On Fri, Mar 12, 1999 at 10:10:20PM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote: > I see a couple of remarks being made by people: > * we can't possibly check all uses of the term `Debian', either in > company, product or domainnames > * people using Debian-derived products should be free to use the term > `Debian' > * Putting the name Debian out there is good for us, since it makes > Debian much more visible. Sums up my points on this discussion so I decided not to both repeating them. > How about some simple guidelines like this: > * you are free to use the word Debian in products that are based on > Debian or strongly related to Debian. > * you are not allowed to use Debian in the name of a bussiness or > organization without authorization from the Debian project. The first is important. The second is a good way to allow those who want to use Debian's name in a good way to do so without allowing just anyone to use/abuse our name. Naturally the second needs contact info where people can go to get such authorization. > * The term `official Debian' and the logo that goes with it may only be > used after approval from the Debian project, or if the product is made > by Debian-set guidelines (for example the official CD-set) All right, the real meat of this reply starts here: I'm really concerned about this. The whole concept of having two logos has been generally ignored by me up until now, but I'm actually going to complain now. Every other distribution and every other company out there has only ONE LOGO. WTH do we need two? I don't think we do. Can anyone see why the first two simple guidelines applied to ONE LOGO would not be good enough? Consider: Should people be able to use a "Powered by Debian" logo? Sure. Should people be able to use our logo on Debian CDs? Sure. Should they be able to use it on Debian+books? Sure. Debian + non-debian? If it's used in a manner related to Debian, sure. On a tshirts/hats/coffee mugs/whatever? If related to Debian, sure. As a hyperlink pointing to our website? Of course! As the logo or part of the logo for your own company? Likely no. How does one make clothing related to Debian? Easy, donate portion of the profit if any to the project if they're sold. If you're doing them just for yourself then probably you're doing it to advertise Debian and have a cool/unique shirt anyway so that's cool too. Even if you DON'T donate to the project any part of the profit, offering the option to donate the the project additionally (CD vendors often do this) would be cool too. How about sets of Debian stuff plus non-debian stuff? Well, a multi-dist boxed set that includes a good Linux book plus a few distributions (Debian, Redhat, SuSE, Slackware, whatever) and features logos for all of those dists it uses on the box or on the CDs would be cool. If a boxed set including Debian and contrib/non-free were sold it would be reasonable to allow them to use the Debian logo on the box and the Debian CDs but we should ask them to make it obvious what's contained: Includes Debian GNU/Linux v2.1 "slink", contrib and non-free Debian packages, and the award-winning book The Best Linux Book There Is Note that I would (were it me) request vendors call the contrib and non-free CDs "contrib and non-free Debian packages" not "Debian contrib and non-free packages". The latter arrangement of words is somewhat misleading. Anyway, end of pseudo-rant. -- Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer PGP: E8D68481E3A8BB77 8EE22996C9445FBE The Source Comes First! To boldly go where no bunch of geeks have gone before :) --Joel Klecker
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