Bug#122929: wpoison, is it okay?

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> writes:

> This license fails DFSG 3 and I would recommend to the author that he
> use the right tool for the job.  If he wants trademark protection in the
> Wpoison logo, he should apply for it.  Of course, any party that
> attempts to use laws other than copyright law to stop people from
> exercising their freedoms under the DFSG risks having their software
> dropped from Debian or moved to an archive server where such harassment
> is less feasible (for instance, U.S. crypto export regulations).

I agree with Branden's analysis of the license provisions you posted,
but I think he a little overstates the issues with trademarks.  In
general, trademarking a name of a piece of software (and restricting
the use of the name) has not been viewed to have anything to do with
whether the software is free.  (The canonical example here is TeX
which has such a restriction.)