On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:13:26 -0400 Amos Blanton wrote: > Thanks for this information. You're welcome. > I ran into Mako Hill yesterday and we now > have a new plan of action: > > - GPL v3 Scratch (Assuming I can get the rest of my team on board). Mmmmh, I am not a big fan of the GNU GPL v3 (I strongly prefer GPLv2 over GPLv3, since I am convinced that the latter has a broken copyleft), but it is OK to use the GPLv3 for releasing Free Software, anyway... I hope you do realize that adopting the GPL after considering the ECLv1.0 is a big change of mind: the ECLv1.0 is a non-copyleft permissive license (though an uncommon and rarely used one), while the GPL is a copyleft license, much more restrictive than the ECLv1.0. That's why I didn't suggest the GPL, but concentrated on non-copyleft licenses, similar enough to the ECLv1.0, just more widely used... > > - Separate trademark license to allow Debian and other distros to > distribute the package with our trademarks (the cat, the name Scratch, > the Logo) under certain conditions. This is tricky and non-trivial matter: trademarks have caused and still cause a significant amount of head-scratching among Free Software people. You probably have to exploit clause 7(e) of the GPLv3, declining to grant unlimited trademark rights for use of the Scratch trademarks. Please come back to debian-legal, if you decide to follow this strategy: other people (more knowledgeable than me about trademarks) may help. Also, if misrepresentation is your main concern, maybe there's no need to involve trademarks: exploiting clause 7(c) of the GPLv3 could be enough... [...] > We just don't want people distributing modified versions of Scratch as > Scratch, or otherwise using the logo / Scratch Cat, which might create > confusion. Please thoroughly think about the consequences of these restrictions. Take into account that a packaged version of a piece of software is often slightly modified with respect to the upstream version: as I am sure you know well, this happens because the upstream version often must be adapted to the distro, in order to obtain better integration with other packages or to better conform to standards/policies/etc. If you consider such modifications as ground for forcing a name change, well, it may happen that most distros will distribute your piece of software under a different name: I am not sure that this is your goal, or that this is any good for you... > > Thanks so much for your help - Once again, you are welcome. As I said, other debian-legal regulars may add more suggestions (especially about trademarks). -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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