Bug#607839: Question about GNOME Trademark and GNOME project packages in Debian
On Fri, 2011-07-15 at 11:07 -0400, Mike O'Connor wrote:
> When we are contacted by a owner of a trademark on which we believe we
> are infringing, the safest thing for us to do legally is to cease all
> use of the mark. The easiest thing for us to do is to ignore their
> claim. We'll need to figure out where we want to land between these two
> extremes, and here again, there is tension. I don't believe it is as
> simple as you state it: "...that seems like something that will have to
> stop if the GNOME foot is not free software because of some restrictive
> TM license". Because by that argument tells us that we have to rename
> all GNOME software, since the trademark license is restrictive about how
> we use "GNOME".
Sorry for the confusion. Nobody is actually asking you to rename
packages. We realize our trademark usage guidelines need work. Talking
about renaming packages is not productive, because nobody from GNOME
actually wants you to do that.
We are working to improve our trademark policy and in the meantime, we
want you to know that GNOME has no complaint about omitting notices in
package names or other similar customary informal use, such as in
emails, and we will not assert our current policy in that way, so long
as there's no confusion about whether the software is actually GNOME.
Thanks,
Shaun McCance
GNOME Foundation Board Member
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