Since this has been a point of discussion lately, I feel an Agora topic would be appropriate grounds for a healthy exploration of the topic. I’ll share my thoughts but I’d love to hear and learn from different thoughts on the matter.
One of the things I’ve always loved about Tezos is how it is not a company. No one person owns it. No one company. No one non-profit that acts like a company. It is a true digital commonwealth. It’s a resource an open-source technology project, like Bitcoin.
Whenever I’m in a conversation with those outside of the Tezos community that presume (sometimes expressing so in an abrasive manner) that the ‘Tezos Foundation’ is somehow a company that owns and drives the platform, I kindly inform them that is not the case. I also can inform them that there are a number of Tezos foundations (plural).
I then compare it to Bitcoin, pointing out how there are many many Bitcoin non-profit organizations.
Here are a few:
Bitcoin Foundation
Bitcoin Private Foundation
Wallstreet Bitcoin Alliance
World Bitcoin Association
Bitcoin Association of Pakistan
More here:https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/List_of_Bitcoin_non-profits_around_the_world
US Bitcoin non-profits can be searched here: https://501c3lookup.org/search/
We can perhaps imagine thousands of Bitcoin non-profits to come. Certainly, it would be unusual for one to assume that all of these non-profits descend from a single non-profit overarching the project such as being associated with ‘Bitcoin Foundation’
Likewise, we can imagine a growth of more Tezos non-profit organizations.
Here are a few active Tezos non-profits:
Tezos Foundation
Tezos Commons Foundation
Commonwealth of Tezos Wyoming
Tezos India Foundation
Tezos Stablecoin Foundation
However, what happens when a bad actor inside or outside the ecosystem appropriates the name Tezos. As I see it there are two schools of thought:
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One would be to let it be; to let (I’ll explain what I mean by that in the next paragraph) it belong to the commons; to stand by and let the free-market forces of this permission-less ecosystem move about freely. This would be in line with the understanding that Tezos is a resource/open-source technology project. Perhaps the time will come when Tezos can even be used as a lowercase ‘tezos’. Guidance on whether or not the word ‘internet’ should be capitalized has gone through multiple iterations by APA, MLA styles and others, to the point in which now it is generally accepted as a common noun. I, for one, would love to see Tezos become so ubiquitous in our human culture that the word itself becomes indisputably a lower-case common noun.
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The other would be to implement some permission process for use of the name. This is actually possible. The name ‘Tezos’ has been a registered trademark of Dynamic Ledger Solutions. DLS is in the process of being acquired by by Tezos Foundation, as per the terms of the 2017 crowdsale (as far as I understand). Technically, Tezos Foundation could make use of their ownership and take on control over use of the name in respective jurisdictions worldwide. Doing so however would, of course damage claims of Tezos being so open and permission-less as it would not belong to the commons as a resource for the world.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’d love to learn from the thoughts of others on this issue.
With love,
Kevin 
