Stewardship of the Name¶
A founding principle of the Cairn project. Intended for inclusion in the project's GOVERNANCE document. This text states a commitment; it is not itself a legal instrument.
Principle¶
The name belongs to the mission, not to any entity.
"Cairn" — the name, the wordmark, and the trust attached to them — exists to identify a free, offline-resilient, vendor-independent health record built as a public good. It is stewarded on behalf of the project's community and the patients and clinicians it ultimately serves. No party — commercial or non-commercial, including any future contributor, host, sponsor, or steward — may appropriate the name in a way that lets them stand in the project's place or collect the credibility the community built.
The software's freedom is protected by its AGPL-3.0 license. The name is the asset the license alone does not protect, and so it is protected here, deliberately and separately.
Why this principle exists¶
A successful open-source project is rarely harmed by a hostile fork — the AGPL makes forks weak, because anyone can fork back. The durable threat is capture of the name: an entity that wears the project's identity as if it were the project, converting community trust into private advantage while the code remains nominally free. Guarding the name is how the mission is kept from being quietly annexed.
What this does and does not permit¶
This principle is not hostility to commercial activity. Reaching the clinics, ministries, and under-resourced settings Cairn exists to serve will often require paid work — hosting, deployment, integration, training, support — and people doing that work in good faith are part of how the mission succeeds, not a threat to it.
Permitted, and welcomed: - Offering paid hosting, deployment, support, training, or integration of Cairn, described truthfully as services for or based on Cairn. - Running modified or downstream versions, as the AGPL allows, under a clearly distinct name. - Describing one's relationship to the project accurately ("we deploy and support Cairn").
Not permitted: - Presenting any product, company, or service as Cairn, or using the name in a way that implies one is the project or speaks for it (e.g. "Cairn EHR Pro," "Cairn Enterprise," "Cairn Inc." as a commercial identity). - Using the name or wordmark in company names, product names, or domains in a manner likely to confuse users about who stewards the project. - Any use that suggests endorsement by the project without the steward's agreement.
The distinction the project draws is simple: anyone may build on Cairn and may earn a living doing so; no one may be Cairn except the community that stewards it.
Stewardship structure (intended)¶
The name is to be held by the project's stewarding non-profit entity (a foundation or equivalent), established as the project matures. Until that entity exists, the name is held in trust by the project's founder(s) on behalf of the community and under this same principle. The steward's role is custodial, not proprietary: the steward defends the name for the mission and is itself bound by this principle — the steward may not usurp the name any more than an outside party may.
Use of the name and wordmark may be licensed by the steward to deployments and downstream works that honor the AGPL-3.0 terms and the project's stated principles. Such permission is about preventing confusion and capture, not about controlling who may use the software — which the license already governs and freely permits.
Practical measures¶
To give this principle effect proportionate to the project's stage:
In place now (defensive reservation):
- Primary domain: cairn-ehr.org (canonical).
- Defensive registration: cairn-ehr.com, redirecting to the .org, held solely to prevent
confusing or capturing use. (Both registered.)
- Reserve the project's identity across free or low-cost namespaces as they are claimed —
source-host organization, package registries (PyPI / crates / npm), and similar — to prevent
accidental or bad-faith occupation.
Deferred until the project is mature enough to warrant it (avoiding premature legal scaffolding): - Registration of a formal trademark / wordmark for "Cairn" (in the relevant jurisdiction and classes), held by the stewarding entity, as the instrument that gives this principle legal force. - A detailed trademark-use and enforcement policy. This document states the principle; the formal policy follows when there is enough substance to be worth protecting.
Status¶
Founding principle — adopted at project inception, to be carried into the GOVERNANCE document and given formal legal effect (entity + registered mark) as the project matures. The commitment is recorded now so that it cannot drift later.