<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/29/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael P. Gerlek</b> <<a href="mailto:mpg@lizardtech.com">mpg@lizardtech.com</a>> wrote:</span>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">I started looking around some more to see who is using trademarks in the open source world. FSF doesn't say anything anywhere about trademarks of it's distinctive hand-drawn Gnu symbol or the FSF name. Creative Commons does not use a (tm) on their logo -- but they do have a page carefully describing use of their trademarks. OSI uses a (tm) on their logo; Apache does not; the Python Foundation does... Aargh!
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">If anything, I feel comforted knowing that its not just me: the rest of the world is seriously confused by this issue too.</font></div>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">Looking forward to having the Board tell me how to think,</font></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br>In situations like this, I feel that it would be best to<br>rely on "The Wisdom of Crowds" (ISBN 0-349-11707-1).
<br><br>Regards<br><br>Venka<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">
-mpg(tm)</font></div>
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<font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> Michael P. Gerlek<br><b>Sent:</b> Thu 9/28/2006 10:36 AM<span class="q"><br><b>To:</b> '<a href="mailto:dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org</a>'<br></span><b>Subject:</b> RE: [VisCom] Logo/branding effort<br></font><br></div><div><span class="e" id="q_10df8e52dd6fdfad_3">
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<p><font size="2">Arnulf-<br><br>Sorry you weren't there this morning, as this is clearly something that we need to come to consensus on at the Foundation level -- as opposed to just talking within VisCom, or just taking a majority vote.
<br><br>Have fun at tomorrow's board meeting :-)<br><br>-mpg<br><br><br>> -----Original Message-----<br>> From: Arnulf Christl [<a href="mailto:arnulf.christl@ccgis.de" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mailto:arnulf.christl@ccgis.de</a>]<br>> Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 AM<br>> To: <a href="mailto:dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org</a><br>> Subject: Re: [VisCom] Logo/branding effort<br>><br>> Michael P. Gerlek wrote:<br>> > I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:<br>> > <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposal" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposal</a><br>> ><br>> > If we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it<br>> passes we can<br>> > give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.
<br>> ><br>> > -mpg<br>><br>> Hi,<br>> go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos<br>> that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also<br>> requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with
<br>> comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to<br>> be the price tag.<br>><br>> Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post.<br>><br>> There are still some other things that I would like to
<br>> discuss regarding Logo use<br>> (<a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use%29-" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)-</a> which has by now
<br>> mutated into Trademark Guidelines<br>> (<a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines
</a>) which<br>> sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.<br>><br>> There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage<br>> of OSGeo with (tm) or (r). I have asked several times why<br>> this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on
<br>> why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved.<br>><br>> Ubuntu policy (<a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy</a>)<br>> is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the<br>> (tm) or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to<br>> remove the tm/r bit from:<br>
> <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines</a>.<br>> Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people's thoughts,
<br>> blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is<br>> just a Wiki...))<br>><br>> This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights<br>> "use and registration":<br>> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_</a><br>> rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registration<br>><br>> From Wikipedia:<br>> ''<br>> The law considers a trademark to be a form of property.<br>
> Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be<br>> established through actual use in the marketplace, or through<br>> registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or<br>> "trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction. In many
<br>> jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through<br>> either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not<br>> recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China).<br>> If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks
<br>> in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able<br>> to enforce their rights through trademark infringement<br>> proceedings will therefore be limited.<br>> ''<br>><br>> Having the words "property" and "Proprietary rights"
<br>> mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms<br>> we are moving. I don't believe that it will be necessary for<br>> OSGeo "to enforce their rights through trademark infringement<br>> proceedings". I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get
<br>> anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged<br>> stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any<br>> difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we<br>> need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender's
<br>> reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does<br>> because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for<br>> profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of<br>> a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace
<br>> against another competitor with comparable products and<br>> services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will *not* work<br>> (compete) against other existing initiatives but try to<br>> connect and collaborate. From this perspective
<br>> the idea of somebody "stealing" the logo to make profit on<br>> the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true<br>> for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not<br>> compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and
<br>> predominance of the world.<br>><br>> This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in<br>> which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to<br>> be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple)
<br>> guideline that people understand without having to ask a<br>> lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast<br>> that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This<br>> simply does not make sense.
<br>><br>> == Services Related to OSGeo Software ==<br>> This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service<br>> providers and closely related to the bold company listing<br>> that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the
<br>> Drupal portal.<br>><br>> I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and<br>> powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once<br>> people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of 'certified'
<br>> (insert other wording) services it will be a 'fast-selling<br>> item'. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see?<br>> The OGC logo :-( ...but not OSGeo because we cannot do it as<br>> there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more
<br>> guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in<br>> designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests.<br>><br>> == Logos and Merchandise ==<br>> I don't think that merchandise actually is "that's how we
<br>> make some of the money that keeps us around." We are very<br>> different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make<br>> some income but we don't and likely never will. Our user base<br>> is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the
<br>> unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but<br>> there are other remote places where people might want to use<br>> OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to<br>> ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress
<br>> shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil,<br>> colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in<br>> the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))<br>><br>> Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark
<br>> Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking,<br>> etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable<br>> version that can be approved by the board and moved to the<br>> Drupal Portal.
<br>><br>> Best regards,<br>> Arnulf.<br>><br>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------<br>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <a href="mailto:dev-unsubscribe@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
dev-unsubscribe@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org</a><br>> For additional commands, e-mail:<br>> <a href="mailto:dev-help@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
dev-help@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org</a><br>><br>> </font></p></div></span></div></div>
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