[Fedora-legal-list] Verifying Fedora from unofficial remixes that have removed the Fedora trademarks

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 10/30/2010 10:47 AM, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> Via updates was what I was thinking either a check or setting up
> Fedora/Generic/<insert registered remix> Channel something similar to
> Red Hat channel basically.
> 
> Preferable a solution the user would not have to opt in about... ( Those
> only give the half of the picture at best )

The difficulty in forced tracking is that we have to be very very very
careful about what information we gather in such situations. With opt-in
scenarios, it is notably easier.

> The end goal here simply for us being able to measure and gather
> statistic for various purposes on Fedora vs Unofficial remixes.

Okay, I can perhaps see some intellectual value in this, but I would
point out that I do not think it is a notable weakness if we are unable
to have exact statistics on usage and generation of remixes. Smolt
should give us a rough count on those that are in the wild (and using
Smolt), which is probably sufficient for these "various purposes".

> As things stand now we cant even say how many remixes are out there nor
> how much of Fedora's overall stats and success belongs to them thus for
> example no way for us to do some research in what they are doing right
> and we are doing wrong or how much these remixes contribute back to
> Fedora and so on and so fourth simply because we have no way of telling
> that.

Well, the requirement that Remixes use either the Secondary Mark
("Fedora Remix") or none of the Fedora trademarks means that we can
generally avoid the problem of confusing remixes with the "real" Fedora
in tracking efforts such as Smolt.

If the initiative is truly to determine what the remixes do right/wrong,
raw statistics will not help in that effort, only involvement and
interaction with the communities making those remixes will.

We can encourage Fedora Remixes to list themselves on a wiki page, but I
do not think we need to require this. I do not think it is in the
interest of anyone to make it any more difficult for someone to make a
derivative work or remix of Fedora.

~spot