Re: Debian logos and trademarks
Am 07.02.2007 04:37 schrieb Anthony Towns:
>
> As such at the end of this week, I'm planning on asking the SPI board to
> relicense the Debian logos as follows:
>
> * both logos shall be released under the MIT copyright license:
>
[...]
>
> * the "open use" logo will not be enforced as a trademark; anyone may
> use it or create similar logos in whatever way they like, though
> we will continue using it to refer to and promote Debian.
>
> * the "official use" logo will be enforced as an unregistered
> trademark; and we will only authorise use of the logo or similar
> logos where the product or service being referred to is officially
> related to Debian (such as an official CD image, a t-shirt promoting
> debian.org, a Debian developer's business card)
>
> I think that's a good way of ensuring both our logos meet the DFSG,
> and also provides both a good experiment in a completely free trademark
> license that fairly accurately reflects our current treatment of the
> open use logo as well as a reasonable example for groups who want to
> have some protection for their brand but still be a good citizen of the
> free software community.
>
> Anyway, if anyone has some fairly convincing reasons why the above
> is a bad idea, please do speak up now. If you think it's a good idea,
> and want to refute the "no feedback" issue mentioned above, feel free
> to comment too. :)
I have a question. If I understand you correctly you want to put the
"official use" logo under the MIT license AND enforce it as an
unregistered trademark so that someone can only use it if "we" (who?)
authorize it. This sounds contradicting to me and how does this meet the
DFSG?
BTW I am not a lawyer, so what does "to enforce an unregistered
trademark" actually mean?
A second more general question: why do we need a (semi) non-free logo
after all? Looks to me like we're currently not allowed to use the
"official use" logo in our own distribution, so *why* do we have it?
Does somebody actually use it for something?
Cheers,
Bastian
--
Bastian Venthur http://venthur.de
Debian Developer venthur at debian org
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