This was my understanding on how these things worked as well. But again, not a lawyer. In Kubernetes-land, the code is all standard Apache 2 but the trademark

This was my understanding on how these things worked as well. But again, not a lawyer. In Kubernetes-land, the code is all standard Apache 2 but the trademark is governed by a custom set of policies the community decided on. For example, companies must pass the conformance program before they can use the name in marketing.