Trademark Guidance. Russian Fedora initiative.

Tue Jun 30 04:23:06 UTC 2009

Dear All,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Alexey Vasyukov, I work for VDEL (Red 
Hat Master Distributor for Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe). And it 
happened so, that I was a part of the "Russian Fedora" initiative team 
from the very beginning, since it was first time presented by Red Hat on 
Russian Open Source Summit in October, 2008.

Since the initiative was announced when Fedora Trademark Guidance had not 
been set finally, there is a number of issues that were solved that moment 
on "Ok by Red Hat" basis. Now the Trademark Guidance is complete and we 
would really like to discuss all the necessary approvals and license 
agreements.

So, let me describe the questions to solve:

1. The name of the initiative itself ("Russian Fedora").

The initiative was presented by Red Hat to the Russian Ministry of 
Telecommunication under this name. The main goal of that discussion was to 
tell the Ministry why it is a bad idea to create own "Russian Linux" and 
why global collaboration is much more effective for solving their 
strategic tasks. (Official press-release from the Ministry - 
http://minkomsvjaz.ru/news/xPages/entry.7938.html , details in English, 
for example, -
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/02/fedora-as-basis-of-russias-operating.html 
).

The initiative is, of course, an informal entity. It has no own legal 
status. It is a community project sponsored by VDEL, VNIINS, AjTi and some 
other companies. We internally consider it as some kind of "Russian club 
of Fedora supporters". This "club" acts, first, as an "umbrella" for local 
Russian Linux User Groups and, second, as a "bridge" between the Community 
and the Ministry.

As far as we understand the current Trademark Guidance, we need some kind 
of license agreement for using name "Fedora" as part of the name of local 
initiative. Is it true? What is required from our side as next step?

If necessary, we can include in the license agreement any reasonable 
explicit restrictions like "the name Russian Fedora can be used only to 
identify the community initiative and related community projects that are 
not recognized legal entities" or whatever you consider necessary. We are 
completely flexible here. We really need the name only for community 
non-profit initiatives sponsored by a number of different organizations to 
show both the Community and the Ministry that these initiatives are 
related to Fedora.

2. The name of the website (russianfedora.ru)

We know current policy regarding community domains. And, we guess, our 
case falls into the category 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Local_community_domains#Self-purchased_domain

Just to make it clear - we have nothing against using 
"ru.fedoracommunity.org" domain but we really can not switch to it just 
now. The problem is the initiative was already presented by Red Hat to 
Russian Ministry of Telecommunications as "Russian Fedora" (see above). 
So, we can not just drop current website domain name - it has pretty 
strong visibility.

We would offer to use "ru.fedoracommunity.org" now as synonym for 
"russianfedora.ru" and we will try to promote "ru.fedoracommunity.org" as 
the main domain name in the future.

As we understand, in this case we need a license agreement for the domain 
name "russianfedora.ru". What is required from our side as next step?

3. The logo for the initiative.

For the moment local initiative has no approved logo and it is really bad 
- people can be confused where is world-wide Fedora and where is local 
"Russian Fedora" initiative.

So, we used experience from http://www.projetofedora.org/ as an 
inspiration and created two proposed logos. Drafts are in attachment. If 
possible, we would like to use the first one as the logo of local "Russian 
Fedora" initiative because it was used on the meeting of Red Hat with 
Russian Ministry of Telecommunication. Is it acceptable? Do we need 
specific license agreement for the logo?

4. Non-software goods.

For the promotion of the local initiative and global Fedora we would like 
to produce different non-software goods (pens, t-shirts, pins, stickers, 
etc.)

We do not have a detailed plan just now. The goods are intended to be 
produced on demand. Estimated number of good of all kinds - about 200 
items per year. Of course, we are ready to submit design for your approval 
before producing if necessary.

The main question from our side now - which logo is it better to use for 
the goods we produce locally? We can use global Fedora logo, it will make 
the goods somehow "associated" with world-wide Fedora Project. Or we can 
use local logo, it will make the goods somehow "associated" with local 
Russian Fedora initiative. Do you have any policy or recommendation? And 
what is the procedure to get license for this usage of Trademark?

One "special case" - we would like to produce DVDs for free shipping to 
regions with bad Internet access. DVDs will contain local-specific Remixes 
(for example, Fedora Remix adapted for Russian schools). Do we need 
specific license for it?

Thank you in advance for your help!

If you need any additional information - let me know.

Best regards,
Alexey Vasyukov

---

Alexey Vasyukov
Consultant

VDEL Ltd.
Dmitriya Ulyanova str. 16/2, office 535-536
Moscow 117292
Russia

Tel.: +7 495 956 68 95
Fax.: +7 495 956 28 78
Mobile: +7 926 550 89 60
alexey.vasyukov at vdel.com
www.vdel.ru
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