Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: > Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net>: >>I acknowledge that all of those classes of law are quite different in >>many ways. Nevertheless, the DFSG does not differentiate among methods >>of restricting Freedom. > > That's because they're guidelines, though you seem to want to apply > them legalistically without regard for the practical consequences. In > particular, you seem to claim that because the DFSG doesn't > distinguish between copyright and trademarks Debian is compelled to > treat them the same way, though it's not clear to me how you can treat > two such different things the same way. I am aware of the guidelines approach, and I agree with it. Furthermore, I am not necessarily arguing that copyrights and trademarks must be considered identical in every respect. I am *only* arguing that if either copyrights or trademarks are used to restrict a work in a way not allowed by the DFSG, the work is still DFSG-non-free. >>However, if we use the Debian >>trademark to restrict the rights of users over the actual Debian logos >>in the distribution and/or any derivative works of that logo, > > Are "the actual Debian logos" in the distribution, or does the > distribution merely contain a picture of the actual Debian logos? That > may sound like a pointless philosophical question but I think it lies > at the root of the some of the disagreements in this thread. That is an interesting, if confusing, distinction. The trademark covers both "the abstract concept of the Debian logo" and "the concrete implementation of the Debian logo" (an image, for example). If we want to include a Debian logo image in the distribution, we must grant a Free license to that logo and its derivative works, under all rights we might have, including both copyrights and trademarks. We do not include the abstract concept of the logo in the main archive, and the DFSG-Freeness of whatever license we might apply to the concept of the logo is only relevant insofar as it affects the freeness of anything we ship in main (including any logo images), or anything derived from such. > Trademark problems only arise when the image is used in a particular > way. I would think that Debian is not obliged to and cannot give > permission for all possible uses of Debian software. We most certainly can and should. - Josh Triplett
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