage" and they probably actually mean "Player". We should help them get the terminology right, or we'll have to spend time reeducating their customers when they get their gear home and start playing with it. One small concern for me is that the ARIA/Player bridge is called "MobileSim": this might suggest to people that they are getting their simulator from the company rather than the Player/Stage Project. So where I think this takes us is: We need to establish a policy for people to use our trademarks. So we have to state very clearly what the trademarks are and what credits (if any) need to be given when the marks are used. Currently the MobileRobots literature gives no credit or URL: I think a either or both of these would be appropriate in third-party marketing material. I'm too pooped to draft a policy right now, but I wanted to get the issue down in writing. If Reed is reading, and can fill us in on the details of "MobileSim" without breaking confidences, I'm sure people would be interested. cheers, Richard. -- Richard Vaughan School of Computing Science / Simon Fraser University |
From: Radu B. R. <ve...@in...> - 2005-04-20 15:37:11
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Heyas, Not really off-topic, but this raises another question for me: what's the correct name of the project? I personally use "Player/Stage" on my web pages and projects, but I'd personally go for "Player/Stage/Gazebo" or "P/S/G" from now on. I was also thinking about designing some logos with P/S/G to put on my web pages, since I couldn't find a collection of them on the current playerstage@sf pages. Do we have any btw? One idea would be to "force" 3rd parties to use the logos on all their publications/materials and also to clearly state that P/S/G is GPL educational/academic (?) work. Cheers, Radu. On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 03:51:50PM +0200, Richard Vaughan wrote: > Folks, > > I just had a long chat with Matthew LaFary, Director of Software at > MobileRobots (the re-branded ActivMedia). I'm cc'ing him on this mail. > > MobileRobots have started to mention Player/Stage in their marketing > materials, because of a Player wrapper for ARIA that gives them access > to Player/Stage. Presumably, they actually mean Player, so they'll be > able to do Player/Gazebo too. This is largely the work of our good > friend and colleague Reed Hedges, and definitely a Good Thing. It will > allow MobileRobots' customers the ability to use the software bundled > with the robot together with P/S/G code, rather than having to choose > one or the other. > > Still, it raises two points that we (the developers) need to consider: > > 1) Player, Stage, Gazebo and their combinations are our trademarks. I'd > like to retain control of the trademarks so we can prevent them being > used for evil. The MobileRobots stuff is not evil at all, but we have > to actively protect the trademark or we default to losing control of it > forever. > > 2) The exact wording of the P/S stuff in the marketing blurb is > slightly wrong (I'm certain that this is marketdroid tweaking, and not > Reed's choice). They say "Player-Stage" when it should be > "Player/Stage" and they probably actually mean "Player". We should help > them get the terminology right, or we'll have to spend time reeducating > their customers when they get their gear home and start playing with > it. One small concern for me is that the ARIA/Player bridge is called > "MobileSim": this might suggest to people that they are getting their > simulator from the company rather than the Player/Stage Project. > > So where I think this takes us is: > > We need to establish a policy for people to use our trademarks. So we > have to state very clearly what the trademarks are and what credits (if > any) need to be given when the marks are used. Currently the > MobileRobots literature gives no credit or URL: I think a either or > both of these would be appropriate in third-party marketing material. > > I'm too pooped to draft a policy right now, but I wanted to get the > issue down in writing. > > If Reed is reading, and can fill us in on the details of "MobileSim" > without breaking confidences, I'm sure people would be interested. > > cheers, > Richard. > > -- > Richard Vaughan > School of Computing Science / Simon Fraser University > Yours sincerely, Radu Bogdan Rusu -- | Radu Bogdan 'veedee' Rusu | http://www.rbrusu.com | Javaclient for P/S/G | http://java-player.sf.net | The optimist sees a task in every problem. | The pessimist sees a problem in every task. |
From: Richard V. <rtv...@ma...> - 2005-04-20 16:39:14
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On 20-Apr-05, at 5:38 PM, Radu Bogdan Rusu wrote: > > Heyas, > > Not really off-topic, but this raises another question for me: what's > the > correct name of the project? I personally use "Player/Stage" on my web > pages > and projects, but I'd personally go for "Player/Stage/Gazebo" or > "P/S/G" from > now on. That's been something we've just let slide so far, so it'd be best to have a chat about it now. The easy part: When using Player with one of our simulators, you're using either Player/Stage or Player/Gazebo. Both Stage and Gazebo are usable without Player, too, in which case you drop the "Player/" prefix and just call them Stage and Gazebo. (side note: I had a discussion today with Oliver Michel of Cyberbotics on the possibilities of putting Player hooks in Webots, his excellent commercial robot simulation. If you're interested in a Player/Webots system, speak up). The harder part: I think Player/Stage/Gazebo is not a good project or team name, though I sometimes use it when I need to make sure that Gazebo gets full recognition. Most often though, I refer to the Player/Stage Project - the name we had before Gazebo was born. We obviously don't want to keep appending the names of any future major bits of software on the end of the name, and I really don't like the triple-name, so in order to avoid any second-class implications to Gazebo (which I certainly don't intend), I would prefer to just drop the 'Stage' by default. . That leaves the "Player Project", which is OK. I'd like to hear other people's opinions, particularly the BDFLs that are identified with the project names. > I was also thinking about designing some logos with P/S/G to put on my > web > pages, since I couldn't find a collection of them on the current > playerstage@sf pages. Do we have any btw? We just have the Elsie and Elmer image, which is not our copyright and therefore not cool. I'm open to suggestions/contributions for logos. The web page is well overdue for a visual update. > One idea would be to "force" 3rd parties to use the logos on all their > publications/materials and also to clearly state that P/S/G is GPL > educational/academic (?) work. We don't insist on educational/academic. We just use the good ol' GPLv2, with a little LGPL for the client libs. I believe the GPL has the best available combination of freedoms and restrictions. Richard. > Cheers, > Radu. > > On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 03:51:50PM +0200, Richard Vaughan wrote: >> Folks, >> >> I just had a long chat with Matthew LaFary, Director of Software at >> MobileRobots (the re-branded ActivMedia). I'm cc'ing him on this mail. >> >> MobileRobots have started to mention Player/Stage in their marketing >> materials, because of a Player wrapper for ARIA that gives them access >> to Player/Stage. Presumably, they actually mean Player, so they'll be >> able to do Player/Gazebo too. This is largely the work of our good >> friend and colleague Reed Hedges, and definitely a Good Thing. It will >> allow MobileRobots' customers the ability to use the software bundled >> with the robot together with P/S/G code, rather than having to choose >> one or the other. >> >> Still, it raises two points that we (the developers) need to consider: >> >> 1) Player, Stage, Gazebo and their combinations are our trademarks. >> I'd >> like to retain control of the trademarks so we can prevent them being >> used for evil. The MobileRobots stuff is not evil at all, but we have >> to actively protect the trademark or we default to losing control of >> it >> forever. >> >> 2) The exact wording of the P/S stuff in the marketing blurb is >> slightly wrong (I'm certain that this is marketdroid tweaking, and not >> Reed's choice). They say "Player-Stage" when it should be >> "Player/Stage" and they probably actually mean "Player". We should >> help >> them get the terminology right, or we'll have to spend time >> reeducating >> their customers when they get their gear home and start playing with >> it. One small concern for me is that the ARIA/Player bridge is called >> "MobileSim": this might suggest to people that they are getting their >> simulator from the company rather than the Player/Stage Project. >> >> So where I think this takes us is: >> >> We need to establish a policy for people to use our trademarks. So we >> have to state very clearly what the trademarks are and what credits >> (if >> any) need to be given when the marks are used. Currently the >> MobileRobots literature gives no credit or URL: I think a either or >> both of these would be appropriate in third-party marketing material. >> >> I'm too pooped to draft a policy right now, but I wanted to get the >> issue down in writing. >> >> If Reed is reading, and can fill us in on the details of "MobileSim" >> without breaking confidences, I'm sure people would be interested. >> >> cheers, >> Richard. >> >> -- >> Richard Vaughan >> School of Computing Science / Simon Fraser University >> > > Yours sincerely, > Radu Bogdan Rusu > -- > | Radu Bogdan 'veedee' Rusu | http://www.rbrusu.com > | Javaclient for P/S/G | http://java-player.sf.net > | The optimist sees a task in every problem. > | The pessimist sees a problem in every task. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: New Crystal Reports XI. > Version 11 adds new functionality designed to reduce time involved in > creating, integrating, and deploying reporting solutions. Free runtime > info, > new features, or free trial, at: > http://www.businessobjects.com/devxi/728 > _______________________________________________ > Playerstage-developers mailing list > Pla...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/playerstage-developers > -- Richard Vaughan School of Computing Science / Simon Fraser University |
From: Cameron S. <cam...@cs...> - 2005-04-21 00:51:30
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Richard Vaughan wrote: > The harder part: > > I think Player/Stage/Gazebo is not a good project or team name, though I > sometimes use it when I need to make sure that Gazebo gets full > recognition. Most often though, I refer to the Player/Stage Project - > the name we had before Gazebo was born. We obviously don't want to keep > appending the names of any future major bits of software on the end of > the name, and I really don't like the triple-name, so in order to avoid > any second-class implications to Gazebo (which I certainly don't > intend), I would prefer to just drop the 'Stage' by default. . That > leaves the "Player Project", which is OK. I'd like to hear other > people's opinions, particularly the BDFLs that are identified with the > project names. One point: Yannick Brosseau and myself are trying to get PSG into the debian repository. Yannick tried this a while back, and it got knocked back partly because 'player' is a fairly generic, non-descriptive name. There aren't any other 'player' packages in debian, but I don't think they'll ever accept it as a package name. We're currently calling using 'playerstage' as the basename for the player and stage packages. Cameron. -- =================================================================== My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates (470-399 B.C.) Cameron Stone <cam...@cs...> =================================================================== |
From: Reed H. <re...@ac...> - 2005-04-21 12:17:57
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Cameron Stone wrote: > Richard Vaughan wrote: > >> The harder part: >> >> I think Player/Stage/Gazebo is not a good project or team name, > One point: Yannick Brosseau and myself are trying to get PSG into the > debian repository. Yannick tried this a while back, and it got knocked > back partly because 'player' is a fairly generic, non-descriptive name. > There aren't any other 'player' packages in debian, but I don't think > they'll ever accept it as a package name. That's silly. Try again. There are lots of projects with completely arbitrary names. Player and Stage have a nice rationale! You could call it player-server player-stage or player-driver-stage for the stage plugin player-<plugin> or player-driver-<plugin> for other plugins player-gazebo or player-driver-gazebo etc. playerv or player-utils On the subject of an umbrella project name, it would have to be theatrical themed or Shakespeare themed... Reed |
From: Yannick B. <yan...@us...> - 2005-04-21 13:34:38
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Reed Hedges wrote: > Cameron Stone wrote: > >> Richard Vaughan wrote: >> >>> The harder part: >>> >>> I think Player/Stage/Gazebo is not a good project or team name, > > >> One point: Yannick Brosseau and myself are trying to get PSG into the >> debian repository. Yannick tried this a while back, and it got knocked >> back partly because 'player' is a fairly generic, non-descriptive >> name. There aren't any other 'player' packages in debian, but I don't >> think they'll ever accept it as a package name. > > > That's silly. Try again. There are lots of projects with completely > arbitrary names. Player and Stage have a nice rationale! The rationale for the package name is based in the Sourceforge project name which is playerstage. Yannick |
From: Cameron S. <cam...@cs...> - 2005-04-21 13:53:49
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Yannick Brosseau wrote: > Reed Hedges wrote: >>Cameron Stone wrote: >>>There aren't any other 'player' packages in debian, but I don't >>>think they'll ever accept it as a package name. >> >>That's silly. Try again. There are lots of projects with completely >>arbitrary names. Player and Stage have a nice rationale! > > The rationale for the package name is based in the Sourceforge project > name which is playerstage. The packages are currently named as follows. Source: playerstage producing Binaries: playerstage-server_1.6.2-1_i386.deb playerstage-utils_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayerstage-dev_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayerstage1.6_1.6.2-1_i386.deb Source: playerstage-stage producing Binaries: libplayerstage-stage1.6_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayerstage-stage-dev_1.6.2-1_i386.deb I'd be happy to change them to: Source: player-core producing Binaries: player-server_1.6.2-1_i386.deb player-utils_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayer-dev_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayer1.6_1.6.2-1_i386.deb Source: player-stage producing Binaries: libplayer-stage1.6_1.6.2-1_i386.deb libplayer-stage-dev_1.6.2-1_i386.deb and eventually something similar for gazebo. Do we like this? It's extensible, and also it would still work if some 'core' modules got moved out of the main distro, such as lesser-used server modules. Cameron. -- =================================================================== He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. Cameron Stone <cam...@cs...> =================================================================== |
From: Brian G. <ge...@ai...> - 2005-04-22 05:28:11
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Richard Vaughan wrote: > When using Player with one of our simulators, you're using either > Player/Stage or Player/Gazebo. Both Stage and Gazebo are usable without > Player, too, in which case you drop the "Player/" prefix and just call > them Stage and Gazebo. Agreed. > That > leaves the "Player Project", which is OK. That works for me. Still left is what to prefix package names with. brian. |
From: Andrew H. <and...@gm...> - 2005-04-20 16:05:24
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On 4/20/05, Richard Vaughan <rtv...@ma...> wrote: >=20 > 1) Player, Stage, Gazebo and their combinations are our trademarks. I'd > like to retain control of the trademarks so we can prevent them being > used for evil. The MobileRobots stuff is not evil at all, but we have > to actively protect the trademark or we default to losing control of it > forever. >=20 Does the law recognise de-facto trademarks? My impression was that trademarks are like patents and unlike copyrights (i.e., you have to register them). BTW, if the problem is one of citation, the CreativeCommons may have something we could use. A. |
From: Richard V. <rtv...@ma...> - 2005-04-20 16:17:53
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On 20-Apr-05, at 6:05 PM, Andrew Howard wrote: > On 4/20/05, Richard Vaughan <rtv...@ma...> wrote: >> >> 1) Player, Stage, Gazebo and their combinations are our trademarks. >> I'd >> like to retain control of the trademarks so we can prevent them being >> used for evil. The MobileRobots stuff is not evil at all, but we have >> to actively protect the trademark or we default to losing control of >> it >> forever. >> > > Does the law recognise de-facto trademarks? My impression was that > trademarks are like patents and unlike copyrights (i.e., you have to > register them). My understanding is that the registered trademark circle-R and circle-TM are one well-understood mechanism to prove that you are reserving your rights on the name. But you don't have to do it that way. But you do have to demonstrate that you are actively protecting the name in some way, like, for example, having a public use policy and objecting when people misuse your marks. Otherwise your name goes the way of 'Aspirin' and becomes generic. Once that happens, you can't stop people using it however they want. > BTW, if the problem is one of citation, the CreativeCommons may have > something we could use. Yep - should look into advice from that source. R. > A. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: New Crystal Reports XI. > Version 11 adds new functionality designed to reduce time involved in > creating, integrating, and deploying reporting solutions. Free runtime > info, > new features, or free trial, at: > http://www.businessobjects.com/devxi/728 > _______________________________________________ > Playerstage-developers mailing list > Pla...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/playerstage-developers > > -- Richard Vaughan School of Computing Science / Simon Fraser University |
From: Reed H. <re...@ac...> - 2005-04-20 16:08:08
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Richard Vaughan wrote: > If Reed is reading, and can fill us in on the details of "MobileSim" > without breaking confidences, I'm sure people would be interested. > Thanks for the comments Richard. In the actual documentation and overview materials for this thing, when it's released (sometime in the next few weeks I hope), I will go into more explicit detail of what Player and Stage are and how to use them with ARIA-based (or any other) software via this new "bridge" software. I think that at the time those "marketing" messages were written, it wasn't clear yet exactly how you could interface existing Pioneer-specific code with Player and with Stage. The way it will work is that a plugin driver to Player will provide an "emulated" Pioneer command interface over a TCP port, which is the way other simulators like SRISim work, and is already possible with ARIA. Plus random tools like the Perl script I posted yesterday, Stage configuration files for various robots, etc. Also some kind of sensor noise and odometry error in Stage, as I've mentioned earlier. Then, future plans might include things like a GUI for making world files and configurations, etc. The first release of "MobileSim" or whatever would probably include a patched version of Player with it, but ideally "MobileSim" releases in the future would simply include the latest stable release. No confidences at all here, but I don't want to post confusing information to the list-- and the names of things and design details can change. We can send copies of READMEs etc. before the release to make sure everything is accurately described though, and if anyone has any questions about what I'm doing I'm happy to respond of course. I have little experience with Gazebo at this point, we're starting with just worrying about Stage, then I'll check out Gazebo later, so we only talk about Stage as the simulation part right now. At this point most people will be interested in Stage. Also, I should say to other developers who might be worried, that we're not trying to "take over" the design or direction Player or Stage, which is a natural fear when commercial interests suddenly show up and become involved in Free Software projects! But it's not our intention at all; instead we think that Player + Stage is the best choice out there for us to contribute to as well as the best match for connecting current Pioneer-specific code to a more extensible system-- that provides great opportunities for experimenting in simulation. And it's not like we want to hide the fact that we're using Player and Stage or anything. Already we're really excited to be able to do all the little things with Stage and Player that is just not possible with our old simulator, like move little obstacles around while running, etc. ! Reed |