[FAmSCo] Ideas needed - Issue with Fedora branded items - no where to get them even for money?

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Montag, den 11.02.2013, 19:21 +0100 schrieb Buddhike Kurera:
>
> The Problem : Fedora fans would like to get Fedora branded stuff
> (expensive stuff) for an example polo t-shirts, jackets, bags and so
> on.
> 
> Benefit : Enabling such will help us to spread the Fedora brand and
> make our fans happy.
> 
> Option 1 : Produce such branded items and give them free.

At the moment, this is the only option we have. However giving away
expensive stuff for free will hurt our budget. Unless we suddenly get
way more money then in the past, we can only purchase small quantities.
This will not really help spreading Fedora as a brand. We would probably
prefer our contributors, so we still don't have an offer for our fans.

> Option 2  : Produce them and sell them in Fedora events or fedora
> booths in other OSS events.

We cannot sell anything. Who is supposed to get the earnings? We cannot
just let $random_ambassador keep it and we have no way to give back
money to the community. There is no cost center and so on. Selling swag
on events ultimately requires a legal entity. The only legal entity we
have is Red Hat and for it's just too much hassle.

> Option 3 : Negotiate with some vendors and let them produce and sell
> these products .
> Example :
> http://www.debian.org/misc/merchandise

If we grant somebody trademark usage permission, we probably want to get
something in return. Usually the vendor would pay us a percentage from
his earnings. But again, we cannot raise money.

> Option 4 : Fedora project/ RedHat produces these stuff and sell them.

While we might be able to do this, this would not help is with events.
And I doubt it will help Fedora because it would have to be sold under
the umbrella of Red Hat.

> Example :
> http://shop.opensuse.org/
> https://shop.canonical.com/

These shops are run by the company (Canonical) or legal entity (openSUSE
foundation) that runs the project, but for us things are different. Our
legal entity is Red Hat, so the counterpart would be shop.redhat.com
rather than shop.fedoraproject. Red Hat once had the "Cool Stuff Store",
but even that one has ceased. Red Hat obviously has no interest selling
swag.

> At the same time there are some vendors they do sell these items with
> no permission, which implies Fedora is a brand which is making profit.
> (I am not going to worry about legal concerns here, it is the Board
> work)
> 
> http://www.zazzle.co.uk/eat_sleep_fedora_tees-235773473262448559

Somebody form the board should probably notify content_review at zazzle.com
of that trademark violation.

> What should be the FAmSCos’ reaction on this so that our fellow FAm
> can answer for questions like “Hey, I would like to get a Fedora polo,
> is there a place to buy them?” , should we come up with an answer/plan
> or give them the above vendors website URL?

We as FAmSCo's should make clear that we'd love selling swag but we
cannot because Fedora is no community of it's own but depends on Red Hat
as legal entity and trademark owner. Unless things at Red Hat change, I
see no way to make swag or a shop happen. I know, it's frustrating, but
that's how it is. 

Best regards,
Christoph