Re: Debian logos and trademarks
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
> The DFSG refers to copyright licensing, it doesn't cover patents or
> trademarks.
I think the above is mistaken and I'd find it shocking if any DD who
passed NM made it. It is easily shown not to be the case by checking
http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines for copy or copyright
or similar terms.
We should not care if somewhere calls the restrictive law Betty and it
only applies to authors called Frank. If it limits certain freedoms
and we don't have a licence that follows the guidelines, that's a bug.
> The difference between trademarks and copyright, is that
> copyright covers all copies and derivatives, while trademarks cover
> anything that's confusingly similar. So if you independently create a
> logo that looks confusingly similar, you need a trademark license but
> not a copyright license; while if you create a derived works that's not
> similar at all, you need a copyright license, but not a trademark license.
[...]
I agree that trademarks and copyright have differences and so we can
look for different ways to meet the guidelines, but we should still
apply the guidelines. There's also DFSG 4, which can be argued to
allow many trademark-related restrictions, as long as we can get free
from them simply.
Hope that explains,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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