Hi all! :)
I'm wondering whether there has been any progress on the Debian Open Use
Logo issue...
Quoting from http://www.debian.org/logos/
| Debian Open Use Logo License
|
| Copyright (c) 1999 Software in the Public Interest
| This logo or a modified version may be used by anyone to refer to the
| Debian project, but does not indicate endorsement by the project.
|
| Note: we would appreciate that you make the image a link to
| http://www.debian.org/ if you use it on a web page.
If this is a trademark license only, then I fail to find a valid
copyright license for the logo.
If this is a copyright license (as well as a trademark one) then I would
say it's definitely non-free:
a) it fails DFGS#6
b) it does not explicitly give permission to distribute (even if maybe
it can be considered implicit, but I'm not so sure)
If this situation persists, I'm afraid release-critical bugs should be
filed (post-Sarge) against any package in main or contrib that include
the Debian Open Use Logo...
Correct me if I'm wrong.
One example? debconf installs /usr/share/pixmaps/debian-logo.xpm
IMHO, this issue should be solved.
We should find a way to make at least the Debian Open Use Logo
DFSG-free, by relicensing it.
A free copyright license should not be a problem (I would suggest the
Expat a.k.a. MIT license: http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt).
Some pains arise when we come to deal with the trademark license: can we
enforce trademarks in a DFSG-free way?
Last time we talked about the Debian logo issue, I almost came to the
conclusion that trademarks are orthogonal to DFSG-freeness.
But then, the Mozilla trademark issue almost completely changed my mind.
See also
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/12/msg00365.html
[archive reference of my message dated Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:18:52 +0100]
for my doubts and the discussion that followed...
Now, what I wonder is: what do we want?
Can a Debian-based GNU/Linux distro (that is a derived distro, such as
Ubuntu, for instance) include the Debian Open Use Logo?
*If* we do *not* want this to happen, we should make the stripping as
easy as possible: since doing nothing is usually easier than doing
something (surprised? ;-), I think that the best way to accomplish this
is *not* having *any* instance of the Debian Open Use Logo main or
contrib.
This would mean that the Debian Open Use Logo could not be DFSG-free
(because, otherwise, anyone could download it and include it in any
distro, regardless of its presence in Debian itself...)
*If* on the other hand we are fine with Knoppix, Ubuntu, or any other
distro shipping with Debian Open Use Logo images inside, then there is a
chance we can find a way to make this logo DFSG-free (but I don't know
if this *can* be compatible with holding a trademark on it).
What do you think?
--
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
......................................................................
Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4
Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
Attachment:
pgp4PXMIpvR4K.pgp
Description: PGP signature