proposal to make free the logo of Fedora

inode0 inode0 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 17 15:23:01 UTC 2010


On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Jon Masters <jonathan at jonmasters.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-09-15 at 17:21 +0200, René Mérou wrote:
>
>> I understood something now that i did not knew before: The trademark is not in
>> the hands and decision of the community.  Its in the hands of the enterprise.
>> I'm not telling that's a bad thing or a good thing.  Its just i did not
>> understood that before. In this situation i would propose the same of you, to
>> create a new logo 100% free for the use of the community.
>
> Let's make something clear, though. Even if the community makes a "free"
> logo, it isn't going to be able to allow just any use of it, if it wants
> that logo to have legal protection.

But it doesn't want it to have that legal protection. The folks who
want it see value in a free logo that outweighs the possible negative
consequences. If we can adequately function without control of what
people naturally assume would be our domain name and if we can
function with another software related organization also using the
name Fedora I personally don't see great danger from a free logo.
There is a reasonable case to be made on both sides of this.

Just as an aside, does the Fedora Project need a sign-off on creating
such a free mark from Red Hat legal? Or are we just asking for such a
sign-off to be cooperative with the good work Red Hat legal provides
our community and because we value their position on the relative
weight to give to the benefits of such a logo vs. the dangers legally
and with respect to brand dilution?

John


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