Re: Educational Community License 1.0

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Gervase Markham <gerv-gmane@gerv.net> writes:

> On 26/08/11 23:09, Ben Finney wrote:

> > This effectively means that the trademark license must be universal
> > and open to all recipients, regardless of Debian, otherwise it's not
> > a free work under the Debian guidelines.
>
> If you interpret the DFSG that way

I do, but I don't think your conclusions follow from that. So “that way”
seems to be different for each of us :-)

> then effectively Debian policy is that no trademarks may appear
> anywhere in Debian. The purpose of trademarks in law is as a
> determinant of origin.

What in DFSG §8 (or in my explanation of it) makes this infeasible, in
your view?

> If putting a trademark into Debian requires the trademark holder to
> allow software from any origin and with arbitrary changes to bear the
> trademark, then the trademark is no longer valid or defendable.

I agree. Why do you think that follows from what I've said on DFSG §8?

> And such a 'trademark' is no longer a trademark (literally: a mark
> used in trade).

This is a non sequitur AFAICT (nothing in what you're describing stops
the mark from being used in trade), but it also doesn't seem to be
crucial to your point.

> I do not think that breaking the trademark system with respect to free
> software is a necessary or desirable goal for the Debian project.

I agree, and I also agree with your statements of the benefits of
trademarks for the recipients of a work.

I do not think that breaking freedom of software recipients is a
necessary or desirable goal for the trademark system.


Please also note, as I said, that I'm aware of the opposing forces
between control (from the perspective of the trademark holder) and
freedom (from the perspective of the recipient of the work), and that
the Debian project is grappling with these issues at this moment.

You have not, though, made a case for the black-and-white picture you're
presenting. Why do you see a plain interpretation of DFSG §8 as
“breaking the trademark system”?

-- 
 \       “Some people have a problem, and they think “I know, I'll use |
  `\     Perl!”. Now they have some number of problems but they're not |
_o__)     sure whether it's a string or an integer.” —Benno Rice, 2011 |
Ben Finney