[yuliyp]

> if you distribute something containing a trademark and the trade mark policies don't allow distribution it is pretty much automatically a gray area of trade mark infringement

The whole world is shades of gray, but this is more like a wispy cirrus cloud than a dark cumulonimbus. If it's clear that there's no intent to cause confusion (and I suspect that if you're not creating releases in that repo that would be a pretty easy case) then there's not really much of a trademark infringement case to be made.

In the absence of such a trademark policy you'd have the exact same concerns. Them trying to go after people who fork on github would be a waste of time for everyone concerned: there would be no damages unless they went through the trouble of finding someone who had somehow actually been confused, and a C&D would accomplish nothing positive for the Rust Foundation anyway.