[Qgis-psc] Trademark issues

[Anita Graser]

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 7:13 PM, Gary Sherman <gsherman at geoapt.com> wrote:
> I seriously doubt that people obtain a license when writing a book about an
> open source software program.
> As far as I'm concerned, the use of the name in that context falls under
> fair use, as it could in other cases as well.

+1 I'm with Gary on this one. As far as I know, it's not common
practice that authors of texts (study materials, books, etc.) have to
get licenses to do so.

> Il 11/10/2014 13:25, Nathan Woodrow ha scritto:
>> I think changing the name there makes sense.  Permission to use sounds a lot less
>> scary then sublicence, and also a lot less complicated.

+1 for calling it "permission to use" where it does not have to be a
sublicence (see QGIS-something products where this might be relevant -
but I'm not a lawyer).

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:03 AM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it> wrote:
> * general use of QGIS in initiative that could be in line (or not) with our
> objectives: in this case, a simple check and authorization (conditional on the
> respect of some guidelines, see the Debian page) should be enough; in some case, this
> could involve a fee

In my opinion, the guidelines should clearly state our policy for the
most common cases. I would assume that you already have collected a
lot of cases from the emails you received over the last few days.
Cases, where the guidelines should be explicit (either "yes, you need
to apply" or "no, that's fair use") would be for example:
- preparation of study materials for university (with QGIS in the name)
- writing a book with QGIS in the title
- promoting courses (online/offline) with QGIS in the name
- writing a blog / collection of tutorials (text or video) about QGIS
...

For these cases I've mentioned so far, I wouldn't see a point in
charging a fee. Rather, I see them as promotion for the project since
the introduce more people to QGIS and/or promote it as a professional
production-ready tool.

> * QGIS-something products: this would probably warrant a sublicence, and the costs of
> it should be covered by the organization requiring it (with a possible overhead for
> QGIS itself).

In this case, I would feel much more comfortable to hear from somebody
who knows the laws and has some experience. I expect that sublicences
would be necessary in these cases. Since it will cost the project to
pay for legal support, I think it makes sense to cover our costs with
a sublicence fee.

> I beg everybody (and especially PSC) to express their opinion, so as to have a
> definite policy in act.

Imho, I would tend to be more generous with what we consider fair use
in order not to produce to much administrative overhead which does not
benefit anyone. See my above suggestions concerning use cases which
could be clearly stated in the trademark guidelines.

Best wishes,
Anita