Trademark Policy

Version 1.0

Introduction

MinIO is 100% open source under the AGPL v3.0 License. For more on license compliance please click here.

This document outlines the policy of the MinIO Project regarding the use of its trademarks. Any use of any MinIO trademark must be in accordance with this policy. For the purpose of this policy "Trademarks" means MinIO's word marks, service marks, logos, trade dress, names of products, services, business and the name of the corporation.

The MinIO trademarks include, among others, the names MINIO, the MinIO Stork, MinIO SUBNET, MinIO KES, MinIO Warp, MinIO DMT and MinIO Sidekick.

As a firm believer in Free Software ethos and a respected member of the community, we have a desire for widespread usage and improvement of our code by users, distributors and other community members, of our products distributed under Open Source Licenses. Although our code is Open Source, MinIO wishes to ensure that its trademarks remain reliable indicators of quality and source that our users have come to expect of us. It is also very important that we strictly enforce our trademark rights in order to be able to protect our users against people who use the marks to commit fraud. This means that, while you have considerable freedom to redistribute and modify our software, you must follow trademark law and this policy even for Open Source software. Balancing these two competing interests is not an easy task. We rely on our users, clients and community to help us achieve this balance.

General Guidelines

Underlying MinIO's trademark policy is the general law of trademarks.

MinIO is designed to be used and extended, and MinIO recognizes that community members may need some way to identify the MinIO product in some way but you must ensure that consumers are not confused as to whether they are official (meaning approved by MinIO) or not.

Your use of MinIO's trademarks must always be non-confusing. People should always know who they are dealing with, and where the software they are downloading came from. Websites and software that are not produced or officially authorized by MinIO shouldn't imply, either directly or by omission, that they are.

In case of any confusion or clarifications, please write to us at legal@min.io

What You Can Do

1. You can distribute unchanged official binaries downloaded from https://min.io/download to anyone in any way subject to governing law, relevant terms of the license, without receiving any further permission from MinIO. However, you must not remove or change any MinIO trademarks. On your website or in other materials, you may truthfully state that the software you are providing is an unmodified version of MinIO, keeping in mind the overall guidelines for the use of MinIO trademarks detailed in this policy document. We suggest that, if you choose to provide visitors to your website the opportunity to download MinIO binaries, you do so by means of a link to our site, to help ensure faster, more reliable downloads.
2. You can use MinIO trademarks in marketing and other publicity-related materials. That includes advertising stating that a person or organization is shipping or selling MinIO products. Of course, any use of a MinIO trademark is subject to the overarching requirement that its use be non-confusing.
3. Services Related to MinIO: If you offer services related to MinIO, you can use MinIO's trademarks in describing and advertising your services, so long as you don't violate these overall guidelines for the use of MinIO's trademarks or do anything that might mislead customers into thinking that MinIO has any direct relationship with your organization.
4. Logos and Merchandise: You can make t-shirts, desktop wallpaper, or baseball caps with MinIO logos on them, though only for yourself and your friends (meaning people from whom you don't receive anything of value in return).
5. You can use MinIO trademarks to truthfully refer to and/or link to unmodified MinIO programs, products, services and technologies.

What You Cannot Do

1. You cannot put the MinIO logo on anything that you produce commercially.
2. You cannot modify MinIO’s trademarks, abbreviate them, or combine them with any other symbols, words, or images, or incorporate them into a tagline or slogan.
3. You cannot produce modified versions of MinIO Logos for any purpose.
4. You cannot use MinIO trademarks in a way that incorrectly implies affiliation with, or sponsorship, endorsement, or approval by MinIO of your products or services.
5. You cannot use MinIO trademarks for any form of commercial use unless such use is limited to a truthful and descriptive reference.
6. You cannot use MinIO trademarks in the name and handle of your social media account.
7. You may modify MinIO software subject to the Open Source license terms but may not redistribute your modifications under any MinIO trademarks. For example, it would be inappropriate for your products or website to say "based on MinIO". Instead, in the interest of complete accuracy, you should describe it as "based on MinIO technology", or "incorporating MinIO source code." You must also change the name of the products and binaries so as to reduce the chance that a user of the modified software will be misled into believing it to be a native MinIO or affiliated with us.

What Do You Need Permission For

1. If you plan to use a MinIO trademark as a site icon, you need to request permission.
2. Domain Names: If you want to include all or part of a MinIO trademark in a domain name, you have to receive written permission from MinIO. Almost any use of a MinIO trademark in a domain name is likely to confuse consumers, thus running afoul of the overarching requirement that any use of a MinIO trademark be non-confusing.

How Should You Use Our Trademarks

1. Proper Form - MinIO's trademarks should be used in their exact form -- neither abbreviated nor combined with any other word or words.
2. Accompanying Symbol - The first or most prominent mention of a MinIO trademark should be accompanied by a symbol indicating whether the mark is a registered trademark ("®") or an unregistered trademark ("™");
3. Attribution Notice - The following notice should appear somewhere nearby (at least on the same page) the use of a MinIO trademark: "[TRADEMARK] is a ["registered", if applicable] trademark of the MinIO Corporation";
4. Distinguishable - The Trademark should be set apart from surrounding text, either by capitalizing it or by italicizing, bolding or underlining it.

You may not change any MinIO Logo except to scale it. This means you may not add decorative elements, change the colors, change the proportions, distort it, add elements, or combine it with other logos. However, when the context requires the use of black-and-white graphics and the logo is color, you may reproduce the logo in a manner that produces a black-and-white image.

Questions

MinIO has tried to make its trademark policy as comprehensive as possible. If you are considering a use of a MinIO trademark that is not covered by the policy, and you are unsure whether that use would run afoul of MinIO's guidelines, please contact us at legal@min.io

If MinIO determines at any time, in its sole discretion, that your use of any of our trademarks violates this Policy, we may revoke permission for your usage, and you must immediately cease all use of the marks.

This policy may be updated from time to time. Please refer to this page for all updates.