Re: Firmware & Social Contract: GR proposal
<posted & mailed>
Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 05, 2006 at 12:53:50PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
>> There are people interested. I think us mere mortals have been hindered
>> by the slowness of the DPL and SPI on these topics.
>
> You might like to consider replying to:
>
> Subject: Re: Presumably-unauthorized Open Logo use
> Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 18:30:28 +1000
> To: debian-private@lists.debian.org
>
> then.
>
>> We could GR it, but there doesn't seem much objection - just inaction.
>
> When I asked in April about a week after my term began, Greg (the SPI
> lawyer) replied:
>
> "I don't think there has been a great deal of interest in registering
> the Debian logo.
This is irrelevant.
(1) Trademarks are established by use, not by registration.
(2) We have been interested in establishing it; he's just wrong. He's wrong
because the people who care have not been allowed to talk to him, as far as
I can tell. Obstructionism, and you're helping obstruct.
> On the one hand, the open use logo is not very
> strong as a trademark, and it seems to get independently re-created
> by various third parties around the world from time to time --
> therefore it would be terribly difficult to police.
This is an argument for creating an entirely different logo. The trademark
strength is irrelevant to the copyright license.
Also, the logo is clearly at least as strong as the word "Debian" (since it
contains the word). We need a proper trademark policy for the word as well.
These *have been proposed* as MJ Ray noted, and have fallen into the black
hole of "can't get legal advice and DPL won't do anything without it".
"Pseudo-trademark" enforcement through copyright is a mistake, and doesn't
achieve Debian's trademark goals. It has to be stopped.
If the current logo gets independently recreated repeatedly, then the
copyright-based pseudo-trademark protection is *useless*; it's worth less
than even a weak trademark enforcement.
> The official
> logo does not seem to be very widely used or widely recognizable."
>
> The last mail on the spi-trademark was in May on a not-particularly
> related matter.
>
>> On the logo copyright, the DPL needs to instruct SPI to change the
>> licence.
>
> Changing the copyright license without establishing a proper trademark
> would seem irresponsible and inappropriate to me.
Yet you refuse to work on "establishing a proper trademark", and you haven't
given those people who are interested in doing so access to the SPI lawyer.
The copyright license doesn't achieve its stated goals. It prevents uses
we approve of and allows uses we want to stop. It's quite irrelevant
whether the current logo would be a "strong" trademark or a "weak"
trademark; it's certainly stronger than the bare word "Debian", and treating
it exactly the same way will lose us *nothing*.
>> So, would this DPL like to be the one to take active leadership and
>> fix the dumb debian logo bug?
>
> I haven't seen any interest whatsoever in dealing with this from other
> developers,
In other words, "I haven't been listening, so I've assumed nobody's
talking".
Yes, people have been quiet about it *during your term*. We got frustrated
and burnt-out by throwing ourselves against a wall during the *two previous*
DPLs' terms.
> so I've deprioritised it. If that changes,
It's "changed". Please make this a high priority.
> I'll be happy to
> put it back on my list of things to deal with.
Thank you. Please tell the SPI lawyer to talk to start an email
conversation with MJ about this; I'm sure he can keep anyone else (such as
me) who is interested in the loop. MJ, are you OK with taking lead on
this?
AJ, I presume you will have no problem doing this if this really was a
matter of miscommunication. Sorry I'm so irritable.
Oh. Please feel free to forward my comments to the SPI lawyer, too.
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@fastmail.fm>
Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it.
So why isn't he in prison yet?...
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